I have speculated elsewhere on the Hasselbacher Family Website about how we got our name. I think we continue to get closer to having a satisfactory answer to this question. Once we learned that we came from Gresten, Austria, an obvious geographic possibility presented itself. The farms on which the late 16th and early 17th century Hasselbachers lived were in or near the headwaters of the Haselbach, and in the upper reaches of the Haselgraben carved out by that brook. Indeed, there was and still exists a farm in exactly that area named Haselbach. Because there was a precedent elsewhere in Europe that when last names were given out some people took the name of the farm on which they lived, it seems very reasonable to assume that this occurred for our family in Gresten.
I recently found a document at the GFF in Nürnberg that puts this assumption on a more scholarly basis. The 20th Century person with the best understanding of the names and places of old Gresten came to the same conclusion. Take a look at the document and additional discussion.
Peter Hasselbacher, Oct 16, 2009