Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann

Born in Danzig in 1822 and later active in Dresden, he built a remarkably wide-ranging career as a historian, linguist, librarian, and scholar of names. He studied in Berlin and Halle, worked as a teacher and librarian, and eventually became director of the Royal Public Library in Dresden, now the Saxon State and University Library.

He is especially known for helping establish onomastics—the study of names—in Germany. His major reference work Altdeutsches Namenbuch became an important resource for German name studies, and his research also touched folk etymology and historical linguistics.

Beyond German philology, he made influential contributions to early Maya studies. His work on the Dresden Codex and Maya calendrical systems helped later scholars better understand how Maya dates and timekeeping worked, giving him an unusual place in both European linguistic scholarship and the history of Mesoamerican studies.