The Off Topic Topic

[Zanza]

The country is named for the princely family, not a place. There is a castle Liechtenstein, but that is in Austria near Vienna.

[Razgovory]

Wait, is the family named for a place?

[Syt]

There's a Palais Lichtenstein in Vienna, too (no e in Licht there).

[jimmy olsen]

Astonishing factoid from Economist review of San Fransicko, about homelessness there.  Injection drug users outnumber kids enrolled in public schools by 50%.   

I thought Lichtenstein's capital was Lichtenstein city.  Did they change it?

Show me the numbers. I don't believe it

[The Larch]

Wait, is the family named for a place?

Yes, same as the Habsburgs, which took their name from their ancestral fiefdom and castle, currently in Switzerland. The Valois and Bourbons also took their names from the areas they started out ruling from.

[Josquius]

And the Oranges. Blew my mind when I discovered the existence of the town of Orange a few years back. Looks quite nice and worth a visit. 


There's an apparently crap town called Lichtenstein near the Swiss border in Germany too. Wonder what that's about.

[The Larch]

And the Oranges. Blew my mind when I discovered the existence of the town of Orange a few years back. Looks quite nice and worth a visit.

And funnily enough the town of Orange is in Provence. 

There's an apparently crap town called Lichtenstein near the Swiss border in Germany too. Wonder what that's about.

According to wiki there are two towns and three castles named Lichtenstein all over Germany

[Syt]

Wait, is the family named for a place?

Yes, same as the Habsburgs, which took their name from their ancestral fiefdom and castle, currently in Switzerland. The Valois and Bourbons also took their names from the areas they started out ruling from.

I think it goes for many ruling dynasties. The Hohenzollerns, the House of Saxe-Coburg-Weimar, the House of Oldenburg, Nassau ...

[The Brain]

Very common on the Continent. In Sweden though old noble families are known by the family names, which are often based on their heraldic shield. Vasa, Bielke, Sparre, Natt och Dag...

[Syt]

According to wiki there are two towns and three castles named Lichtenstein all over Germany

It means something like "bright stone", so it's conceivable that multiple places were called that.

[The Larch]

Very common on the Continent. In Sweden though old noble families are known by the family names, which are often based on their heraldic shield. Vasa, Bielke, Sparre, Natt och Dag...

Depends on the country, in France for instance it seems to have been almost universal, with almost every house name correlating to a real place or fiefdom (except the Capetians). In the Iberian peninsula it was not that common. The Trastámaras in Castille and Aragón were named for a fiefdom, but one whose name didn't correlate to any town or castle, but to a generic geographic term (the land beyond a certain river). The Aviz in Portugal were named for a chivalric order whose 1st king was the Grand Master of. The Jiménez in Navarra were named for the surname of the founder of the house.

[Zanza]

According to wiki there are two towns and three castles named Lichtenstein all over Germany

One is close to where I live and is a pretty spectacular 19th century "fake" built buring the romantic era (similar to Neuschwanstein or Hohenzollern).

[The Brain]

Very common on the Continent. In Sweden though old noble families are known by the family names, which are often based on their heraldic shield. Vasa, Bielke, Sparre, Natt och Dag...

Depends on the country, in France for instance it seems to have been almost universal, with almost every house name correlating to a real place or fiefdom (except the Capetians). In the Iberian peninsula it was not that common. The Trastámaras in Castille and Aragón were named for a fiefdom, but one whose name didn't correlate to any town or castle, but to a generic geographic term (the land beyond a certain river). The Aviz in Portugal were named for a chivalric order whose 1st king was the Grand Master of. The Jiménez in Navarra were named for the surname of the founder of the house.

Interesting.

[Zanza]

All the high middle age "von" names in German will reference a place of some sort. But some early middle age names do not refer to places, e.g. the Salians, Liodulfings/Ottonians, Carolingians, etc.

[The Larch]

Very common on the Continent. In Sweden though old noble families are known by the family names, which are often based on their heraldic shield. Vasa, Bielke, Sparre, Natt och Dag...

Depends on the country, in France for instance it seems to have been almost universal, with almost every house name correlating to a real place or fiefdom (except the Capetians). In the Iberian peninsula it was not that common. The Trastámaras in Castille and Aragón were named for a fiefdom, but one whose name didn't correlate to any town or castle, but to a generic geographic term (the land beyond a certain river). The Aviz in Portugal were named for a chivalric order whose 1st king was the Grand Master of. The Jiménez in Navarra were named for the surname of the founder of the house.

Interesting.

In Eastern Europe the name of the most important houses followed the name of the founder, at first glance. The Jagiellon in Poland-Lithuania, the Rurikids first and Romanovs later in Russia, the Osmanids in the Ottoman Empire...

The Hunyadis in Hungary and other central European kingdoms did take their name from their ancestral castle, Hunyad, in Transylvania.