Bielefeld

English

Etymology

Borrowed from German Bielefeld.

Proper noun

Bielefeld (countable and uncountable, plural Bielefelds)

1. A city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
2. A habitational surname from German.

Translations

a city in Germany

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 比勒費爾德／比勒费尔德 (zh) (Bǐlèfèi'ěrdé)

• German: Bielefeld (de) n
• Greek: Μπίλεφελντ (el) n (Bílefelnt)
• Low German:

  German Low German: Builefeld (nds) n

• Russian: Би́лефельд (ru) m (Bílefɛlʹd)

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Bielefeld is the 38332^nd most common surname in the United States, belonging to 578 individuals. Bielefeld is most common among White (95.67%) individuals.

Further reading

• Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Bielefeld”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 1, New York City: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 157.

German

Etymology

Unknown. There has been published a multitude about the etymology and it depends on whether early occurrences of resembling toponyms refer to this location, the oldest a Bylanuelde farmland conveyed to Corvey in the mid 9th century, next a Biliuelde in the Vita Meinwerci from the 1160s relating occurrences between 1015 and 1036, then a 12th century Bylivelt; only in the 13th century the name of the town occurs clearly and oftener, following which the foundation year is conventionally reckoned the year 1214. A recent overview of the theories is given by Meineke 2013. The areal extent of the city to which the term refers derives from incorporations in 1900, 1907, 1930, and 1973.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈbiːləfɛlt]

• audio

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• Audio

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Proper noun

Bielefeld n (proper noun, genitive Bielefelds or (optionally with an article) Bielefeld)

1. An independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Declension

Declension of Bielefeld [sg-only, neuter, toponym]

	singular
	def.	noun
nominative	das	Bielefeld
genitive	des	Bielefelds, Bielefeld1
dative	dem	Bielefeld
accusative	das	Bielefeld

¹Optionally with an article.

Derived terms

• Bielefelder

References

• Meineke, Birgit (2013) Die Ortsnamen der Stadt Bielefeld (Westfälisches Ortsnamenbuch; 5)‎^[1], Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, →ISBN, pages 38–48
• Rath, Jochen (2014) “1214: Ersterwähnung Bielefelds als Stadt”, in Stadtarchiv Bielefeld‎^[2], archived from the original on 12 November 2020