I believe that what's rare is a -son ending.
Hans Bahlow, trans. by Edda Gentry, Dictionary of German Names, is nicely accessable to English speakers. Bahlow did a lot of onomastic books, but (1) all the rest are solely in German, so far as I've heard and (2) this is more general than his works on Silesia.
His introduction, pp. xiii-xxii, discusses the origins of family names in various regions.
Example: Ulrich Adelgei{ss}: an unmarked use of an old Germanic personal name (Charlemagne's brother in law).
Example: for a Romance-language-derived case, he mentions Johannes, p. 278, has enough different examples to be worth diving in.
Numerous sh.fs. [short forms?] show that Johannes [John] was the most frequent Christian (baptismal) name at the end of the Middle Ages ... The [family name] mostly appears as patr[onymic]: Low Ger. Johannsen, Johanning, Lower Rhine Joh{a:}ntges. Hence [prefix name before]Johann ...
More examples with contractions: Jahn, Jansen, Jensen, Jantzen, Hans, Hansen, Hansel(mann), Hensel, Hensler, Hensgen, Henne, Henning, Henneke, H{a:}hnel, H{a:}ndel, Henle, H{a:}nsich, J{a:}nsich, Hanke, Jahnke, Hentschel, Jeschke, Jachmann, Hannemann, Jenner Jonen. Below that on the page: Johler, Sohnke, Joontjes.
"Hinz und Kunz" has the same basic meaning as "Tom, Dick, and Harry": short of Heinrich and Konrad. Fritz and Fritsch from Friedrich. Ruof from Rudolf (Jakob Ruof wrote William Tell).
"Ludolfingers, the ruling family of Lower Saxony, derived their name from the earlier and ever-popular Ludolf, whose name led also to such derivations as L{u:}der, L{u:}deke, and L{u:}demann; a similar connection can be drawn between Otto and the famous dynasty of the Ottonians." He mentions Hildebrand; its entry on p. 247 mentions patronymic forms Hillebrenner, Hillebrand, Hillerbrand, and see also Brandt, Brendeke, Hild, Hiltl, Hildemann, Hille, Hillmann.
He talks about different pet names (diminutives): different regions had different ones. Upper German might use -ozp, -ilo, -izilo. Alemannic -i (L{u:}thi). Swabian -le and -len. Bavarian and Austrian -l. There could be -z (Heinz), and combined -l and -z alzo.
As implied above, multisyllable names might reduce to just one: Nicholas led to both Nickel and Klaus.
And Slavic-influenced regions could use -isch, -usch, -ke (-ek), &c.
He cites, from the Thuringian-Franconian area, Bernhard -> Betz, Mechtfrid -> Meffert.
You could have vowel rounding in Franconia: Seibert -> Seubert. Westphalia had -ing. Lower Saxony and Frisia could just chop names, and also based names on genitive plurals (Bojunga).
"Holstein and especially Schleswig are known for patronymics ending in -sen." -- finally! -- "In the border area toward Denmark, those names constitute up to 90% of all family names" ... but you also get simple genitives in -s (J{u:}rgens).
Und so weiter. Finally on p. xix he starts getting into attributive names (deaf, left-handed), colors, ... P. xxiii et seq. gets into occupational names and locative names, but that's only 5 pages. Which doesn't tell you about frequency, just that there's not as much interesting variation.
So I think it's like in English, but probably more so: the patronymic surnames (or location-based surnames, for that matter) are there; you just don't notice them because you don't recognize the markers or etymology.
EDIT: I should clarify about diminutives (short forms) and name construction. German, like English, can use a given name as a surname without a marking. E.g., p. 210 under the name (s.n.) Hansch(ke) is "C.f. Hantsch (Hannus) Rycholff, Liegnitz 1367, Caspar Hantsch, G{o:}rlitz 1427". P. 239 s.n. Herder: "like the writer, poet and philosopher J. G. Herder ... it used to be a popular Frisian-Low German personal name, with the Low German sound change er: ar after 1300 also Harder (Harders) ... Herder Hokeman, Stralsund 1288..." P. 278 s.n. Jonas: "biblical name which became popular during the Reformation ... as a first name sometimes Jewish ... But Justus Jonas (Luther's friend) ..." P. 366 s.n. Micksch: "nickname Mikusch for Mikolaj, Slavic form of Nikolaus. Cf. ... Mikusch Schoppe, Nei{ss}e 1414, Niclas Mikisch, G{o:}rlitz 1490." Interesting: that last guy was Nicholas Nicholas.
I suspect that a diminutive form likely started in the first-name position, and it could later become a surname.