Names - A Light Moment

Naming is probably one of the biggest problems for the genealogist and also for the persons transcribing documents of genealogical interest.  The spellings of our ancestor's names drives us up walls; the meanings of names escapes our ken; the audio aspect - how a name sounds- is often pure conjecture.

Here's a good example:

"Sexauer is an ordinary German name referring to one who came from
Sexau, in Germany. Looking for a Mr. Sexauer, a man in Washington
called at the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.
Helping him, a girl employee called the Banking and Currency Committee
by telephone to check, and inquired politely, ‘Do you have a Sexauer
over there?’

    ‘Listen,’ the girl switchboard operator snapped, ‘We don’t even
have a ten-minute coffee break anymore.’ "

– Elsdon Coles Smith, Treasury of Name Lore, 1967

For further reading:  any of E. C. Smith's vast works on names.