Frequency: (174)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
North German: from the Germanic personal name Ans-her, composed of Old Saxon ans ‘god’ + hari, heri ‘army’. The -e indicates lengthening of the preceding vowel, but since through humanist practice the umlaut ö was frequently rendered as oe it is mostly pronounced as an umlaut in modern German.
GIVEN NAMES: German 6%. Fritz, Gunter.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
