One of the first problem the people try to solve, when starting to study their family history, is the meaning of the family name from the language point of view. A lot of high level professionals are busy with the investigations of this kind and the special scientific areas exist that explains the meanings of the family names of various ethnicities. In this Site I wished to concentrate on the Latvian names, because the names of other ethnicities are or should be investigated in other sites. However the names for Latvians could be borrowed quite easy from German or Polish name thesauruses and in less extent the names are of Russian, Lithuanian or Estonian origin.

A lot of Latvian names have clear meaning in Latvian or German and no investigations are needed, but quite a few of them are difficult to explain and some of them even will never be understood. There is also a good amount of names that are difficult to explain, because a likely but misleading hypothesis can be stated at once.

An example of this kind I have found in a book of B.O.Unbegaun /Unbegaun/. This author is a top level scientist in the science of Russian family names. You may realize his academic level from the fact that he is of German origin and worked in Oxford University, but his book was translated in Russian from English and printed in Moscow. And really, no more complete investigation has been published by investigators in Russia. In his book the author also attacks the problem how the family names of other ethnicities sounded, if they were used as Russian names, and also discuss their meanings.

The Latvian names are also touched in this book. Unfortunately, B.O.Unbegaun did not know the Latvian language, and, as I guessed, used the only Latvian dictionary available to him that was printed in German in 1920-1930s by Kārlis Mīlenbachs (Mühlenbach) and Jānis Endzelīns. Evidently, Unbegaun wished to take as examples also the names of the compilers of the dictionary. He had no problems to explain the name Mühlenbach which is of German origin and means a mill spring; in the case of the name Endzelins he made a mistake, I think.

To understand the origin of this name, Unbegaun looked in the above mentioned dictionary he evidently had in his bookshelf. The dictionary informs that the word endzelīns means “ein hölzernes Stäbchen, das zur Befestigung des Flachsstockens aus Spinnrad dient”. I really can not translate the word, it could be only described: peasant women did a lot of spinning work by hand made spinning devices during winter evenings. The appropriate amount of the material to be spin (flax, wool) was fastened at the special place of this device by a kind of wooden needle, or pin. This needle was called endzelins. And so Unbegaun declared that this is the clue for the meaning of the name Endzelīns, though in the book were also proposed other translations of the word endzelīns.

The first question that should have arose for an investigator would be the following - why on Earth an individual had chosen such a strange thing for his family name? No really good explanation is possible, but, of course, one may not deny that principally it would be possible. Fortunately enough, the origin of the name was explained in /Enzeliņš/ by another holder of this name - Hermanis Enzeliņš, who was a brother of the linguist Jānis Endzelīns. Please, note the difference in the spelling of the names - really, the both brothers hold two different family names. It is known that H.Enzeliņš sent any received letter to trash, if his name on the address was misspelled as Endzeliņš.

Hermanis Enzeliņš in his investigation of the local history informs that his grandfather Bērtulis Enzeliņš (1770-1824), living in Mičkēni farm of Kauguru pagasts, borrowed his name Enzeliņš from a German named Henseling, who was a miller in Sapa mill nearby. H.Enzeliņš asserted that this was a common practice - to borrow a name of a known German and to adopt this name for a Latvian. I think it really often happened, too many Latvians have plain German family names and had even more before the name changing became popular in the 1930s.

Though the names Henseling - Enzeliņš seem to be different, the differences may be explained by similar family and place names. As a rule, the German names lose the initial “h”, if they are adopted for Latvians. It happens because the Latvian language does not have this sound in the standard soundcase. For example, Hinzenberg is changed to Incenbergs; Hermann - Ērmanis; Hahn - Āns; Hirsch - Irsis; Hoffman - Opmanis; Haumeister - Aumeisters, Hugo - Uģis etc. The place name Endele with its German variant Hensel, similar family names Endele, Endelis, Endzelis also exist. The German ending -ing could be transformed in Latvian ending -iņš, at least the ending -iņš of Latvian names is quite frequently transformed to -ing in German texts. It may be added, that the name Henseling was derived of Hensel which in its turn is a diminutive form of the person first name Hans which stem from the person first name Johannes.

By the way, in 1883 the name Endzelīns was spelled Enselin that is certified by a document presented on this Site. P.Enselin, who signed this document of Kauguru pagasts court, definitely belonged to this family.