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How do I form a Genitive of Fritz, i. e. a word that indicates that something or someone belongs to him?

Following options come to mind and neither sounds English:

Fritz's friends

Fritzes friends

tchrist
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1 Answers1

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According to the following extract from M-W Learner's Dictionary, you should follow the style that is preferred by your employer, since there is no strict rule. It may either be Fritz’ friend or Fritz’s friend.

  • There is a lot of disagreement about the answer to this question. To form the possessive of a proper noun ending in an s or z sound, some people use apostrophe + s, as in Perez’s and Burns’s, and others prefer an apostrophe alone, as in Perez’ and Burns’s [sic].

  • The best advice I can give you is that if you are writing for a class, or if you work for a company or other institution, find out which style your teacher or manager prefers and use it. Otherwise, decide which style you like best and use it. However, be consistent – don’t use both styles in the same report, letter, memo, essay, or whatever you are writing.

  • One more thing: Since my name ends in –s (Mairs), I think about this question a lot. For a long time I thought there was only one correct answer, but I have since learned that that’s not true.

In the 2010 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, the editors reversed course.

  • Now Chicago calls for always adding the apostrophe + "s" regardless of spelling or pronunciation.
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    But Fritzes would never be right. – Lambie Aug 27 '16 at 13:57
  • Just because there is confusion doesn't make Fritz’ ever right. I don’t know what a frit might be, but only when you have more than one of them would even a frits’ possessive be right. I recommend against spreading the confusion. – tchrist Aug 27 '16 at 14:29
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    @tchist- who is confused? Fritz is a proper name. –  Aug 27 '16 at 14:35
  • It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proper name. This is a sound law not a spelling rule. – tchrist Aug 27 '16 at 14:39
  • @tchrist - and the name ends with s/z sound , that is what my answer refers to. –  Aug 27 '16 at 14:56
  • @tchrist - I disagree that I am propagating confusion, on the contrary the advice from the learner's dictionary is clear and clarifies OP doubts. Its content is really easy to understand. But we might move this poin my on Meta and see if I am overestimating users' capabilities. –  Aug 27 '16 at 15:29
  • The clue lies not in the spelling as such nor simply that there’s an “S/Z” sound but in that the final syllable has a only a single “S/Z” sound.

    In about 1968 my English teacher asked our class to read a story entitled ’ , raising this very question; why possessive “S” after the apostrophe?

    We learned to follow the sound and the syllables, not the letters. ’ might not be strictly wrong but the triple “S” would be clumsy.

    The question doesn’t arise with an otherwise similar name such as Jones or, yes, Mairs…

     – Robbie Goodwin Sep 06 '16 at 10:36