On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 09:47:11AM -0400, Garst R. Reese wrote: > With Poenitz and Chemnitz I assumed ...nitz was a common and honourable > suffix. > Can you explain the meaning?
I have no clue the name Poenitz comes from. Every interpretation I've seen so far sounded pretty unconvincing, the only thing I know for sure is that the name has been in use in the area and unchanged since the 18th century. I could ask my dad if you want, he's interested in such things... Chemnitz is from 'Kamenitza' (or similar) which means 'stony creek' in the language of one of the people the Germans extinguished when they moved east a couple of centuries ago. The word 'Kamen' has something to do with stone in other slav languanges, so I'd thing the composition is Chemn-itz, not Chem-nitz. [Just for the amusement, before I moved to Chemnitz I lived in a village called Rödlitz, the name supposedly stems from some 'stream in cleared woodland'. And my girlfriend is from Görlitz... so one might get the impression, -itz is redundant ;-}] Andre' -- Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. (T. Jefferson)
