I am curious as to where my last name originated.  It is "Sons".  I
know my mother's mother's maiden name was Leibler and my father's
mother's maiden name was Pompelli.  Not sure if that would help or
not....

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 18 May 2006 07:02 PDT

Neil,

I checked the Ellis Island database of immigrant records, and the
'Sons' arriving in the US all came from Germany/Austria, France or
Italy.

So, one way or another, it looks as if the name is associated with the
heart of Western Europe.  Beyond that, it's hard to say, though the
maiden names you mention certainly have a bit of a German and Italian
ring to them, respectively.

Does that help?

pafalafa-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 18 May 2006 09:11 PDT

I believe that "Sons" is a variant of the German family name "Sohns"
(in German, both versions are pronounced the same). I will do research
on this in the library tomorrow.

Scriptor

Dear neil0220,

This is the result of my research:

The family name "Sons" is indeed German. It has developed idependently
from two different roots.

First, it is a name referring to a location. "Sons" (also spelled
Söhns, Zo(o)ns and Zun(t)z) means "he who comes from Zons". Zons is a
German town in the Rhineland, in Neuss County.

Second, it is a family name derived from a kinship term, "Sohn"
(German for son). There are numerous German family names derived from
"Sohn", and among those is "Sons" (also spelled Sohns), based on the
genitive form of the word.

I hope that this answers your question!
Regards,
Scriptor



Sources:

Heintze / Cascobri: Die deutschen Familiennamen (p. 449 and 450).
Published by Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1967

Max Gottschald: Deutsche Namenskunde (p. 544). Published by Walter de
Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1971