The about fifty or so people in Canada and the United States who share the unusual family name of Arntfield can all trace their roots to a single German ancestor who settled in Canada in 1852. Although all Arntfields learn early on that seem fated to be constantly providing others with the correct spelling and pronunciation of their unusual name, most remain unaware of its origin.
The common ancestor who started it all in North America was Selig Ährenfeld who left the then Duchy of Mecklenberg in present day Germany at the age of twenty-one to forge a new life in Canada. Born in the town of Bützow on March 3, 1831 to Jewish parents Abraham Ährenfeld and Jette Mendel, upon arrival in Canada he headed to Ontario’s Waterloo County where many of his countrymen had already settled.
Although Canadian census and other records from the 1800s for our ancestor contain various versions of his original German name, the variant spellings such as Eltefelt, Arntefield, Ardfield, and Arntfield likely had more to do with the often limited literacy skills of record keepers of the time than with any preferred new spelling by the family. In due course, however, our ancestor settled on the Anglicized name of Arntfield as the preferred version that they chose to be known by. Although Selig would eventually father thirteen children, only three of his sons produced Arntfield heirs. Accordingly, it is through one of these three sons that all present day Arntfields can trace their roots.
Family names did not come into vogue in Northeast Europe until the 12th and 13th centuries when, following the growth of individual settlements, it was considered necessary to differentiate between people with the same given name. The simple solution was to attach job descriptions such as Smith, Tailor, Miller, and the like to the given name, creating a family name which would then be passed on from generation to generation. In many remote areas, however, the adoption of family names was a slow process, family names in those locations generally not appearing until the 17th or 18th century. As well, most Jews did not adopt family names until required to do so by law. Given that family names were not compulsory in Mecklenberg until 1813, it is accordingly considered that the Arntfield family name likely dates to that time.
Since Mecklenberg land was known for its grain production, it is perhaps not surprising that the etymology of the Ährenfeld name carries with it an agrarian connection that suggests family members may at one time have worked as farmers. Feld in German means field while ähren, the plural of ähre, technically means the fruiting body of a grain plant where the grain is found. Often translated as head or ear of grain, the word, when combined with the word feld, is, depending on the context, generally considered to be an alternate way of saying either weizenfeld (wheatfield) or kornfeld (cornfield).
So there you have it — a somewhat complicated translation of a somewhat complicated name. When writing Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare had his star-crossed lover Juliet famously ask the question “What’s in a name?”. Her dismissive response in essence was that names were meaningless since a name along should not define a person. We Arntfields or Wheatfields or Cornfields would have to disagree.
David Arntfield
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