Dit Kibel before a forename in French genealogy – meaning?

I have come across a record where Hans Wilhelm becomes Hans, dit Kibelhans Wilhelm and is wife, Barbara, dite Kibelbarbel. Is there a particular meaning behind this? Someone else misconstrued Barbara’s (unknown) surname as Kibel or Kibelbarbel on this information.

I’m speechless after the last post.

It is correct that “dit” and “dite” denote nicknames. But unless I’ve been mistaught German and Dutch for the last 35 years, the “interpretation” above is beyond erroneous…it’s outright insulting. “Kibel” is a word for a barrel maker or cooper. It would mean that your Hans Wilhelm was also known as “the Cooper Hans”. Barbel was known as “the cooper’s Barbel”.

Dit is used extremely commonly between 1300-1820. It was Napoleon who did away with the practice. But the habit goes on without the use of “dit” itself. Think of “Jimmy the Greek”. In France and Brabant, he’d have been “Jacques dit le Grec”.

Remember that Alsace was as much German as it was French. They intertwined the two languages just the way Puerto Ricans do with Spanish and English to come up with “Spanglish”.

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