Surname
Rheticus was born at Feldkirch, in present-day Austria. Both his parents, Georg Iserin and Thomasina de Porris, possessed considerable wealth, his father being the town physician. However, Georg abused the trust of many of his patients, stealing belongings and money from their homes. In 1528 he was convicted and executed for his crimes, and as a result his family was stripped of their surname. The family adopted the mothers maiden name de Porris. Later as a student in Wittenberg Georg Joachim adopted the toponym Rheticus, a form of the Latin name for his home region, Rhaetia, a Roman province that had included parts of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. In the matriculation list for the University of Leipzig his family name, de Porris, is translated into German as von Lauchen.
The crater Rhaeticus is named for him.
Read more about this topic: Georg Joachim Rheticus