We could trace back the name Genkel until the Middle ages. It's very likely that there is a connection between the surname Genkel and the river of the same name. It's hard to say whether the river got the name from it's inhabitants or the people from this river. Besides the spelling of the name did change multiple times, cf. chapter variations.
The river and the accompanying village Genkel were already mentioned in a document in 1047 AD *
. It's even possible that the village was existing already during the Carolingian era
* .
The first mention of persons named Genkel is from the year 1384 AD *.
It's in the context of the change of ownership of the village/estate Genkel, whose owners were Dideric and
Heydenric van Genkel.
Being contradictory to the geographic location of the river Genkel a German lexicon of names, the Deutsches Namenlexikon *, tells about an East German-Slavonic origin of the name. According to our research the name does not appear until the 17th century in North Germany, particularly in Mecklenburg. Even today you can find it there much more often than in other German regions.