The Staffelsee is a 4.6 km long and 3.7 km wide lake in the Ammer-Loisach hill country in the southernmost district of Upper Bavaria, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district. It is almost eight square kilometers in size and has a depth of almost 40 meters.
The Toteissee, whose basin was formed by the Loisach Glacier, was created in the Würm Ice Age. Because of its protected location between the molasse ribs of the Murnauer Mulde, the lake is only shallowly dug out. The base of the lake, whose water level was around ten meters higher than today at the end of the Würm Ice Age, has many ice-polished conglomerate islands from the Upper Oligocene (so-called Wörth conglomerate).
In the so-called Staffelsee inventory there is a report of a church property called “Staphinseie”. “Stafnensis” can be found as a Latinized form. It is not sufficiently clear whether these sites actually point to Lake Staffelsee.
But there is also a certain similarity to the Bavarian short forms Steffl or Stefferl for the first name Stefan or Stephan. The abbreviations Stoffl or Stofferl for Christoph also come into consideration. Other derivations connect the numerous shoals with the term “step” in the sense of stairs and the name (easel/easel is a dialect expression with this meaning in southern Germany).