What does the suffix 'thal' mean in German names such as Rosenthal and Hessenthal?

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What does the suffix 'thal' mean in German names such as Rosenthal and Hessenthal?

Question #85659. Asked by satguru.

lanfranco

Answer has 4 votes

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lanfranco

20 year member
4170 replies avatar

Answer has 4 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.

"Thal" seems to be an older form of "Tal," which means "valley" in German.

This is an interesting site:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=705405

Sep 11 2007, 7:42 AM

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Answer 1

Flem-ish
Answer has 3 votes

Flem-ish
24 year member
894 replies avatar

Answer has 3 votes.

"Dollar" derives from "Thaler" as in "Joachimsthaler".

http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/dollar.html

Sep 11 2007, 8:53 AM

Answer 2

Funnily enough the second I posted this I thought 'Thal-Dale' which clearly is what you found. The odd thing was before I come here I run every word through an old German-English dictionary and this wasn't even in it. Very odd, unless I needed to look up Tal, which I will next time I can use it (it's not my dictionary).