John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

"John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" is a traditional children's song of obscure origin. Its lyrics are close variations of:

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
His name is my name, too.
Whenever we go out
The people always shout,
"There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!"
a na na na na na na. (Or other nonlexical vocables)

The mock German name celebrated in the song suggests that young English speaking children still find longer northern-European names to be inherently funny words; compare the Blinkenlights faxlore in which English words are deformed to form a mock German warning text. The surname Schmidt and the surname suffix -heimer are of Germanic origin. Schmidt is one of the most common last names in German heritage. Also, the given name of "Johann" was often given to boys with a secondary given name; when this occurred the secondary given name was often the name one was called by. In the song the English "John" is substituted for the traditional German "Johann". Thus, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is not an unrealistic German name.

While the origins of the song are most definitely obscure, some evidence places its roots with vaudeville and theatre acts of the late 19th century and early 20th century popular in immigrant communities. Some vaudeville acts during the era, such as the work of Joe Weber and Lew Fields, often gave voice to shared frustrations of German-American immigrants and heavily leaned on malapropisms and difficulties with the English language as a vehicle for its humor. Further, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt shares many characteristics with "My Name is Jan Jansen" a song that can trace its origin to Swedish vaudeville in the late 19th century.

The song can conceivably be sung in an infinite loop, like "The Song That Never Ends", "My Name is Jan Jansen", "Michael Finnegan" or "High Hopes."

External links

• Music and lyrics on www.manythings.org