My mother, who was born a Pennsylvania Hironimus, sent me the following text about the Hironimus family name. It was written by a Hironimus in 1976. I do not know the author, Leon Francis Hironimus, but I'm sure he would not mind me sharing this information. I took the liberty of turning some of the text into hyperlinks, and added some formatting, but have otherwise left it intact, as I found it.
The History of the Hironimus Name
About a hundred and forty years ago, or more, Jacob and Hannah Hironimus settled in the area that would take the name Weikert one day. This little town would locate in Union County, Pennsylvania. The Hironimus children would scatter across the United States from this tract of land that is believed to have been given Jacob as a grant from the country of France. We continue to search our beginnings even in 1976.
There is much history to the Hironimus name, and it can even be traced to the pre-Christian era. The Apocrypha, written just prior to the Roman period that dominated the Hebrew prior to and during the life of Christ, contains two books of Maccabees. The name Hieronvmus can be found in II Maccabees 12:2. The Apocrypha is not included with the Protestant Bible; however is included with the Roman Catholic Bible. During the early Christian period and after the death of Christ a man translated the Bible for the first time. He was later named a saint. He was named Saint Jerome. His correct name was Eusebius Hieronymus. The name seems to have followed the growth and fall of empires and cultures in the Western world. Variations of the name crop up in various places in the world throughout history, but have never varied so far that making a connection is impossible. Names found by this writer are: Hironimus, Hieronimus, Heironimus, and Hieronymous. Thus, the name comes to us from a period sometime within the four hundred years just prior to the Birth of Christ, through the St. Jerome period of about four hundred years after the death of Christ, through the Greek, Roman, and the German empires, and to the present American period. While the nation of the United States celebrates its bicentennial, we can look even further into our history. In my studies in history, I can find no other name that has been so consistent in spelling for so many years.
While this history is by no means complete, and in fact is saturated with assumptions, I believe that it is close enough to fact that we can take pride in the acknowledgement that ours is a name that has spanned the history of the world.
