Frequently asked questions about Aad Fock

Aad Fock is a hereditary honorary name from Fockbek on the Eider. Since it was bestowed in 1667, it has stood for enterprise, wit and loyalty. The village assembly of farmers gave it to the Eider boatman and eel merchant Adriaan Focke. “Aad” comes from Adriaan, while “Fock” means a foresail and also recalls Fockbek.

No. Aad Fock is not a title of nobility and confers no rank. In the family story, the village assembly of farmers in Fockbek bestowed it as an honorary name. It is therefore always written Aad Fock and never “von Fock”.

The tradition traces the name to Fockbek on the Eider. During eel night in 1666, Adriaan Focke was sailing down the Eider, westwards and homeward from Rendsburg market, while following the migrating eels. He grounded at Grönsfurt after his mainsail tore and the foresail alone kept his boat under control. He then stayed in Fockbek. In the following spring, the village assembly of farmers joined the short form Aad to the foresail that had brought him there.

In “Aad”, the A is long, much like the vowel in the English word “father”; the O in “Fock” is short. In standard German, the name is written as two words. In Low German village usage it is “de Aadfock” (the Aadfock).

The honorary name stands for enterprise, wit and loyalty. Enterprise means beginning the work under one’s own initiative. Wit allows people to laugh together rather than at one another. Loyalty means remaining faithful to people, places and promises even when staying costs more.

Yes. Hagen Aad Fock is the present bearer of the name and follows the tradition according to which Adriaan Focke was his ancestor. This chronicle does not set out a family tree.

Fockbek is the setting of the origin story and the place where the village assembly of farmers bestowed the honorary name in 1667. The local tale of the Aalversupen (the drowning of the eel) also forms part of the beginning. When the condemned eel swam away, Adriaan laughed at the situation and said, “De Aal swemmt wieder. De geiht blots na Huus.” (The eel swims on. It is only going home.) Although the eels continued towards the sea, he stayed in Fockbek and built an eel trade there.

It means: “The eel swims on.” The fuller sense is that what was meant to be drowned lives. Adriaan Focke spoke the Low German words at the Fockbeker See in 1666; they now appear on the scroll of the coat of arms.

The chronicle joins facts from local history to a clearly identified family myth. Fockbek, the Eider, the Aalversupen tale and the canals are real. The Aad Fock family with its historical bearers of the name, and the Fockbeker Blätter, the Fockbek Papers, belong to the literary story.

It begins with Adriaan’s wish to discover where eels are born. The tradition says that he followed migrating eels down the Eider but chose to stay at Fockbek where they passed. Research later traced European eels to the Sargasso Sea, some 6,000 kilometres away, yet no one has seen them spawn there. The mystery also asks why Adriaan stopped following them and how he could have known that they came from far away.

“Se kaamt vun wiet her.” means “They come from far away.” They were Adriaan’s last words in 1698. The tradition connects them with the Sargasso Sea, where the smallest eel larvae were found in 1922 and to which adult eels were first tracked directly in 2022. Adriaan did not explain what he meant.

Eel night is the first dark, stormy night of autumn, when the eels migrate. It recalls Adriaan’s voyage down the Eider in the autumn of 1666 and his later custom of watching the eels from Grönsfurt. On eel night, the bearer of the name goes to a body of water, preferably the Eider, and says the motto. Whoever accepts the name observes the custom for the first time on the next eel night.