All documentation regarding the spelling of our last name, should start from Hosenfeld, Germany. Our family name was Hillenbrand. All of our distant German cousins are still spelling the name with an "en" in the middle. Franz Hillenbrand spelled his name with an "en" in the middle from the very beginning. His father's name was Nicholas Hillenbrand. The meaning of Hillenbrand is literally translated as "sword of fire". Hill is a German corruption of "Hild" which means battle or sword. Brand is German for fire.
So how did it become Hillanbrand? This is only my conjecture. When one would look at Franz Hillenbrand's early handwriting, the Old German script is noticeable. The script is a little different than today's script. Franz's "en" in the middle, could have been mistaken for an "an" in the middle. To make matters worse, if upon examination at Fell's Point in Baltimore Harbor, to ask a spelling of his name would be definitively deceptive.
If one would ask Franz to spell his name, phonetically, the "en" in the middle would sound like "an" by the German alphabet. The German vowels "a,e,i,o and u" sound like "ah, ay, ee, oh and ewl". But this is only my hypothesis of how we went from Hillenbrand to Hillanbrand. Of course others make aberrations like Hildebrand, Hilldenbrand, etc...
But you can call me Bill. It's much easier.
