|
The large family of all the GAUDELs |
|
The large family of all the GAUDELs |
Origin of the surname GAUDEL
On the entire website, click on a "First Name LAST NAME" to access the genealogical database.
I was born in 1946 ... it's not that far ! And yet I remember perfectly well that we spoke regularly, in the fifties, of our "baptismal name" and "family name". Today, these names have been permanently replaced by "first name" and "last name". The English kept the terms "christian name" and "family name" or "surname". These preliminary remarks will become clearer with the following !
The name GAUDEL is a diminutive of the name GAUD. It is the same process which gave CLAUDEL from CLAUDE, DEMANGEL from DEMANGE, PIERREL from PIERRE, GEORGEL from GEORGES, JEANDEL from JEAN etc ... Of course there are other diminutives of GAUD such as GAUDIN, GAUDINOT etc ... but the ending in EL is characteristic of Lorraine and more particularly of the Vosges where the names mentioned above are very widespread.
Like a third of today's surnames, the name GAUD comes from an ancient Germanic personal name transmitted by baptism, like Raoul or Bernard, and which has become hereditary. Coming from the Germanic root "wald", it meant "to govern". The name "Waldo" was that of Germanic people in the Merovingian or Carolingian era. Originally, it was not hereditary, but essentially given on the day of baptism, to a child baptized Waldus or Galdus in its Latinized form. It is also possible that this name was attributed from father to son, over several generations.If this name has come down to us, it is because the Gallo-Roman population adopted, out of fashion, the German names brought by the Franks.
Therefore, this does not mean that our ancestors were necessarily Germanic. Indeed, between the 6th and the 12th century, almost all of the baptismal names given to children were Germanic in essence, subsequently, under the influence of the Church, fashion slipped, during the 13th century, to biblical names such as Peter, John, James, etc. If the name GAUD has come down to us, it is therefore because it was attributed to a child, by our ancestors, around the 12th or 13th century.
A few words of history will allow us to fully understand the context in which the name GAUD evolved. You should know that from the 5th century, triumphant Christianity imposed the single name, like the Germans, rejecting the Roman system of multiple names. The symbolism of this new name, attributed on the day of baptism, signified a rupture between the old world and the new world represented by the Christian faith. From now on, our distant ancestors only bear one name, the one they received on the day of their baptism, such as Bernard, Henri or Louis, etc. This way of naming oneself will last five to six centuries.
However, faced with the economic and demographic boom of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, when family names were formed, the single name system is shattered, victim of the many problems of homonymy concealed by this principle. When a majority of the population had the same names, the choice was limited to the most famous names, in particular those of the saints, it is easy to understand why our ancestors were forced to add nicknames to their baptismal names, that is - that is to say a complementary qualifier to better differentiate themselves from each other. This is how Charles became Charles the Bald, Robert the Pious or Raoul du Chemin, etc ...
In the 11th century, when the need arose to specify the identity of an individual by a second element (nickname), very often this identity was affirmed by filiation with the expression "filius + name in the Latin genitive "(X son of Y). For some who did not yet have a nickname, the form "filius" was maintained. On reading 12th century cartularies, it appears that the expression "filius", example: "Johannes filius Bernardi" (Jean son of Bernard), slips for short to "Johannes Bernardi" (implied "son of" ) and finally to "Bernard", the second element, the name of the father, then becomes nickname then last name. Thus was born the inheritance of baptismal names.
The addition of diminutives and modifications mainly due to oral transmission finalized our names today.
Page inspired by the works of Albert Dauzat and Marie-Thérèse Morlet.
|
| The year 1342
Below, the date 1342, the Thursday before the Nativity. |
DURAN dit GAUDEL, is Provost of
Bruyères and Arches near Epinal. Married to Félice,
between 1337 and 1350, they bought many sites in
Girecourt, Deyvillers ... About twenty documents
unearthed in the departmental archives of the Vosges
relate these transactions. As often at that time, this nickname has become a name. I will probably never find a connection with our different branches. These documents simply show that our surname has been established in the Vosges for a very long time ... 100 years before Joan of Arc !! |
 |
One of the seals attached to the
documents of DURAN GAUDEL in 1337. These arms have been
carried by the Dukes of Lorraine 
since around the year 1200.Today, this coat of arms still represents Lorraine. In terms of heraldry, it is described as "gold, with a band of gules, charged with three alerions of silver". |
Important note :
Certain GAUDEL branches do not have their patronymic origin as described above, but in the deformation over time of other surnames such as CLAUDEL, GODEL, GODET ... which have become GAUDEL.
Of course, these exceptions are clearly mentioned in the branches concerned.
