Family surnames were first used about 800 years
ago in Europe and from 1200 to 1600 there was little or no
registration and archival of information on the names and lives of commoners. So it is a
challenge to determine the origin of our Family Name. The Novinger
spelling of our Family name, is documented in the United States from the early
1700’s. The Nabinger spelling is recorded from 1600 in Frankenstein and what is
now Rheinland-Pflaz, Germany, also known as Rhineland-Palatinate. But so far, we
have not been able to find a record for our name prior to 1600 or determine
with certainty where our family originated prior to their arrival in Frankenstein.
Hermann Nabinger
&
Glen Novinger
in
Frankenstein
But thanks to some additional research from our cousin,
Hermann Nabinger, who was born in Frankenstein and now lives in Ludwigshafen,
Rheinland-Pflaz, I am happy to pass on to you the following comments which come
from his research.
Family names in Germany developed during medieval times. At
first people had only a first name. In a small village where people knew each
other it wasn't much of a problem. But later, when the cities began to grow and
people needed to distinguish between several people with the same first name in a village, they added individual identifiers for each person.
So when one of the "Peters" was a smith, he would be named after his profession: "Peter Smith". Or, if a person came from a town with an ending such as in "Altoetting", his name might end with the suffix "ing" as in the town, or "inger" to indicate the person's hometown. Many places in south Germany, Switzerland, and Austria have the suffix "-ing".
So when one of the "Peters" was a smith, he would be named after his profession: "Peter Smith". Or, if a person came from a town with an ending such as in "Altoetting", his name might end with the suffix "ing" as in the town, or "inger" to indicate the person's hometown. Many places in south Germany, Switzerland, and Austria have the suffix "-ing".
Hermann consulted two family name researchers, Brechenmacher
and Max Gottschald, who are of the opinion that the Nabinger and Nevinger Family
name appears to originate as the name of a craftsman. This craftsman specialized in crafting the
“hub”, or in German “nabe or plural: naben”, by drilling the axle hole in the
hub of a wooden wheel for carts.
But a Swiss name history scholar, contacted by Hermann, is
of the opinion that our Family name is from Nebikon, a municipality in the
constituency of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. It was the
Swiss scholar’s opinion that our name is a “place of origin” name. A resident of
Nebikon is known as a “Nebiker” and the suspected evolution and modification of
our name might of progressed orally through: Nebiker, Nebiger, Neviger, and
Nevinger. There are still families in the areas of Basel and Prattein,
Switzerland, with the Nebiker name.
Around 1600 Swiss Nebiker families emigrated from
Switzerland to the Strasbourg area of Alsace and then moved further north to
the area of Heiligenstein, a commune in the Bas-Rhin department of Alsace in northeastern
France where Nebinger families are today active as wine growers. Another part
of the family moved to Lorraine, near the German border where they founded the
village of Nebing that was German until 1915. Nebing remains a active community
today in the Moselle department of Lorraine. It is interesting to point out
that Nebing is located only 55 kilometers from Saarbrucken. In 2015 most of the Nabingers in Germany live
within 50 kilometers of Saarbrucken.
After the Nebiker’s moved to the Alsace and Lorraine area we
see the name appear with various modified spellings such as: Nebinger,
Nabinger, Ewing, and Nawinger. The
Nawinger spelling and pronunciation, is possibly the basis of the “Novinger” spelling
and pronunciation of that part of the Family in the United States, where in the
1700’s we also saw spellings such as Nauvinger, Nabinger, and Navinger.
At the present time this is the most complete information
and understanding we have on the Origin of our Clan. Hopefully, we will discovery more verifiable
data on our origins. But at this point it would appear that the Nevingers,
Nabingers, and the Novingers are directly descended from common roots in
what is now northern Switzerland.
Strangely enough, 60 years ago my Grandparents generation told me that
we came from the area of Lake Constance in northern Switzerland. And on my first visit to
Frankenstein, Germany, in 2010 I asked one of my cousins, Liesel Nabinger,
where our Family came from and she said “My grandfather told me our Family came
from northern Switzerland.”.
Liesel Nabinger
&
Glen Novinger
in
Frankenstein
Perhaps our oral history has prevailed where no written history existed!
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