If one puts the name Stoerkel onto various websites which provide a German-wide distribution of names, the picture shown below is a typical result. The observed frequency has its maximum in the Rhine-Main area.

From my perspective, that does not mean that "we" live here since ever and that there would be no other families with any relation to our family but living in different regions of Germany. The distribution here simply shows that the development towards our name "Stoerkel" might have a regional background. As it is obvious by reading the church books of Erbstadt, our family name used to be slightly different before. Potentially, also the way the respective priests had written the names of their community members in earlier centuries may play a role.

Now it would be interesting to know the original family name which has developed to Sterkell and then to Stoerkel and which other family names which are known today have the same origin. But as I am also not an expert in language development, I will refrain from speculating here.

But something which would be definitely interesting to know is the question if and how the Erbstadt-Storkels are related to the Stoerkels from the Taunus area around Neu-Anspach and Usingen. I am particularly curious because I have a very nice colleague, named Stoerkel, who has his roots there. So far, our common efforts did not result in any connection. A reason for this is the fact that most church books started just in the 17th century. The first ancestor of my friend as listed in the church books of Eschbach/Taunus is born in the year 1665. If there would be a connection, it must be from the time before. However, it is interesting and worth to mention that also there the names Johann and Peter appear very frequently over there.

Another interesting fact: on several ancestry sites on the internet there are family trees of Americans with names that are close to our family name. Sometimes there are references to the area or town of origin of the earliest immigrants  which are not in accordance to today´s distribution.