This map shows where the concentration of Christman's are today and the pattern clearly shows the origin of this name in the state Rheinland-Pfalz (and may be also in the state Saarland). The higher percentages in the neighboring areas are clearly migration patterns as Rheinland-Pfalz was over centuries a typical rural emigration area, and the neighboring areas of category C include typical immigration areas like northern Baden (=district Karlsruhe) and the Frankfurt area (which is part of the district Darmstadt). Saarland as a former coal mining area is difficult to assess. Most of the category B areas can be explained easily as typical migration patterns, either through the argumentation on distance, or by argumentation through especially attractive areas which served as destinations for people in search for work since centuries (large cities like Berlin and Hamburg) or since recent times (like Oberbayern with Munich).
Nevertheless, there are some regions which can't be explained so easily: especially the southern part of Lower Saxony (district Hanover and Braunschweig) and especially the Saxon district Dresden, which is situated between districts with almost no occurrences of the surname Christman.
The Christman county map of Rheinland-Pfalz shows that the surname originated only in parts of this state. Clearly leading are the county Kaiserslautern and the city Kaiserslautern, followed by the adjacent county Kusel. The high frequencies of Christman in at least all category A and B counties show that the surname originates throughout the southwestern part of Rheinland-Pfalz (it is almost exactly the western part of the historic Palatine area). |
