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The characters of Sleepy Hollow were mainly suppose to be people descended from Dutch Calvinists settlers. I believe in the early 18th century (when the story is set) many of those areas of New York were still Dutch speaking, hence the usage of terms such as Herr etc. Dutch is rather similar to German, and there is the Dutch male name of Bram which was originally a diminutive form of Abraham. http://www.sleepyhollowny.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=63 This is the official
website of Sleepy Hollow, it goes into the village's Dutch History.
Now, I am assuming in Sleepy Hollow's case that perhaps Washington Irving heard the name Bram and phonetically wrote it as Brom for one of his characters.

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http://legitnames.blogspot.com

This message was edited 6/8/2009, 11:26 AM