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December 01, 2004
Schlappach
My last name is Slaybaugh.
Some in my family have wondered what it means in its (presumably) Germanic origin.
Does it mean 'Limp' or 'Sleeping River'?
Here are my findings.
This site
http://www.rootsweb.com/~pasomers/amsurs.htm
says that one common Amish name is Slabaugh (Schlappach)
I've seen other similar names, such as Schlabaugh and Schlabach
This English-German dictionary
http://www.iee.et.tu-dresden.de/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/wernerr/search.sh?string=Schlap&nocase=on&hits=50
defines 'Schlapp' as:
- 'flabby'
- 'flaccid'
- 'flagging'
- 'floppy'
- 'limp'
- 'muscleless'
- 'slack'
- 'spiritless'
- 'weak-kneed'
- 'yellow'
'ach' on its own means 'Oh!' and seems to be an odd suffix, but, according to
http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
'schlappmachen' means 'to break down'
'schlappmachend' means 'breaking down'
'schlappgemacht' means 'broken down'
Ah, pride
Although, the original name could have been Schlabach, in which case, the etymology could have been 'Schla' + 'bach'.
'Bach' means brook or stream
'Schla' could be any of:
- 'artful' or 'astute' (Schlau)
- 'asleep' (Schlaf)
- 'bash' or 'blow' (Schlag)
- 'battle' (Schlacht)
'Artful Stream' or 'Battle Brook' are much better than 'Flaccid, oh!'
edit:
d51slay@aol.com wrote to say:
"the name slaybaugh was previously spelled schlebach. my ancestors are from adams county pa. the older grave markers have it spelled the old way and the newer ones have it spelled the english way."
So, assuming bach means 'river' (or small river) all we have to do is translate 'schle'. There is no word in German spelled that way, but looking at close matches we see that 'schlecht' means 'bad' or 'amiss' or 'bum' and 'schlendern' means 'amble'.
My money is now on either 'winding river' (ambling river) or 'bad river' or 'hobo river' (bum river).
'Bad River' sounds kind of cool, so I'll go with that.
Posted by mslaybau at 03:24 AM | Comments (1)