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There
are a lot of half-baked theories about the name’s origin,
some I’ve actually looked at closely since they initially
seemed to have some merit. Here are a few:
Biel
Dubiel, despite appearances, is not related to the –biel
root in Polish. Biel generally refers to bialy,
meaning white in one form or another. It can also refer to a
swamp. There is no linguistic connection between the two.
There
is no Polish du- prefix that would make sense of the
du + biel.
Swiss Huguenots
There
is a canton in Switzerland named Biel. That fact can inflame
all sorts of genealogical speculation. Well, try this:
Switzerland was in the thick of the Protestant Reformation.
Let us suppose that some Swiss people from the canton Biel
decided to seek their freedom (either as Catholics or
Protestants) in either Poland or Germany. Well, somehow they
all claimed the surname Dubiel. Problem: Why would they add
du to Biel if they were going to either Germany or
Poland? And no one seems to seriously claim this story as
their history.
French or Belgian
As
far as I know there is no case to be made for the claim that
the name was originally French (or Belgian) and people
bearing this name immigrated to either Poland or Germany.
And no, they weren’t disgruntled Napoleonic soldiers who
settled in Poland.
Try
going to France and passing off Dubiel as a French name.
There are no Dubiels in any French telephone book without
giveaway first names that are either noticeably Polish or
German (Zygmunt or Helmut for example).
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