Yoder - Origin of The Surname

Origin of The Surname

Joderhuebel -- German for "Yoder Hill"—is a natural fortress on the Emme River in the Swiss Canton of Berne. German researcher Karl Joder of Ludwigshafen am Rhein believes that the Yoder family was established in the region surrounding the hill before recorded history. The oldest known documentation of the Yoder family is a 1260 record of the birth of a Peter Joder in Joderhuebel. Thus, the first Yoders emerged between the start of Theodorus's reign near 381 and 1260 when the earliest records document the existence of a Yoder.

In about 1385, a Heini Joder moved to Steffisburg, Switzerland, which is in the southern part of the Emmental. Yoders lived in Steffisburg for approximately eleven generations before they joined the politically subversive Anabaptists. In 1531, records show that a Heini Joder was imprisoned at Basel for spreading Anabaptist doctrine.