Hapsburg/Habsburg

[rockygirl]

Which is it? Does anyone know when you use one vs. the other?

[SGM]

We have always used them interchangeably here. Either is perfectly acceptable. I come across both of them frequently. But I find Hapsburg easier to say

[Susan]

The German would be Habsburg. The New York Times uses Hapsburg which appears to be the Anglicized version. Last year the eldest son of the last Austrian emperor died. The official website for his funeral used Habsburg in both the German and English version.
http://www.ottovonhabsburg.org/index.asp?lang=de
http://www.ottovonhabsburg.org/content.asp?lang=en

[DanielAWillis]

My very first book was a genealogy of the Habsburg family, and I have been in regular correspondence with several of the family members since. None of the present family members use the Hapsburg spelling. It seems to have been a British misspelling made back in the Tudor period which has kind of stuck.

For the purposes of Histoical Fiction, I would opnly use Hapsburg if I were writing about the Tudors and referring to Philip of Spain and his family. But otherwise I would use Habsburg.

Since the 1700's, from the time of the reign of Maria Theresa, the family is technically Habsburg-Lorraine (Habsburg-Lothringen in German). The spanish and italian branches of the family adopted variant spellings for those countries: Habsburgo-Lorena (Spain) and Absburgo-Lorena (Italy).

Hope this helps!

[MLE (Emily Cotton)]

In my Spanish research, the sixteenth-century Spanish documents always use the 'p' spelling. I think it would not have pronounced well in Castilian with a b. So it depends on whether you are referring to the Spanish Hapsburgs descended from HRE Charles V (Carlos I of Spain) or the Austrian Habsburgs descended from his brother HRE Ferdinand II.

Paradoxically, Charles was born and raised in Flanders and only spoke Spanish in later life, whereas Ferdinand was born and raised in Spain and didn't learn German until he was an adult.

[rockygirl]

Thanks everyone!