Weil Der Stadt - Name

Name

The original settlement was named Vila, from the Latin villa, which meant "estate, manor" and in late antiquity came to mean "small town". This evolved into Weil. Later the suffix "die Stadt" (the town) was added to distinguish the town from villages of the same name, such as Weil im Dorf and Weil im Schönbuch. The current name is unusual in that it contains the German dative case (the word Stadt is feminine). It arose because the place of issue in official documents was usually given as "gegeben zu Weil, der Stadt" ("issued in Weil, the town"). The Roman origins of the city are immortalized in the coat-of-arms which feature the SPQR motto ("Senatus Populusque Romanus", i. e. Senate and People of Rome).