German surnames in the south-bohemian borderland and their word-formation aspects

This paper deals with the German surnames used by the inhabitants of theSouth- Bohemian border region and with their specific features. The first of these is the higher frequency of such surnames in the region (over 18 % in South Bohemia compared to the national average of about 13%), the second aspect is their word-formation. In the process of integration of German surnames into the Czech language, the ending most commonly employed in South Bohemia turned out to be -a, followed by other productive suffixes, such as the diminutive suffixes -ek, -ík/-ik,-ka and -ko. The most productive suffixes employed at the national level were -ek, -ík (with variants) and -ák.