If Your Surname Is On This List, WINNING Is in Your DNA

Some German surnames don't just describe your ancestors, they record a victory: a battle fought, a line held, a war won, then frozen into a family name that crossed the ocean to America. This countdown decodes 15 German last names that secretly mean your family won a battle, from the wreath and the palm of the ancient victor to the one small word, Sieg, hiding inside more surnames than you would ever guess. Number 15: Kra... Number 14: Pal... Number 13: Erh... Number 12: Kra... Number 11: Rin... Number 10: Blü... Number 9: Ger... Number 8: Her... Number 7: Fen... Number 6: Hel... Number 5: Har... Number 4: Lan... Number 3: Wer... Number 2: Sie... Number 1: ??? Where in the world are you listening from, and which surname should we decode next? It doesn't have to be your own, and it doesn't have to be German. We read every single name. You were named by history. #GermanSurnames #Ancestry #Genealogy Sources for the name work in this episode: Hans Bahlow, Deutsches Namenlexikon; Duden, Familiennamen: Herkunft und Bedeutung; and the Digitales Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands (DFD) for the Germanic name elements sig- (victory), wig- (battle), heri- (army), ger- (spear), warin- (guard), heil- (whole/blessed) and hard- (hard/strong). For Number 10: standard accounts of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and the Waterloo campaign, June 1815.