Planck was born in 1858 in Kiel, Holstein, to Johann Julius Wilhelm Planck and his second wife, Emma Patzig. He was baptized with the name of "Karl Ernst Ludwig Marx Planck"; of his given names, "Marx" (a now obsolete variant of "Markus" or maybe simply an error for "Max", which is actually short for "Maximilian") was indicated as the "appellation name". However, by the age of ten he signed with the name "Max" and used this for the rest of his life.