German name

Personal names in German-speaking Europe consist of one or several given names ("Vorname", plural "Vornamen") and a surname ("Nachname, Familienname").
The "Vorname" is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the "Western order" of "given name, surname", unless it occurs in an alphabetized list of surnames, e.g. "Bach, Johann Sebastian".
In this, the German conventions parallel the naming conventions in most of Western and Central Europe, including English, Dutch, Italian, and French. There are some vestiges of a patronymic system as they survive in parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, but these do not form part of the official name.
Women traditionally adopted their husband's name upon marriage and would occasionally retain their maiden name by hyphenation, in a so-called "Doppelname", e.g. "Else Lasker-Schüler". Recent legislation motivated by gender equality now allows a married couple to choose the surname they want to use, including an option for men to keep their birthname hyphenated to the common family name in the same way. It is also possible for the spouses to do without a common surname altogether and to keep their birthnames.
The most common given names are either Biblical ("Christian", derived from names of Biblical characters or saints; "Johann/Hans" "John", "Georg/Jörg" "George", "Jakob" "Jacob" and "James"; "Anna", "Maria", "Barbara", "Christina") or from Germanic names ("Friedrich" "Frederick", "Ludwig" "Louis", etc.) Since the 1990s, there has however been a trend of parents picking non-German forms of names, either for originality, or influenced by international celebrities, e.g. "Liam" (Gaelic form of "William") rather than the German equivalent "Wilhelm."
Most surnames are derived either from occupations, or from geographical origin, less often from bodily attributes. They became heritable with the beginning of central demographic records in the early modern period.
Forenames.
The "Vorname" (in English "forename") is usually given to a child by the parents shortly after birth. It is common to give a child several "Vornamen" (forenames), one of them intended for everyday use and known as the "Rufname" ("appellation name" or "call name"). 
This "Rufname" is often underlined on official documents, as it is sometimes the second or third name in the sequence of given names on official record, even though it is the given name in daily use from childhood. For example, in the resume submitted by mathematician Emmy Noether to Erlangen University in 1907,
the underlining of "Emmy" communicates that this is the "Rufname", even though it is the second of two official given names.
In Germany, the chosen name must be approved by the local Standesamt (civil registry office). The name must indicate the gender of the child and not negatively affect the well-being of the child. Last names or the names of objects and products are not acceptable. For example, "Matti" was rejected for a boy's name because it did not indicate gender (however, these types of names are permissible if combined with a second name which clarifies the gender, for example: "Matti Oliver" or "Matti Julia").
Among German nobility, a fashion arose in the early modern period to give a large number of forenames, often six or more. This fashion was to some extent copied by the bourgeois class, but subsided again after the end of the 19th century, so that while two or three forenames remain common, a larger number is now rare. 
The practice persists among German nobility, e.g. 
Johann Friedrich "Konrad" Carl Eduard Horst Arnold Matthias, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen, Duke of Saxony (b. 1952), "Ernst August" Albert Paul Otto Rupprecht Oskar Berthold Friedrich-Ferdinand Christian-Ludwig, Prince of Hanover (b. 1954), "Christian" Heinrich Clemens Paul Frank Peter Welf Wilhelm-Ernst Friedrich Franz Prince of Hanover and Dukelin, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg (b. 1985).
Popular given names.
Traditionally, there are dialectal differences between the regions of German-speaking Europe, especially visible in the forms of hypocorisms.
These differences are still perceptible in the list of most popular names, even though they are marginalized by super-regional fashionable trends:
As of 2012, the top ten given names of Baden-Württemberg (Southern Germany) and of Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany) share the entries "Ben, Paul, Finn, Luca, Max" (male), "Mia, Emma, Lea, Leonie, Anna, Lena, Hanna", while Schleswig-Holstein retains the traditionally northern (Low German) forms "Lasse" (male) and "Neele" (female) in the top ten.
The following table gives the most popular given names in Germany per decade (since 1890),
and the most recent ranking, as of 2014.
Surnames.
Surnames ("family name"; "Nachname", "Familienname") were gradually introduced in German-speaking Europe during the Late Middle Ages. Many of such surnames are derived from nicknames. They are generally classified into four groups by derivation: 
given names, occupational designations, bodily attributes, and toponyms (including references to named buildings). Also, many family names display characteristic features of the dialect of the region they originated in.
The preposition "von" ("of") was used to distinguish nobility; for example, if someone was baron of the village of Veltheim, his family name would be "von Veltheim". In modern times, people who were elevated to nobility often had a 'von' added to their name. For example, Johann Wolfgang Goethe had his name changed to "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe". This practice ended with the abolition of the monarchy in Germany and Austria in 1919. Sometimes "von" is also used in geographical names that are not noble, as in "von Däniken".
With family names originating locally, many names display particular characteristics of the local dialects, such as the south German, Austrian and Swiss diminutive endings "-l" "-el", "-erl", "-le" or "-li" as in "Kleibl", "Schäuble" or "Nägeli" (from 'Nagel', nail). The same is true for regional variants in the naming of professions. While a barrel-maker from Hamburg may have been called "Böttcher", a Bavarian could easily have been called "Schäffler".
The surnames of the German Jews are a special case, as they were introduced later, in the late 18th to early 19th century, per "fiat". The Prussian authorities imposed made-up and sometimes derogatory names. For instance, the name "Waldlieferant" (lit.: forest supplier) was "created" to ridicule a Jewish timber trader. Even way more offensive expressions ("Afterduft"; lit.: anus odor) were in use. This is by no means the rule, though; on the contrary, those surnames most quickly recognized as probably Jewish in origin are distinctly poetical ones, probably as they were made-up choices by the people themselves (e.g. "Rosenzweig").
Immigration, often sponsored by local authorities, also brought foreign family names into the German-speaking regions. Depending on regional history, geography and economics, many family names have French, Dutch, Italian, Hungarian or Slavic (e.g. Polish) origins. Sometimes they survived in their original form; in other cases, the spelling would be adapted to German (the Slavic ending "ic" becoming the German or or Baltic "-kis" becoming "-ke"). Over time, the spelling often changed to reflect native German pronunciation ("Sloothaak" for the Dutch "Sloothaag"); but some names, such as those of French Huguenots settling in Prussia, retained their spelling but with the pronunciation that would come naturally to a German reading the name: "Marquard", pronounced in French, ended up being pronounced much like the German "Markwart" from which it was originally derived.
Marriage.
Traditionally, the wife adopts her husband's "Nachname" on marriage and drops her own. However, due to the legal equality of sexes, the opposite is possible as well, though rare.
A few examples of the practice under German law, if "Herr Schmidt" and "Frau Meyer" marry:
All children of a family have to receive the same non-hyphenated "Nachname" at birth, which may be either the mother's or the father's "Nachname" (traditionally it was the father's). If the parents adopted an "Ehename" this is the "Nachname" of the child. It is strictly forbidden to give children "Doppelnamen" if it is not the "Ehename". The latter case can arise with traditional aristocratic "Doppelnamen" (e.g. Faber-Castell).
In Austria (§ 93 ABGB), a couple can choose either of their surnames as married name. In the default case, this is the surname of the groom. The partner who is changing surnames (usually the bride) has the possibility to use their unmarried name alongside the married name with hyphenation.
In Switzerland (Art. 160 ZGB), the couple can opt to both retain their unmarried name, or the couple can choose to use either surname as their married name. If both retain their name, they need to declare which will be the surname of any future children.
Nobility.
Titles of former aristocrats (like "Graf" for "Count") have become parts of the "Nachname" in Germany, giving longer names of several words, usually including the nobiliary particle "von" (meaning "of") or "zu" (meaning "to", sometimes "at"), often "von und zu" are also found together (meaning "of and to/at"). The legal rules for these names are the same as those for other "Nachnamen", which gives rise to a number of cases where people legally bear such names but are not recognized by the associations of formerly noble families in Germany, which continue to apply the old rules of the German Empire in their publications. Most of these cases come about when a woman of noble descent marries a man with no title, and the two adopt the woman's name as their common "Nachname", which was impossible under imperial law.
In Austria, titles of nobility including certain other orders and honours held by Austrian citizens have since 3 April 1919 been abolished, including nobiliary particles such as "von", the use of such titles by Austrian citizens is an offence punishable with a financial enforcement penalty. For example, Otto von Habsburg, Austria-Hungary's last crown prince, was referred to as Otto Habsburg(-Lothringen) in Austria. In Switzerland, where titles of nobility have been rare for several centuries, they can be used in private conversation, but are not officially recognised.
Common surnames.
The most common surnames in Germany are reportedly:
These are all occupational names, designating common occupations around 1600 when surnames became heritable, so that these names arose independently across Germany.
Gender-specific surname variants.
Traditionally, there was a differentiation of surnames of women from those of their male siblings (as is still a rule in Czech, Eastern Slavic, or Polish female surnames), widespread in Germany until the 18th century. Thus, in old records, especially church registers on rites de passage, such as baptisms, deaths and marriages etc., women may appear bearing regionally typical female surname variants (like, in South Germany: Peter Huber, but Anna Huberin). With the establishment of general official registration of legal names, this practice was abolished in the 18th and the 19th centuries, depending on the legislation of the respective states.
Also, the spelling of given and surnames, varying previously from author to author, or even entry to entry, was then mostly fixed according to the official recorded form. Former noble titles appearing in male and female variants were transformed by the Weimar Constitution, article 109, into parts of the surnames in Germany, but a new tradition of gender-specific variants, for official registration, was established for these surnames. This practice was confirmed in a judgement by the Reichsgericht on 10 March 1926.
Colloquially, surname variants for women continue to appear in some German dialects. In Bavarian dialect surnames of women sometimes are formed by adding the ending "-in", used in standard High German to indicate noun variants for women or items of grammatical feminine gender, such as Näherin (seamstress), with Näher (seamster) being the male form. In West Low German parlance the ending "…sch(e)" is sometimes added to surnames of women, related to the standard High German adjective ending "…isch" (cognitive to English "…ish"), suffixed to nouns or adjectives indicating belonging / pertaining to, being of the kind described by the suffixed word: for example, "de Smidtsche", is Ms Schmidt (Smith), but literally about "the Smithian" (the woman pertaining to a man/family named Schmidt).
Another form, indicating a female bearer of a surname, was the addition of a genitive "s" (like the Saxon genitive), the daughter or wife of Mr. Bäcker (literally Baker) would appear as Ms Bäckers (in German without an apostrophe), as being Bäcker's daughter or wife.
Pseudonyms.
Pseudonyms can be used by artists ("Künstlername", "artist's name") and members of religious orders ("Ordensname"); If a pseudonym is widely known in public it can be added to the passport of that person (under the weaker legal status of "Künstlername") and be used instead of the original name in most situations. The same field in the passport also serves to show religious names, i.e. the new name somebody takes on when becoming a monk or nun.
Academic degrees and titles.
The academic degree of "Doktor" ("Dr.") and the academic title of "Professor" ("Prof.") are not part of the name in Germany but can be entered into an identity card or passport and are frequently used in documents and addresses.
They are, however, often used in a written address (e.g., Dr. Meier, Prof. Dr. Müller), and will often be used in formal speech or sometimes by lower-ranked persons such as students, though many academics prefer being addressed just like anyone else, i.e. by "Herr" or "Frau" alone (see below).
Hofname (estate name).
In rural areas it is common that farmers are known by the traditional name of their "Hof" (farm or estate). Because of the long-standing tradition of impartible inheritance in German-speaking Europe, ownership of a "Hof" had often been tied to direct patrilineal descent over centuries.
Thus, farmers were traditionally known by their "Hofname" even before the development of the "Nachname" in the early modern period, and the two systems came to overlap. Many "Nachnamen" are in fact derived from such "Hofnamen", but in some instances, the "Hofname" tradition survived alongside the official "Nachname".
Historically, the "Hofname" was the first type of commoners' family name to become heritable. This process began still in the Late Middle Ages (14th to 15th century); e.g. Ulrich Zwingli (b. 1484) inherited his father's surname, in origin a "Hofname" (from the term "Twing", denoting a type of walled-in estate) even though he did not inherit his estate.
In cases where "Nachname" and "Hofname" are not identical (usually because there was no male heir at some point in the family history) they are joined in official documents by "genannt" (abbr. "gen."), e.g. "Amann gen. Behmann". In Austria the term "vulgo" (abbr. "vlg.") is used instead of "genannt".
Name changes.
There are only a few circumstances in which one is allowed to change one's name:
Though the "Namensänderungsgesetz" (Law concerning the changing of names) allows changing because of any "important reason", in practice this will very rarely be allowed.
Adding "Doktor" (Ph.D.) in Germany, and adding any academic degree in Austria, into one's identity card or passport is not considered a name change.
Order of names and use of articles.
The "Nachname" is put after the "Vorname". In the rural use of several regions where heavy dialect is spoken (i.e. Bavaria, Saxony, the Palatinate or the Saarland), the order is reversed, e.g. "der Mühlbach Klaus" instead of "Klaus Mühlbach". The definite article is always added in this style of naming. Especially in these regions, it is also the usual administrative way, but with a comma; the said person would appear in documents as "Mühlbach, Klaus" or even, with a title or profession "Mühlbach, Klaus, Dr./OLt/Bäcker".
Except for Southern Germany, usage of the definite article with the name outside of dialect is uncommon, and considered a mistake in Standard German. It is considered familiar language, but not as a mark of rough, rural manners as in French. It is used especially when talking of and/or with children, but also in some other situations. E.g., "Ich bin der Nils" ('I am the Nils').
In Austria, the definite article is always used in informal spoken language, but most of the time not in very formal or written language.
In some dialects (such as those spoken in the Western Palatinate, the Saarland and parts of the Rhineland), the article used with women's and girls' names is not the feminine, but the neuter article. This is because the German word for "girl", "Mädchen", is a neuter noun, due to the diminutive suffix "-chen".