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Kathrin Dräger / Konrad Kunze: Der Deutsche Familiennamenatlas (DFA). Grundprobleme, Lösungsstrategien, Erfahrungen 

The Deutsche Familiennamenatlas (DFA, ‘The Atlas of German Family Names’) has been in production since 2005. Had the landline data from the Deutsche Telekom for the year 2005 not been secured at the last minute, this project would not have been possible today. Using a number of examples, the following should be demonstrated in this paper. First, while searching for mappable phenomena and topics worth mapping, many of our expectations were not met; however, at the same time, a myriad of completely unexpected phenomena and other onomastic issues came to light. Second, we will discuss which strategies were chosen in presenting the immense amount of material and in how far these strategies proved themselves in practice. Etymologically verified material is needed for such a project; however, many name etymologies have not yet been unambiguously resolved or they have not yet been resolved in accordance with the current state of research. In light of this dilemma, compromises had to be made. Fourth, how far diachronic documentation can be embedded into recent documentation of surname geography, at least exemplarily, will be discussed.