What’s in a Name?
When communities consisted of just a few hundred people, surnames weren’t
important. As each town acquired more Johns and Marys, the need was established
for a way to identify each from the other. The Romans had begun the practice
of using "given-name + clan-name + family-name" about 300 B.C. However, by
the fourth century AD surnames were gone, not to be revived for another six
hundred years. Some surnames refer to occupations (Carpenter, Taylor, Brewer,
Mason), to places of residence (Hill, Brook, Forrest, Dale), to animals (Wolfe,
Fish, Byrd, Katt), to title (King, Abbott, Steward, Prince), to colors (Brown,
Black, White, Gray), or to physical features (Long, Stout, Short, Beardsly).
Still others were used to tell a story (Lackland, Freeholder, Goodpasture,
Upthegrove) or elicit envy or sympathy (Rich, Poor, Wise, Armstrong). Patronymic
names are those that identify the father and various cultures did so by different
means. The Scandinavians added "son" to identify John’s son or Erik’s
son. Many other cultures had their own prefixes to indicate "of the father".
For example the Scots (‘Mac’Donald), the Irish (O’Brien),
the Dutch (‘Van’Buren), the French (‘de’Gaulle), and
the Germans (‘Von’berger). When surnames were being adopted, many
were the result of nicknames that were given by friends, relatives, or others.
Some nicknames were extremely unflattering. Changes in the spelling of surnames
are common, especially at the time of emigration. The name Hollenbeck is
reported to mean swamp brook.
Most Dutch families followed certain customs of child naming. The two eldest
sons were named for the grandfathers. Sometimes the first son was named for
the mother’s first husband if she were a widow. The two eldest daughters
were named for the grandmothers. If a child died, almost always the next
child of the same sex was given the same name. The Dutch often used different
kinds of suffixes attached to names. A diminutive ending such as -je and
-tje was often attached to a female name as an expression of endearment (Annetje,
Nelletje, etc.). Also, -je, -tje, -ie, and -ke were used as additions to
a child’s name. A boy with the name of "Jan" will in his childhood very
often be named "Jantje". Many of these Dutch naming conventions can be noted
in the early Hallenbeck line. See
THE OLIVE TREE
GENEALOGY: Dutch Names .
Like many surnames from the past spelling can change from time to time. For
this surname I am aware of the following spellings: Hallenbeck, Hollenbeck,
Haulenbeck, Hollenbach, and Hollandbeck. The Hallenbeck families were among
the very early settlers of Beverwyck (later Albany), New York. One report
states the following:
"As late as 1685 the Hollenbeck family was still using no surname....
many of the early Dutch settlers did not, and others used two or more. When
surnames became generally used in the colony, some of the families adopted
patronymic names and others took their names from the original home place
or estate of the family, and this was the case with the Hollenbacks, who
took the name from Hollenbek in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It vas spelled
in a variety of ways in old New York records ... Halenbeek, Halenbeck,
Hallenbeck, to name a few; and I have not found it spelled with an "o" until
the 1800’s. For the sake of uniformity, I have used the Hallenbeck spelling
until the 6th generation, when it began to appear in census records as
Hollenbeck." From reference 1,
Hollenbeck Books
and References.
Geographical Name Distribution
Try different versions of the name at this site:
U.S. Surname Distribution
Thanks to Dr. Violette-France Hollenbeck for providing the following from the John Golman Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv:
Hollender ( Hollander, Hollanderski, Hollenbeck)
Many Jewish family names are derived from countries of origin of residence. Hollender is a spelling variant of Hollaender. A majority, (65%) of Jewish family names are derived from actual places names throughout the Diaspora and in Israel. The reason for this are numerous; Jews assumed names in order to record their place of birth and origin; in memory of a certain town through which they passed on their migration which had some meaning for the family, or to honor a town of which they had heard (particularly from Eretz Israel) sometimes place names became widespread through copying of a name that had been made famous by a certain family, or which had been adopted by a Hassidic dynasty. However many Jewish names which were originally called after a place name have become so distorted and changed that, unless the family kept records, the roots of the name can no longer be traced.
Hollaender in which the German ending ER means "of/from" and can stand for "son of" is based on Holland the name of a Dutch province and the synonym for the Netherlands. Jews are believed to have lived there since the Roman occupation. Documentary evidence of the presence of Jews in the Netherlands dates from the 12th century.
As Jewish family names, Holland and it's variants can also come from villages set up by Dutch dairy farmers in Lituania and Poland in the 16th century.
In the 20th century, hollender is recorded as a Jewish family name during
the second world war in a list of Jews who were deported from country Hajdu,
Hungary to German death camps.