Surname Mehrtens - Meaning and Origin
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Mehrtens: What does the surname Mehrtens mean?
The last name Mehrtens is of German origin and is a variation of the older last name Meier, which comes from a combination of two terms: mey, which means "meadow," and heri, which means "soldier" or "armyman." In ancient Germany, there were many landholders known as “Meiers,” who were intermediates between the tenant farmers and the local officials or landlords. The name was then changed to Mehrtens due to the grammar of the German language, which adds suffixes such as “-er” and “-en” to reinforce the meaning and cases of words.
Mehrtens can also be used as a place name. A few towns and villages in Germany use the name, although the origin of the last name is not closely associated with those geographical locations. It is more likely that the people who lived there adopted the name after descendants of those original Meiers moved to those areas.
Mehrtens is an uncommonly rare last name today, but it was used by more than 3,000 people in Germany in 2015. It is a strongly traditional name and likely one that has been owned by generations of the same family for centuries.
Order DNA origin analysisMehrtens: Where does the name Mehrtens come from?
The last name Mehrtens is most common today in Northern Germany, especially in the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. Mehrtens is also quite common in the nearby Dutch provinces of Groningen and Friesland as well as in parts of the United States such as New Jersey, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The earliest recorded spelling of the surname Mehrtens dates back to 1262 in the city of Einbeck, located in Lower Saxony, Germany. From the 14th to the 16th century, many members of this family lived in Einbeck and the surrounding area. The modern spelling of the surname dates back to at least 1620, when the Mehrtens family of Lower Saxony acquired their own coat of arms.
The majority of Mehrtens hail from Northern Germany, and the surname is still quite common in the region. According to Ancestry.com, the Mehrtens surname is found in Germany today in areas such as Hamburg, Berlin, Hannover, Bielefeld, Nürnberg, Dortmund, and Duisburg.
In addition to Germany, the surname is also common in the United States, mostly amongst German immigrants who settled in the northeastern states of America in the 19th century. In particular, there are a number of German Americans living in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Jersey, whose ancestors emigrated from Germany in the 1800s, bearing the Mehrtens surname.
Thus, the Mehrtens surname is still quite common today, with the greatest concentrations in Northern Germany and in areas of the United States with large numbers of German immigrants.
Variations of the surname Mehrtens
Mehrtens is a German surname, which can be spelled in multiple ways including Mehrten, Mehrtens, Meherten, and Mehrton. This surname has many regional variants, depending on the location of individual families. For instance, the Mehrtens surname is pronounced Mehrkens in the north German language, while in the south German language, it is pronounced Mehrtuns.
Variations of the Mehrtens surname which are also commonly used include Meyer and Mayer in Germany, and Meier, Meyern, Mayern, or Mertens in the Netherlands. Other variations include Merten, Meerten, and Märten.
An anglicised version of the Mehrtens surname is also known, and includes Merritt, Merritts, Mertz, and Mertens. All of these versions of the Mehrtens surname refer to the same origin and, depending on their history, some families may even have more than one variant.
As with many German surnames, the various spellings of Mehrtens can be traced back to the medieval practice of using the father's given name for the surname. This is why some spellings of Mehrtens may be found with the suffix “son” or “sen”. For example, the Mehrtens surname could be a variant of Mehrton-son, or Meier-sen.
No matter which spelling a family uses for the Mehrtens surname, all of them will share a common family origin.
Famous people with the name Mehrtens
- Jens Mehrtens, German molecular biologist
- Jimmy Mehrtens, former New Zealand rugby union player
- Kay Mehrtens, German handball player
- Major General Karl Paul Mehrtens, service commander of the United States Army Signal Corps
- Ken Mehrtens, former Labour MP in New Zealand
- Martin Mehrtens, retired German footballer
- Kim Mehrtens, former footballer and manager
- Teresa Mehrtens, tennis historian
- Thilo Mehrtens, German long-distance runner
- Claus R. Mehrtens, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Group