Charakteristische Züge des männli-chen Vornamenschatzes der deutschen Protestanten anhand der Taufregister der Braunschweiger evangelisch-lutherischen

The Reformation and the Counter-reformation had left some restrictions for the giving of names after for the Catholics and Protestants. In this paper we have examined the proper names of protestant boys, which had been baptized in St. Catherine Church in Brunswick (Northern Germany) in the period 1808–1908 to find out, how the names had changed in a hundred years time. The quantity of names and their frequency have been examined. The names have been classified and classed to several groups according to their origin, like Germanic names, biblical names or the names of the saints etc. The names in the birth registers of the St. Catherine Church have some typical features which are characteristic for German Protestants, although the amount of biblical names is not as big as expected in contrary to the names of the saints, which still appear in the birth register in each year.