User-submitted Reference

An old Surname that has its roots in Slavic and lower Dutch. There is a region in Carinthia, Austria just outside of the Arriach called the Sauerwald. In lower Dutch it translates to the 'difficult forest' or in Yiddish it can mean the 'stormy woods' as the area is nestled at the base of the Alps in what was the Kingdom of Bavaria. During the evenings it is very active with thunderstorms throughout most of then year. In some dialects native to the area it can be translated to 'the enchanted forest'. The area in Austria is home to castles where much folklore emanated; such as 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Beauty and the Beast' , 'Hansel and Gretel' etc. The area is also close to where the first Christian church was built and is known to have been a highly fortified area during The Crusades as it was difficult to manoeuvre soldiers around in. It was also a place where it is believed St. George went with the Knights Templar to search for The holy Grail. The Sauer is a river that flows between Luxembourg and Germany. However, this may not be the only interpretation of the name as there is also a region in Former Prussia called the Sauerwalde, whose name is derived from the city of Passauer. In some literations it can stem from the old Germanic word for wild boar. There may be more information as to it's actual meaning or root origin located within the recently opened library of Klagenfurt, Austria. Historically there has always been a tie between the name and members of royalty as was the case between Anton Sauerwald and Princess Marie and the region was home to many seated on or close to the Holy Roman Empire.

The surname most prabably has it's origin in a region called 'Sauerland'

in Germany. It's region which partly belongs to the Land of Westphalia

(Nordrein-Westfalen) and Hesse (Hessen) today.

Concerning the origin of the name there are different theories.

I have another theory about this but the most important thing is that

I think those theories don't exclude each other. Because of different

pronounciation and writings of the name it got different meanings in

the flow of time. In modern German 'Sauerwald' (as Suerwald, etc.)

can be translated as 'Sour Woods or Forest'.

The proposed historical meanings in the different theories are all

different from this and older than 777.

In my view the surname Sauerwald was coind by the Roman-Catholic

Church after the Conquest of this rural mountaineous area, covered by

woods, by Charles the Great in the 8th century, after the battles of

777 and 778 in this area.

None of the theories about the origin of the name, including mine,

propose that the name has anything to do with 'sour'.