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Dr. Goodword, of course, knows everything; however, he sometimes forgets (we all do). He forgets now the origin of name of the city of Oppenheim, Germany. Heim is "home" but does anyone know where the Oppen might have come from?

Send me an email if you do. I need it for an upcoming Good Word for next week.

I am guessing that the Oppen comes from somebody's name; long ago. I tried a few of the translation engines and oppen only figures as an interior group of letters, if you will; never as a word on its own.

The official Oppenheim website is only in German, so I couldn't research the origin of the name there.

I did find a drop-down box (and a link on the left side of the page) for the English Pages

There's no info on the origins there, but there is this:

For more information call:


Tourist-Information - Cityhall
Merianstr. 2
55276 Oppenheim
Phone: +49 6133 49 09 14 / -15
Email: info@stadt-oppenheim.de

Perhaps Doc can send an EMail looking for the answer.

Dr. Goodword, of course, knows everything; however, he sometimes forgets (we all do). He forgets now the origin of name of the city of Oppenheim, Germany. Heim is "home" but does anyone know where the Oppen might have come from?

Send me an email if you do. I need it for an upcoming Good Word for next week.

OK. Apparently, the town was founded in the early 6th Century, probably on an earlier Roman settlement, by a Frankish nobleman named Obbe. The original name was thus "obbenheim" or "Obbe's dwellingplace". This then became "Oppenheim" through the usual corruption/confusion of similar bilabial plosives.

See here for the whole romping tale in German. Actually, very gripping stuff.

-- PW

Thanks PW. Nice to know that my guess was on the mark. (Or were they using thalers back then? )

Palewrite, that is exactly what I needed. Thanks for the search. I couldn't find it.