This work, containing more than a thousand maps and commentaries, is the first to document the surname stock of Germany by statistical occurrence and geographical distribution. There is a grammatical part dealing with the phonematics, graphematics, morphematics, and syntagmatics, while cultural historians are served with a lexical part (surnames by place of origin, by occupation, by nicknames, by given names).

Konrad Kunze, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg; Damaris Nübling, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.