Brandenburg
A German surname taken from the place name Brandenburg, originally the name of a frontier mark or region.
The #3,691 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 32,081 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Brandenburg is a surname formed from the German place name Brandenburg, best known today as the historical region and city in northeastern Germany. The name of the place is usually explained as referring to a fortified or boundary region; the first element is commonly connected with a word for a border or burning, though the exact early form is debated in older scholarship. As a surname, it would have been used for someone who came from that place or was otherwise identified with it.
History
The surname is most likely an adoptive locational name, meaning “from Brandenburg.” Because Brandenburg was an important political and territorial name in German history, the surname could also arise independently in different families without a single shared ancestor. In English-language records it appears chiefly among descendants of German immigrants and their families.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Brandenburg was once the name of the powerful Margraviate of Brandenburg, a core territory in the rise of Prussia.
From the historical record
“surnames compounded irith Bjcirn, indicate a deriva- tion from him. He gave his name to Albert the Bear, Margrave of Brandenburg, who flourished early in the XII. cent. At Rome, he produced the Orsiiii, in France, St. Ursus, and in Britain, St. Ursula, who is said to have headed the 11,000 virgins in achieving the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom