German Surnames Trivia Quiz

Answer: grinding wheat into flour

Müller translates into English as "miller". Furthermore, in my experience, Americans of German descent whose name is Mueller sometimes have their last name pronounced "Miller".

Answer: blacksmith

Three other forms of the name Schmidt are also ranked high in the About.com list. Schmitt is ranked 24th, Schmid is ranked 26th, and Schmitz is ranked 28th, making this name perhaps the overall most common.

Answer: tailor

The Grimm brothers' tale of "The Brave Little Tailor" is originally titled "Das tapfere Schneiderlein", where "Schneiderlein" is a combination of the word "Schneider" for tailor, plus the suffix "lein", meaning little or young. For example, the word "Fräulein" (girl) is a combination of "Frau", meaning woman, and the diminutive "lein".

Answer: weaver

Two of my favorite German Webers include the philosopher Max Weber, one of the founders of sociology, and Constanze Weber, wife of W.A. Mozart. In addition, "Die Weber" ("The Weavers") is a play by Gerhart Hauptmann. It is an interesting drama in that there is no main character. Rather, the weavers who make up the characters function more importantly as a group representing the working class struggling for their rights.

Answer: shepherd

In America we call the Schäferhund a German shepherd. Staying with the "Schaf" connection, the card game we call in America "Sheepshead" came from the German game "Schafkopf", "Schaf" meaning sheep and "Kopf" meaning head. An argument for the name of the game is because scoring marks on a chalkboard resembled a sheep's head.

Answer: judge

A quick informal googling for "Judge Richter" in June of 2013 found news items on the internet for judges named Richter, including those residing in Iowa, Missouri, the District of Columbia, New York, Indiana, and at least three in Texas. There have been no US Supreme Court justices named Richter, however.

Answer: farmer

The term "bauer" is also used for the jacks in such card games as 500. Modern German playing cards have a "B" on the Jacks, which stands for "Bub" or "Bube", which means boy. Card games such as 500, which use the jacks as high cards in the deck, are derived from German card games such as Skat and Schafkopf, in which the jacks are the highest cards, with the Jack of Clubs being the highest.

Answer: teamster

"Wagner" can be translated as either a driver of wagons (wagoner) or a maker and/or repairer of wagons (wainwright or cartwright).

Answer: pastry chef

In German a Bäckerei is a bakery. Perhaps a pastry chef is not technically a baker, but it is definitely the closest of the four choices.

Answer: carpenter

Other German words for carpenter include Tischler, Schreiner, and Bautischler. "Tisch" is the German for table, and "Schrein" is a receptacle for holy relics, two items traditionally made of wood and being of great importance, since earthly food is taken at a table and spiritual nourishment, one might say, would be housed in a shrine. "Zimmer" is a room, so a Zimmermann would be someone who builds houses, which are also vital to survival.