Open Access

Adina-Lucia Nistor

• The present paper accumulates information and studies the etymology of the Romanian ethnonym “Aleman” and its versions, beginning from their geographical spread throughout Romania and Germany. The Romanian surnames “Aleman” and “Aloman” (highest prevalence in the area of Transylvania, in the Sibiu and Alba counties), as well as “Aliman”, “Alimănescu”, “Alaman” and “Alman” (highest prevalence in the areas of Muntenia, Oltenia and Dobrogea) do not come from the French term “allman” as their German equivalents “Allman”, “Allmang”, “Lallemand” do, which are concentrated in the Western Germany (in the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate German federal districts), due to the fact that there are no correspondents to the surnames of the Transylvanian Saxons. Therefore, the origin of these Romanian surnames is more likely to relate to the Turkish term “aleman” (see Iordan, 1983, p. 25 and 23), which also refers to the Germanic tribe of alamans or alemans, having the same meaning of “German”. The geographical proliferation of the “Aleman” and “Aliman” versions of the term is specific to the East to West population migration phenomena. These versions are the only ones existent in today’s Germany. Thus the “Aleman” and “Aliman” surnames are to be found in strongly industrialized centers such as Munich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Bielefeld, Hamburg and not in the area of the German-French frontier (see following map).