Posted by Veronica on July 05, 2001 at 12:25:40:
In Reply to: name changes posted by Louis Schallenberg on June 29, 2001 at 12:01:09:
It is likely that the names are related. However, it was probably the other way. The original name in Germany and in Switerland was a place name "Schallenberg" (echo mountain) and "Schellenberg" (tinkling bell mountain). The families were originally called such. The "er" was added to mean someone from such a place. My experience is that those who came to the new world early (say the 1700 and early 1800) had more variation in their name becoming ever other spelling including Shellenberger, Shallabarger, and even some Shillingberger. The ones who came later (say late 1800s and 1900s) had less change in their name thus retaining the "C" in "SCH" and often without the final "er". I should mention that just because we all have the same root to our surname does not mean we are in any way related. There were quite a number of sites in Germany, Liechtenstien, and Switzerland with the Schallenberg name and those with the surname could have come from any of them. Please see the origens page for a better discussion of this.