How is Nicolas Copernicus name really spelled?

Answer 1

One problem that any genealogist comes across is that names -- indeed, just about all words -- were not spelled in a consistent manner until well into the 1800s. For example, there are six extant signatures of the man now called William Shakespeare, and there are five different ways the last name appears in this person's own hand!

Complicating matters is the fact that, at that time and place, last names were not well organized. It was not unusual for a people to go through their entire lives using only their "first" names, without any thought of having a family name. The "last" name of Nicolaus Copernicus, for example, comes not from his family but from the village in which he grew up. this village is spelled different ways.

And, as if things aren't complicated enough, Nicolaus' nationality is unclear. The area where he was born was, at the time, multi-national, with Germans and Poles about equal in number. Nicolaus did almost all of his writings in Latin (no surprise), but there exists some of his writings in German. This, however, is not definitive, as Nicolaus was fluent in several languages. He could have been a Pole who learned German or a German who learned Polish.

When Nicolaus (Latin spelling -- Nikolaus in German, Mikolaj in Polish) arrived at Padua for his studies, he signed his "family" name as Copernik. He later Latinized this to "Coppernicus," and, later still, to "Copernicus."

So, how is the name "really" spelled? Take your pick on what was his "real" name.