61 replies to this topic

[goldberry]

Interesting question.

With a name like Stipe that sounds kind of Serb or Croat to me.  I think Michael said once that he has part Cherokee Indian ancestry, but I'm not sure about his ancestry otherwise apart from him coming from a line of Wesleyan preachers.

Berry, Buck and Mills all seem like good ole down home Anglo Saxon names.

[potflower]

megaton24 said:

Buck said his ancestors were from the Netherlands. Berry could be from any number of countries.

Goldberry, Stipe was never a Croatian or Serb name and it does not sound like that at all.

Michael told somewhere that his da's family came from Germany..I read it in some interview

[Sweet Fanny Addams]

I think I read somewhere before that Stipe is a German name. But in questions of ancestry, we'd need to know both sides of his family tree. Surnames don't really tell us all that much. A person could have a last name that can be traced to a certain country hundreds of years ago but says little about the intervening generations.

[potflower]

megaton24 said:

If Buck and Mills were born in California where did their ancestors live before there? Is Mills' family from Georgia? Is Berry's family from Georgia? Did Stipe's family move from Tennessee to Georgia? Why did they move to Georgia?

Megaton, I honestly think that only the Buck, Mills, Berry and Stipe families could give you the correct answers to these question...

[Sweet Fanny Addams]

Out of all the band the one who most looks like he might have Native American ancestry is Peter. Not that it proves anything.

[In the Corner]

I remember reading somewhere that one of Stipe's grandmothers lived in North Carolina.  Or was it South Carolina?  It was on a mountain whose name I have forgotten.

A search on rootsweb shows "Stipek" as a Czech name, which I suppose could have been shortened to Stipe.  The Social Security Death Index lists 544 Stipes around the country who have passed on.

Really, only their families would know their histories and probably only their families would care.

[purple scapolite]

I believe Peter said in a radio interview in Croatia/Serbia for the 2004-2005 tour that at least some of his (Peter's) family were from around there.

Edited by shawna, 14 December 2008 - 02:41 AM.
clarifying

[potflower]

In the Corner said:

I remember reading somewhere that one of Stipe's grandmothers lived in North Carolina.  Or was it South Carolina?  It was on a mountain whose name I have forgotten.

A search on rootsweb shows "Stipek" as a Czech name, which I suppose could have been shortened to Stipe.  The Social Security Death Index lists 544 Stipes around the country who have passed on.

Really, only their families would know their histories and probably only their families would care.

okay, so since i am sick at home and i am totally bored out of me head i did some research and everything supports the German/Austrian ancestry theory for the name Stipe...

see it for urself

http://www.ancestry....ces-origin.ashx

http://www.publicpro...es/Default.aspx

that could explain the Stipek finding too since most of Czech Republic used to be the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the old days so a lots of German names were taken over and 'nationalized' in their spellings and pronunciations.

This would make Stipey and me name ancestry buddies....or is everyone secretly from Germany? :P

[goldberry]

Around the time they had all the troubles in the Balkans, about 10 years plus ago, you'd often hear the names of Serb or Croat politicians etc.  Stipe was a regular first name of some of them.  Like Stipe Mesic.

Though I guess I'll go with that ship record web page, that's quite cool.  Checked my own surname while I was at it.

[potflower]

goldberry said:

Around the time they had all the troubles in the Balkans, about 10 years plus ago, you'd often hear the names of Serb or Croat politicians etc.  Stipe was a regular first name of some of them.  Like Stipe Mesic.

Though I guess I'll go with that ship record web page, that's quite cool.  Checked my own surname while I was at it.

I am not from Croatia or Serbia but from the neighborhood originally and being familiar with their language Stipe just doesn't add up to the equation as being a name that had originated from there on the first place.I think it is a name that was probably taken over IF! the Croatian Stipe has anything to do with the original Stipe name and I honestly doubt it.Doubt it mainly because they tend to use it as a first name not a surname and secondly if a surname had originated from a particular country or area then it would be quite 'popular' there as a surname and less popular in countries where it only 'immigrated' into at a later stage. Like my surname for example..there is only a few people with it in my country, it is not a usual surname at all but there is a much bigger and relevant amount of people who own the same surname as mine in Germany, Austria and Switzerland...all German speaking countries (well, in the case of Switzerland i obviously mean the German speaking cantons..). I was also lucky to see an old birth certificate of my ancestors dated back to 1867 that proved that indeed my grand-grand-grand father had moved from Austria to my country of birth..so at least in my case the name theory is supported by facts.

Then again maybe someone here from Croatia will come up and say I am all wrong, but based on my experience it just doesn't sound like Croatian or Serbian or just plain Slavic to me at all and if it is not Slavic then we can put aside the Czech origin theory too straight away since Czech is a Slavic language too.

Names not very often stay the same, just like if you think of the pronunciation and spelling of the Czech Stipek, that might have originated OR might not have originated from Stipe... Well, we can only guess really- though its similarity is striking.As I said above there were a lots of German names and words that were taken over by my country or the neighboring countries, simply because we all used to be part of a big empire before the WW1 where we had to speak German for quite some time, well at least in the schools and in all the 'official' places. Not to mention the 15th-16th and earlier history of the region where the Austrian/German influence was always substantial.

I say if the name made it to Croatia more likely its spelling would have been adjusted according to their language, even if it was only for the sole reason to resist the Germanization of the national language.Most of the countries put a big emphasis on that resistance, especially during the revolutions in the middle of 19th century, where one of the corner stones of gaining their independence was to get back and free their own national languages from all foreign influences..obviously they couldn't throw away the foreign words used already by everyone in the common language but they tended to change the spelling and make them to their 'own'...the English language has quite a few words like that too, especially if I think of French words. Then again you have never really been invaded by France for a huge period of time in a manner that they restricted speaking English in the country so obviously the pressure on the English language wasn't so huge.Also you seem to take over the spellings of the French words and change only their pronunciations.

If I go with this theory though then I dare to assume that probably the original German version was spelt much more like Steip and not Stipe and probably if it would have made it to my country of origin then it would be something like Sztájp, but I have never heard that before in my country  ...I have heard the Steip version though which would prove the fact that we were shamefully so lazy that we only took over the German version and didn't bother to lift it into our own lingo with our own spelling and all.But then again that happened quite often too...mean the 'lazyness' if you can really call this laziness..I am not sure, I think it has more to do with the given circumstances in history and society at the time of the adoption:)

i will go and get my antibiotics now and will try to figure out how to kill the remaining 13 hrs of my day from my sick bed after writing this essay, which is soooo geek in my books...I just looked at the length of what I have typed..fooooook sake, Michael should be paying me for this like:P

p.s. if you put the name Buck into the ship record webpage then you will see that its meaning is totally originated in German and Dutch..so even if Mr. Buck's family came from Croatia or whatever was mentioned above, it is highly likely that his early ancestors were from the Netherlands or Germany. Mills seems to be an English name since bread came slice and Berry seems to be coming from Ireland-Scotland....then again what we are really talking about here is the origin of the names not the families...that is a different cake altogether which would require the assistance of the above spoken families...

on another note I've always thought Mike looked like some Brit fellow and Michael is totally German like...even his nature seems to be Germanish.Obviously this is totally a long shot like, cos i dunno the guy and characteristics depend on so many things...I would just get that feeling sometime...but this was only my own little private stereotypicalization just by the way they look...also after seeing the origin of the Berry name it made me realise that Bill could easily get away with the Irish lad syndrome..Peter is a question mark to me, he has always been..can't link his looks anywhere particular....

Edited by potflower, 14 December 2008 - 06:12 AM.

[Sweet Fanny Addams]

Another factor, which may be unique to America is that when immigrants arrived at Ellis Island in huge boatloads, immigration officers would often be unable to spell names from all over the world. The name may have been hard to pronounce, or possibly not have an English spelling at all. If the families were from countries where the English alphabet wasn't used, or the name was hard to write out, hard pressed immigration officers were responsible for changing quite a few surnames upon arrival in the new world. I suppose this happened in Canada as well and to a lesser degree in the Antipodes.
This is becoming a really interesting discussion, even if slightly off topic.

[blueshades87]

If you want to factor in another possibility..

Many people with Native American heritage, especially Cherokee and the like, took different names than what they originally had after being removed from their land (ie, Trail of Tears.) My own family was originally named for the place they lived, half were removed via the Trail and the other half hid in the north GA mountains. The hidden half took the name of the white family whose allowed them to live with them.

[In the Corner]

Sweet Fanny Addams said:

Another factor, which may be unique to America is that when immigrants arrived at Ellis Island in huge boatloads, immigration officers would often be unable to spell names from all over the world. The name may have been hard to pronounce, or possibly not have an English spelling at all. If the families were from countries where the English alphabet wasn't used, or the name was hard to write out, hard pressed immigration officers were responsible for changing quite a few surnames upon arrival in the new world. I suppose this happened in Canada as well and to a lesser degree in the Antipodes.
This is becoming a really interesting discussion, even if slightly off topic.

Genealogy is an interest of mine.  Back when I had more free time I did a lot of research into my ancestry.  Even English names, back in the old days, didn't have consistent spelling, which further muddies the waters when searching for country of origin.

[Sweet Fanny Addams]

In the Corner said:

Genealogy is an interest of mine.  Back when I had more free time I did a lot of research into my ancestry.  Even English names, back in the old days, didn't have consistent spelling, which further muddies the waters when searching for country of origin.

  
This is true. I've always wondered why Pete Townshend has that rogue "h" in his name while most other Townsends don't.

[OneArpeggioPete]

*drags this back to topic slightly* peter once mentioned that he had some french-canadian ancestry, and the aforementioned balkans connection. buck doesn't sound like either of those, though. michael mentioned the cherokee ancestry more than once, and some scottish ancestry, too. the scottish ancestry would certainly make sense seeing that scotland has a long tradition of sending methodist missionaries to the us. mike has said on the odd occasion that he is of northern irish protestant stock. no idea about bill.

:-)

oneArpeggiopete:cool:

[In the Corner]

OneArpeggioPete said:

*drags this back to topic slightly* peter once mentioned that he had some french-canadian ancestry, and the aforementioned balkans connection. buck doesn't sound like either of those, though. michael mentioned the cherokee ancestry more than once, and some scottish ancestry, too. the scottish ancestry would certainly make sense seeing that scotland has a long tradition of sending methodist missionaries to the us. mike has said on the odd occasion that he is of northern irish protestant stock. no idea about bill.

:-)

oneArpeggiopete:cool:

Dang, Astrid, did you just have to drag us back to topic???  ;)

[goldberry]

Historically, there was a Maori political leader, I think early last century, called Peter Buck.

I think maybe he became Sir Peter Buck.

Though I'm sure that doesn't make the other Peter Buck Maori, lol

(kia ora to you)