A Catalogue of Persons Named in German Heroic Literature (700-1600): Including Named Animals and Objects and Ethnic Names

Heroic literature derives largely from traditional native sources, in which history and myth have been blended and plots altered and expanded during centuries of oral transmission. The relative stability of role-names in this literature is the basis for the arrangement of this Catalogue, in which information about the characters in German heroic literature between c. 700 and 1600, as it has been preserved in manuscripts and prints, is set out under their names in alphabetical order. Additional information is also given from the English and Scandinavian analogues as well as from other European literatures.
This Catalogue is an onomasticon only in a restricted sense, for the names contained in it were used for a specific genre of literature. Reference is made to the records of these names in Continental Germanic and Old English contained in the standard onomastica, some of which are idiosyncratic or in need of revision; nevertheless, they remain the chief source of information about the occurrence and distribution of personal names, which can be supplemented or modified by the monographs on the subject appearing from time to time. ("Introduction")