* The image shown on the Index page is a digital rendering of a German coat of arms belonging to an individual by the name of Licht.  "Licht" or "Leicht" are probable origins for the surname Light.  The author's immigrant ancestor's name was spelled both ways.  Johannes Licht settled in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania in the early 18th century from the Palatinate.  However, family history suggests the family was originally from Switzerland.  The coat of arms image was recently assumed to be Swiss by someone well traveled in the country.

No claim is made to arms, now or of the past, and all those included in these pages are for historical reference and entertainment.   I apologize to anyone taking the ancient or contemporary practice of heraldry so seriously as to be offended or prone to admonish the author for breach of protocol or lack of knowledge on the subject.  For definitive authority on the history and use of British Arms click here.

This coat of arms was created digitally for the author by James P. Wolf.  Check his site for some great links, and to order your own coat of arms.

James P. Wolf -- jawolf@earthlink.net
HERALDRY ON THE INTERNET
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LICHT

ARMS - Azure issuing from a terrace vert a tree sans leaves argent
CREST - A tree proper
ORIGIN - GERMANY

The associated coat of arms for this name LICHT are recorded in J.B. Rietstaps Armorial General. Illustrated by V & H.V. Rolland's. This monumental work took 23 years to complete and 85,000 coats of Arms are included in this work. This surname was a German metonymic occupational name for a chandler, originally derived from the German word LICHT (light). The name is also spelt LICHTENSTEIN, LICHTNER, LICHMAN, LIKHT, LICHTIGER and LICHTERMAN.
Many of the modern family names throughout Europe reflect the profession or occupation of their forbears in the Middle Ages and derive from the position held by their ancestors in the village, noble household or religious community in which they lived and worked. The addition of their profession to their birth name made it easier to identify individual tradesmen and craftsmen.
As generations passed and families moved around, so the original identifying names developed into the corrupted but simpler versions that we recognize today. The first hereditary surnames on German soil are found in the second half of the 12th century, slightly later than in England and France. However, it was not until the 16th century that they became stabilized. The practice of adopting hereditary surnames began in the southern areas of Germany, and gradually spread northwards during the Middle Ages. A notable member of this name was Martin Hinrich Carl LICHTENSTEIN, (1780 - 1857) German zoologist and naturalist, born in Hamburg. He traveled extensively in South Africa as a young man as physician to the Dutch governor of the Cape of Good Hope (1802-06). He was appointed first professor of zoology at the new Berlin University in 1810 and from 1815 was the first director of the Berlin Zoological Museum, which he developed into one of the finest in Europe.
Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse is named after him. Over the centuries, most people in Europe have accepted their surname as a fact of life, as irrevocable as an act of God. However much the individual may have liked or disliked the surname, they were stuck with it, and people rarely changed them by personal choice. A more common form of variation was in fact involuntary, when an official change was made, in other words, a clerical error.