Baby Name: Wilhelm

In the 1910s, the uncommon name Eitel surfaced in the U.S. baby name data for three years in a row:

• 1918: unlisted
• 1917: 6 baby boys named Eitel
• 1916: 7 baby boys named Eitel
• 1915: 6 baby boys named Eitel [debut]
• 1914: unlisted

The earliest decades of the Social Security Administration’s data tend to under-count actual usage but, in this case, the numbers from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) look remarkably similar:

• 1918: 3 people named Eitel
• 1917: 6 people named Eitel
• 1916: 5 people named Eitel
• 1915: 7 people named Eitel
• 1914: 3 people named Eitel

Most of the Eitels born in the U.S during this time period had German surnames (e.g., Boettcher, Steuer, Gelhaus).

So, what was the influence?

Well, the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had a son named Eitel. But this particular son wasn’t the crown prince, and he didn’t play a prominent role in World War I.

A German ship named after this son, however, was mentioned in the U.S. newspapers regularly during the war years.

The SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich sank 11 vessels in the Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans over the course of 3 months (from December of 1914 to February of 1915). Significantly, one of those vessels was the William P. Frye — the first U.S. ship to be sunk during World War I.

In early March, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich — now low on supplies, and in need of repairs — headed for the then-neutral United States. It sailed into Newport News harbor in Virginia on March 10.

After several weeks, the ship was ordered to leave. But the ship’s captain, well aware that Allied vessels were lying in wait outside U.S. waters, chose to ignore the order.

So, on April 9, the ship was interned and moved (along with another interned German sea raider, the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm) to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia.

At first, the crew and officers of the two ships moved about freely in Portsmouth. The men, numbering roughly 1,000, were welcomed by the community:

In the afternoon they go to Virginia Beach, Ocean View and other nearby resorts. They smoke good cigars, eat the best, and appear to have plenty of money. […] The men have been taken into the homes of a number of citizens and entertained, and special services have been held for them in Protestant churches. They are made to feel at home.

But in October, after several incidents, their movements were restricted to their ships and a small section of land, for exercise.

On that land, the sailors did more than stretch their legs — they began building a miniature German village using scrap materials in the shipyard. Their village, dubbed “Eitel Wilhelm” (from the names of both ships), eventually featured about 50 buildings, most of which were small homes with brightly painted exteriors and picket fences.

Many of them have gardens, with cabbages, onions, corn, lettuce, and beets flourishing. Others have miniature chicken farms attached, and geese, ducks, and rabbits are also raised.

Eitel Wilhelm also featured replicas of other buildings, including a church, a windmill, a telegraph office, a police station, a mayor’s office, a gymnasium, and a working bakery that produced “authentic cakes and pastries.”

The German village became a tourist attraction, welcoming “thousands of visitors from the local community.” The sailors donated proceeds from the entry fee (10¢) and from the sales of various items (e.g., baked goods, postcards, hand-crafted toys) to the German Red Cross.

In August of the following year, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Naval Act of 1916, which called for enlarging the U.S. Navy. Officials at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard would need “to find space for […] new shops and dry docks” — meaning that the internees (and their village) would have to be relocated.

So the sailors disassembled Eitel Wilhelm, boarded their two ships, and departed for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Upon arriving on October 1, they re-erected their village, and it became a tourist attraction once again — but only for a matter of months.

In March of 1917, a couple of weeks before the U.S. entered World War I, the German sailors were transported by train to internment camps in the state of Georgia.

When the U.S. officially declared war on Imperial Germany in early April, the internees became prisoners of war, and the SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich and SS Kronprinz Wilhelm were seized by U.S. Customs officials (then transferred to the U.S. Navy).

I don’t know what became of the village of Eitel Wilhelm.

But I do know that the personal name Eitel (which has several possible etymologies) is rarely used in Germany these days, as it happens to coincide with the German adjective eitel, meaning “vain.”

What are your thoughts on the name Eitel?

P.S. Did you know that hundreds of babies were named after the ill-fated RMS Lusitania in 1915?

Sources:

• SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich – Wikipedia
• “Eitel Given 24 Hours.” Washington Post 5 Apr. 1915: 1.
• “Interned Germans Are Enjoying Life at Norfolk.” Jasper Weekly Courier 2 Jul. 1915: 7.
• “The German Village at Portsmouth, VA.” Army and Navy Register, vol. LX, no. 1883, 1916, p. 225.
• “A German Village on American Soil.” Popular Science Monthly, vol. 90 (January-June, 1917), pp. 424-425.
• “German Sailors Started for the Southern Camps.” Evening Capital News 26 Mar. 1917: 1.
• Stilwell, Blake. “German Commerce Raiders Built a Village in America’s Most Important Shipyard During WWI.” Military.com 8 Oct. 2021.
• Atkins, Keith and Pam Atkins. Postcard History Series: Portsmouth. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011.
• “The German Village at the Norfolk Navy Yard.” [PDF] Norfolk Historical Society Courier Fall 2007: 1-2.
• Hanks, Patrick. (Ed.) Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• SSDI (via FamilySearch.org)
• SSA

Images:

• Eitel Friedrich, German Ship Taken Over by U.S. (Library of Congress)
• Clipping from the Vilas County News (24 Mar. 1915)
• Clipping from Popular Science Monthly (January-June, 1917)
• Clipping from the New York Tribune (17 Dec. 1916)