The German Family name Siener is classified as being of personal name origin. According to scholars, the “Oldest and most pervasive surname is that derived from a given name”. Such family names may be derived from a parental first name or from the font name of the grandfather or indeed a more remote ancestor of the original bearer of the surname. With regard to the family name Siener, it indicates “Son of Siener”, a variant of the Old High German first name “Sindher”, which is composed of “sind” meaning journey and “heri”, meaning army. It is also possible that this name is of local origin, denoting “a native of Sinn”, the name of a place in Germany, so called from “sinn”, meaning swamp, marsh. Variants of the surname “Siener” include “Sinner”.
One of the earliest references to this name or to a variant is a record of one Petrus Siener, who is listed in documents from Strasburg in 1427. Petrus Siener and one Gertrudis were married in Essuerthal, Pfalz, in 1750, and Andreas Siener, son of Jacobi and Margarethae Siener was baptized in Araheim, Pfalz, in 1756. Onomastic research shows that fixed hereditary family names were first employed in Southern Germany in the Twelfth Century. This practice of adopting a distinguishing name which was retained from one generation to the next gradually expanded to include all German speaking areas. It was however not until the sixteenth century that we can categorically say that the vast majority of Germans bore a family name that had been borne by their father. This name was introduced to America as early as 1749 in which year we find a record of the emigration of Carl Siener, who sailed to Pennsylvania. The name could of course have been first introduced to that country at an earlier date.
Blazon OF Arms: Azure, five mullets of six points of (one-three-one)
Crest: Two buffalo horns alternating azure and or
Origin: Germany
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