The person's name has always been given special meaning. The ancients believed that a name is the path to the soul. Knowing the true name given upon entering adulthood, it was possible to put the evil eye on a person, bewitch him, and force him to serve his will. Therefore, everyone had two names - the true one was kept secret, and the person was called by the second, colloquial one, which was more like a nickname and was given at birth.
Names in Rus'
This is what our ancestors called their children before the introduction of Christianity in Rus'. Some names were similar to nicknames: Lame, Lapot, Voropai (robber), others reflected the attitude towards the born child: Zhdan, Nezhdan, or the order of their birth: Pervusha, Tretyak, Odinets (the only one). Sometimes parents specifically used words that seemed completely inappropriate for this as names: Grief, Get sick. It was believed that such a name would ward off illness and the evil eye from children. Echoes of nicknames are preserved in Russian surnames: Zaitsev, Goryaev, Nezhdanov, etc.
These names became a thing of the past with the baptism of Rus'. Year after year, Christian preacher priests walked through cities and villages, talking about Christ and his fight against evil. Pagan gods, to whom newborns had previously been dedicated, were equated with the forces of evil. Parents were taught that by calling a child Wolf or Birch, they were giving their souls to the devil, which means they were depriving them of a chance for Salvation after death. Instead, they proposed giving pagan children Orthodox names that came from Byzantium. Registration of newborn children was carried out only by the church, and names were given according to monthly calendars (saints), in which for each day of each month the names of saints revered by the Russian Orthodox Church. A person who received the name of a saint gained not only his patronage, but also a blessed proximity to him: “By name - and “life.”
New names
This order continued for almost a thousand years until it was interrupted by the October Revolution. The Soviet government separated church and state, and the calendar was forgotten. Now newborns were registered by registry offices, and parents had the opportunity to turn on their imagination to full capacity. On a wave of sympathy for the revolutionary changes, Oktyabrin and Traktorin, Vladlenov and Markslenov, as well as Revolutions and even Electrifications began to be taken away from maternity hospitals.
Names in general have always been subject to fashion. When Zhukovsky took the pseudonym Svetlan (this name was invented by his colleague in the poetry workshop A. Kh. Vostokov), girls with that name began to appear in Russia. During the era of Europeanization, European (Roman Catholic and Protestant) names came to Russian soil: Herman, Zhanna, Albert, Marat, etc. A little later, eastern names began to appear more and more: Zemfira, Timur, Ruslan, Zarema. In the middle of the 20th century, Slavic and Old Russian names began to appear again: Lada, Lyudmila, Vladimir, as well as Scandinavian ones: Olga (from Helga), Igor (from Ingvar).
Origin of popular names
If we analyze the names that are in use today, we will see that they are all of different origins. Most common names have ancient Greek or Hebrew roots. For example, the most familiar name to Russian ears, Ivan, actually came from the ancient Jewish John, and the name Maria has the same origin. The name Cyril came from ancient Persia, Eugene - from ancient Rome and so on. Since they appeared in the Russian language a long time ago, they have become familiar to everyone.
Name meaning
Times pass, the fashion for names changes, Slavic names become more or less in demand, but we still attach great importance to the name. And this is not surprising. From birth, we compare ourselves to other people, especially those who have or have had the same name. Willy-nilly, we adopt certain traits, so we can say that a name influences a person’s destiny. It can help and inspire if it suits its bearer, but it can also press down if it turns out to be completely unsuitable. Therefore, when choosing a name for your baby, do it with all responsibility. Think about how he will live with this name, whether his patronymic and surname go with it, and whether it is convenient to pronounce it. Often pretentious names are perceived by others as too aggressive; on the other hand, nine Sashas in one class is also too much. It is important that the name reflects your love for your child, supports him and helps him in life.
Russian names
Names, like everything else in the world, have their own history. They, like other words, are created by human imagination, flourish, die, disappearing from the language of the people who were their creator. The history of Russian names goes back to a very distant era and is closely connected with the history of the Russian people and their language.
About four thousand years ago, ancient tribes lived on the plains stretching between the Odra, Vistula and Dnieper rivers - the ancestors of the ancient Slavs. These tribes lived in a tribal system and spoke the same language, which scientists call Common Slavic.
When the process of unification of tribes began, the Slavs living in the East of Europe laid the foundation for the Russian nation. Their language began to differ somewhat from the language of other Slavs, although it did not lose its family ties with them and with the common Slavic language from which it originated.
The oldest monuments of Russian writing date back to the 10th – 11th centuries. From this time on, a reliable, scientifically based history of Russian names begins.
Ancient Russian names were unique characteristics of people. The name was given to a person as a sign by which one could distinguish him from a family or clan.
In some cases, a person was characterized by some external characteristic, in others - by moral qualities, by position in the tribe or family, in relation to him by parents and relatives, and sometimes by his occupation. The latter was possible because names were given not only in early childhood, as now, but also in adulthood. At the same time, the adult name often lived simultaneously with the child’s name.
Here are some ancient names-characteristics:
according to a person’s appearance: Small, White, Oblique, Pockmarked, Curly, Chernysh;
by human character trait: Kind, Clever, Proud, Quiet, Brave, Proud, Fool, Boyan;
by place in the family: First, Second, Drugan, Tretyak, Zhdan, Nechay, Menshak, Senior;
by profession: Kozhemyaka, Villager, Warrior, etc.
When you first encounter such a name, you might think that these are not names, but nicknames. After all, there was no difference between a name and a nickname in ancient Rus'. And each of these names can be documented.
In ancient handwritten book The "Elementary Russian Chronicle" mentions, for example, that the leader of the East Slavic tribe of the Drevlyans named Mal. What does this name mean? Nothing else except that its owner was not tall. The prince's name was a short but very expressive description of him. The name Mal seems funny to us, but a thousand years ago it never occurred to anyone to see this as some kind of encroachment on princely dignity, because characterization names were common and taken for granted.
The names Brave and Good were also found in ancient manuscripts. They speak of the high moral qualities of their bearers. The name Dobrynya (derived from the name Dobr) means “very kind”, “very good”. Zhdan means “the one who was expected.” In ancient Rus' this name was given to children whose birth was great joy for their parents. Now only the Zhdanov surname retains traces of this name at its core. The names First and Second arose in large families, where the number of children often exceeded a dozen. In such cases, it was difficult to select characteristic names. The name was chosen simply: he was the first to be born - get the name First or First; born second, you will be second or friend, etc. up to the Ninth and even the Tenth.
Such numeral names were found not only among Russians or Slavs, but also among other peoples of Europe. They were quite common among the ancient Romans: Quintus - the fifth, Sextus - the sixth, Septimius - the Seventh, Octavius - the Eighth, Nonnius - the Ninth, Decimus - the tenth, by the way, the name Nonna came into the Russian language, which means the Ninth. From the roots of ancient Russian nouns, the surnames Pervovy, Pervushin, Drugov, Tretyakov, Devyatovsky, Desyatov and the like were later formed.
The name Menshak (Menshik, Menshoy) was given to the youngest son, and the first-born in such a family received the name Elder. Probably these names were already given to adults, because... It is difficult to determine in advance which of the children will be the last. Of course, the grown-up names had a professional connotation: Selyanin, Kozhemyaka, Boyan.
The name Boyan is based on the root - fight, sign. Boyan is a fighter, a warrior. In ancient handwritten documents, the name Boyan is pronounced and written in the Moscow manner with a vowel a: Bayan. The re-vocalization of the name led to its rethinking: it began to be explained based on the basis of the verb “bayat”, i.e. speak - “talker”, “storyteller”, “songwriter”. This name was given to a famous musician-performer and singer in the ancient world. In honor of him, they named one of the people’s favorite instruments - Bayan.
The whole world seemed animate to our ancestors, all objects had properties similar to human ones, so the ancient Slavs began to use the names of birds, animals, plants and various objects as personal names: Wolf, Bear, Nightingale, Beetle, Eagle, Pike, Oak , Birch, etc.
The desire to be like this or that animal seems ridiculous to us. But ancient people thought differently: the wolf is not beautiful, but he is strong and resilient. And these properties are useful to humans. Therefore, in ancient Rus' it was not uncommon to meet a man with such a formidable animal name.
Subsequently, this name fell out of use among the ancient Slavs, but a derivative from it remained - this is the surname Volkov. But it still exists in many languages of the world, which is explained by the internationality of the very principle of using common nouns. So among the Serbs the name Wolf sounds like Vuk, in German it sounds like component names Wolfgang, Adolf, Rudolf. It was also found in ancient European languages: in Gothic - Ulf or Wulf, in Latin Lupus, from which, by the way, it came Russian name Loop, which is found in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “Puchna” - Loop Lupych Pereyarkov. The name Nightingale was given in ancient times talented singers. It is not difficult to guess that the Solovyov surname came from this name.
Also, the ancient Slavs had blind faith in mascot names, names with a trick.
Because Our ancestors were very afraid of “evil spirits”, evil words, the evil eye and other dangers that seemed to them everywhere. According to their ideas, people who were most in danger were those who were more honest, whose intelligent, positive traits were usually emphasized by their names-characteristics. For the purpose of deception evil people and evil spirits, caring parents deliberately gave their good children bad names. Boys who were smart and beautiful were deliberately called Fools and Freaks, honest and brave boys were called Scoundrels and Cowards, and those dear to the heart were called Nechayami.
Traces of such “preventative” names have survived to this day in the foundations modern surnames such as Nechaevs, Durakovs, etc.
What to name a newborn? This question worries many parents. In pre-revolutionary times, the issue of a name for a child was resolved simply. Registration of newborn children was carried out only by the church where the baptism ceremony took place. Thus, not a single child escaped baptism, even if his parents were unbelievers.
What names were given then? In the Russian Orthodox Church there were (and still are) special books - monthly books, or calendars. In the month's book, for each day of each month, the names of the saints who are honored by the church on that day are written down. Before the baptismal ceremony, the priest offered a choice of several names that were listed in the calendar for the child’s birthday. This usually ended the matter.
Why were there so many Ivans in Rus'? Yes, for the simple reason that the name Ivan (John) appears 170 times (!) in the complete calendar, that is, almost every other day.
True, sometimes the priest made concessions and, at the request of the parents, gave a different name, which was not listed in the calendar for that day. This, in fact, explains that sometimes a name that is rarely found in the calendar appears quite often in life. Thus, the Slavic names Vera, Nadezhda and Lyubov were often given to children in pre-revolutionary times, despite the fact that Vera appears in the calendar only twice a year, and Nadezhda and Lyubov only once each.
But, in any case, the child could only be given the name that was in the calendar. No “free thinking” was allowed here.
Parents found themselves in a different position after the Great October Revolution socialist revolution. Registration of newborns began to be carried out by civil registry offices (registry offices), and parents could now choose any name: old (former church), borrowed name (Polish, German, etc.) and, finally, could even invent a new name.
Taking advantage of the freedom to choose a name, parents sometimes gave their children strange, unusual names. About three thousand new and borrowed names are known, which, with rare exceptions, will never take root on Russian soil. Here are names such as Oak, Birch, Carnation, Lilac. Almost all elements of the Mendeleev system (Radium, Vanadium, Tungsten, Iridium, Ruthenium, etc.), minerals (Granite, Ruby) are represented. Personal names include geographical names (Altai, Himalaya, Kazbek, Ararat, Volga, Onega, Amur, Cairo, etc.) and all names of months, from January to December, mathematical terms and technical names (Median, Radian , Hypotenuse, Algebrina, Tractor, Turbine, Railcar, Diesel, Combine, etc.).
A lot of names were formed from revolutionary slogans, names of institutions, etc. For example, Ikki (Executive Committee of the Communist International), Roblen (born to be a Leninist), Remizan (world revolution began), Revvola (revolutionary wave), Revdit (revolutionary child ), Lorikarik (Lenin, October Revolution, industrialization, collectivization, electrification, radioification and communism), Loriex (Lenin, October Revolution, industrialization, electrification, collectivization, socialism).
There is no need to even talk about such dissonant names as Tsas (Central Pharmaceutical Warehouse), Glasp (Glavspirt), Raitiya (district printing house) and the like.
In the post-revolutionary period, the influx of foreign names increased. There are names borrowed from different nations: Robert, Romuald, Rudolph, Richard, Josephine, Edward, Eric, Jeanne, etc.
Names appear that consist of two or even several words: White Night, Artillery Academy, Hammer and Sickle, Jean-Paul-Marat. L.V. Uspensky in the article “They call Zovutka” gives the following female names: Great Worker (!) and Cherry Blossom in May.
Finally, there are also names - from the words read from the end: Ninel - Lenin, Avksoma - Moscow.
Getting carried away too much foreign names, parents forgot that these names often sound dissonant with the Russian patronymic and surname of the bearer of the name. For example: Harry Semenovich Popov, Diana Krivonogova, Robert Ovechkin, Red Alekseevich.
Sometimes “revolutionary” names fall into the same awkward combination, for example: Revolution Kuzminichna. Some parents like to give their daughters a diminutive form of their name instead of the full form. Sometimes in registry offices they write it down like this: Lyusya, Ira, Ina, Rita, Nata, etc. While the bearers of the name are still children, this sounds good. But Nata graduated from high school and became a teacher, Aga became a doctor, Rita became an engineer. And how ridiculous it will sound: teacher Nata Petrovna, famous surgeon Lena Romanovna, or even better: professor Lyusya Kondratievna Kondakova!
But the fate, perhaps, of most of these names is the same: the bearer of such a name grows up and raises the question of changing it.
It is impossible not to mention the so-called “fashion” for names. It seems even the most beautiful names lose their charm if they occur too often. Teacher S.N. Uvarova from the village of Korostovo, Ryazan region, writes that “out of 23 students who graduated from the seven-year school in 1955, there were 17 Nins! Over the past two years, newborn girls in the named village are called either Tanya or Nadya. Exceptions are rare." At different periods, male names Valery, Gennady, Igor, Gleb, Vsevolod, Vadim were very fashionable. And this is not only in the village. The same thing is written in newspapers in Leningrad and other cities.
Is there a need to blindly follow the example of others with such a wealth of Russian names?
I would like to warn parents about their desire to name their child something special. This leads to the appearance of pretentious names that are unusual for a Russian person and, as a rule, does not subsequently bring joy to their child. It is difficult to recommend names because the choice of name is determined by the taste of the parents. But first of all, old Russian names deserve attention, such as Peter, Alexander, Constantine, Ivan, Maria, etc. Although in the distant past these names were borrowed by us from the Greeks, they have existed on Russian soil for almost a thousand years and have long since become Russified and overgrown a large number of derivative forms.
In addition to the so-called canonical names, many old Russian and Slavic names have come into use among us. For example: Borimir, Borislav, Mstislav, Peresvet, Svetozar, Svyatoslav, Dobroslava, Miloslava, Vsemila, Lyubomir, etc.
Finally, some new names, successfully composed, have also caught on and can be recommended. This famous names Vladilen, Vladilena, Ninel and others.
Surnames
Surnames in the Russian nominal formula appeared quite late. Most of them came from patronymics (based on the baptismal or secular name of one of the ancestors), nicknames (based on the type of activity, place of origin, or some other characteristic of the ancestor) or other family names. The first people in the Russian lands to acquire surnames were citizens of Veliky Novgorod, who probably adopted this custom from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Then in the XIV-XV centuries. Moscow appanage princes and boyars acquired surnames. Until the end of the XVIII - mid-19th centuries, the majority of the population of central Russia did not have surnames. As a rule, Russian surnames were single and passed down only through the male line. In the middle of the 19th century, especially after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, surnames were formed for the majority of peasants. The process of acquiring surnames was basically completed only by the 30s of the 20th century.
For the first time, E.P. Karnovich turned to the study of surnames in Russia, who in the second half of the 19th century. compiled the "Dictionary of Old Russian names and surnames" (St. Petersburg, 1903). But only in the 1980s was the geographic environment of Slavic surnames analyzed for the first time in the posthumous major work of V. A. Nikonov “Geography of Surnames” (M., 1988). Based on a study of the funds of 52 archives, he collected the names of more than 3 million people of the Russian rural population, as well as from additional sources - more than 1 million people.
The geography of Russian surnames allows us to trace the movement of the population, “migration routes,” and the area of settlement. The origin of such surnames as Ryazantsev, Yaroslavtsev, Tambovtsev is obvious. Surnames ending in -y, -i (Chernykh, Kosykh, Sedykh, etc.) are, as a rule, absent in the Moscow region and are common in Siberia, the Urals, in the interfluve of the Northern Dvina and Sukhona rivers, in the Voronezh - Kursk "triangle" - Eagle. On the contrary, surnames with the suffix ending in -itin were mainly found near Moscow (Borovitinov, Bolkhovitinov) and a little further (Tveritinov).
V. A. Nikonov drew attention to the strict geographical location of the origin of Russian surnames (now mixed). He was the first to divide the European part of Russia according to the most common surnames (surnames-“champions” in the words of V. A. Nikonov), highlighting:
1) Ivanovia, which he associated with the former Novgorod and Pskov lands;
2) Smirnovia, located in the Upper Volga region, on the territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality;
3) Popovia, Russian North;
4) Kuznetsoviya, the territory of later (XVI-XVII centuries) Russian settlement to the south and east of Ivanovia and Smirnovia.
V. A. Nikonov also rightly noted some confusion between Popovia and Kuznetsovia. He compiled a map with four outlined arrays - based on the dominant surnames.
Using computer methods, it is possible, figuratively speaking, to “color the map” with a large number of colors, which was used by V. A. Nikonov. In this case, less “pure” but more accessible sources were used.
The main source was not scattered documents from rural registry offices and voter lists, but city telephone directories compiled at the same time, which Nikonov used as auxiliary material. The starting point for the calculations was a table containing the occurrence of one hundred and three of the most “popular” surnames in 516 cities in the USSR. The output table of pairwise correlations of surnames 103x103 was processed manually. Groups of surnames were identified according to a threshold value of the correlation coefficient so that the groups did not overlap (it turned out to be 0.40). As a result, the following groups of surnames were identified (surnames associated with the area by V. A. Nikonov are marked):
1) Vasiliev, Fedorov, Ivanov, Petrov, Nikolaev, Alekseev, Alexandrov, Yakovlev, Mikhailov, Semenov, Andreev, Grigoriev - tied to the Pskov-Novgorod lands;
2) Smirnov, Rumyantsev, Tikhomirov, Sokolov, Lebedev, Tsvetkov, Vinogradov, Belov, Soloviev, Belyaev, Kudryavtsev, Krylov, Orlov - on the territory of the former Vladimir-Suzdal principality.
Three groups of surnames without a specific geographical reference:
3) Popov, Martynov, Medvedev, Melnikov, Chernov, Shcherbakov;
4) Vorobyov, Gusev, Zaitsev, Sorokin;
5) Prokhorov, Frolov, Rodionov, Savelyev;
and 64 surnames that defy either classification or localization.
Analysis of the geography of Russian surnames helps to deeply study demographic processes, the history of the ethnic group, families, various socio-cultural and even socio-economic problems.
Meaning and etymologyAnthroponymy of Russian surnames states that most often surnames are formed from personal names through possessive adjectives. The bulk of Russian surnames have the suffixes -ov/-ev, -in, from the answer to the question “whose?” The difference is purely formal: -ov was added to nicknames or names with a hard consonant (Ignat - Ignatov, Mikhail - Mikhailov), -ev to names or nicknames with a soft consonant (Ignaty - Ignatiev, Golodyay - Golodyaev), -in to stems with a, I (Putya (Putyata) - Putin, Busyga - , Erema - Eremin, Ilya - Ilyin). This also suggests that, for example, the surnames Golodaev and Golodyaev, which have the same root, are related, but the outwardly similar Golodov, Golodnov, Golodny are not at all.
The vast majority of Russian surnames come from dedichestvo, the temporary surname of the father, that is, the name of the grandfather, thus securing the hereditary name in the third generation. This made it easier to designate families of the same root. If the grandfather, whose name formed the basis of the established surname, had two names - one baptismal, the other everyday, then the surname was formed from the second, since baptismal names did not differ in variety.
It should be noted that Russian officials wrote down their grandfather’s name in late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century and surnames for residents of national outskirts, thus the majority of surnames in Transcaucasia and Central Asia arose.
Russian surnames are mainly formed as patronymics from church or non-church personal names or nicknames, for example, Ivan > Ivanov son > Ivanov, Medved > Medvedev son > Medvedev. This also includes surnames derived from nicknames associated with the profession: Goncharov, Melnikov, Krasilnikov.
Much less often - from the names of the area, for example Belozersky from Beloozero. This method of formation is especially characteristic of princely families, however (unlike Western Europe) is not typical for nobles.
The surnames of the clergy are derived from the names of parishes (for example, Kosmodemyansky, Rozhdestvensky) or artificially created in the seminary (Afinsky, Dobrovolsky).
The origin of Russian surnamesIn different social strata, surnames appeared at different times. The first in the Russian lands to acquire surnames were citizens of Veliky Novgorod and its vast possessions in the north, stretching from Baltic Sea to the Ural ridge. Novgorod chroniclers mention many surnames and nicknames already in the 13th century. So in 1240, among the Novgorodians who fell in the Battle of the Neva, the chronicler mentions the names: “Kostyantin Lugotinits, Gyuryata Pineshchinich, Namest, Drochilo Nezdylov, son of a tanner.” In 1268, “killing the mayor Mikhail, and Tverdislav Chermny, Nikifor Radyatinich, Tverdislav Moisievich, Mikhail Krivtsevich, Ivach, Boris Ildyatinich, his brother Lazor, Ratsha, Vasil Voiborzovich, Osip, Zhiroslav Dorogomilovich, Poroman Podvoisky, Polyud, and many good ъ boyars ". In 1270, “Gavrilo Kyyaninov and his other friends ran to the prince on the Settlement of the Thousand Ratibor.” In the same year, Prince Vasily Yaroslavich “went to the Tatars, taking Petril Rychag and Mikhail Pineshchinich with him.” In 1311, “Kostyantin, Ilyin’s son Stanimirovich, was quickly killed.” In 1315, Prince Mikhail Tverskoy demanded from the Novgorodians: “give me Fyodor Zhrevsky.” In 1316 “Danilko Scribe was killed quickly.” In 1327, “the Novgorodians sent Fyodor the Chariot to the Horde.” In 1329, “I killed the Novgorod ambassador of the honest husband Ivan Syp in Yuryev.” In 1332 “Vastasha rebelled in Novgorod, and took away the posadnichestvo from Fyodor from Akhmyl and gave to Zakharya Mikhailovich, and plundered the courtyard of Smena Sudokov.”
Somewhat later in the XIV-XV centuries. family names appeared among princes and boyars. The princes were nicknamed by the name of their inheritance, and the moment of the emergence of the surname should be considered the moment when the prince, having lost his inheritance, still retained his name as a nickname for himself and his descendants: Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Obolensky, Vyazemsky, etc. A minority of princely surnames originate from nicknames: Gagarins, Humpbacks, Glazatye, Lykovs, etc. Surnames like Lobanov-Rostovsky connect the name of the reign with the nickname. Boyar and noble families were also formed from nicknames or from the names of their ancestors. The process of formation of boyar surnames from hereditary nicknames is well illustrated by the history of the boyar (later royal) family of the Romanovs. Its ancestors were those who lived in the 14th century. Andrey Ivanovich Kobyla and Fyodor Andreevich Koshka Kobylin. The descendants of Fyodor Koshka for several generations bore the nickname-surname Koshkins (however, not all of them: his son Alexander Bezzubets became the ancestor of the Bezzubtsevs, and another son Fyodor Goltyai became the ancestor of the Goltyaevs). The names of his son Ivan and grandson Zakhary Ivanovich were Koshkins. Among the children of the latter, Yakov Zakharovich Koshkin became the founder noble family Yakovlev, and Yuri Zakharovich began to be called Zakharyin-Koshkin, while the son of the latter was already called Roman Zakharyin-Yuryev. The surname Zakharyin-Yuryev, or simply Zakharyin, was also borne by Roman’s son, Nikita Romanovich (as well as his sister Anastasia, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible); however, the children and grandchildren of Nikita Romanovich were already called Romanovs, including Fyodor Nikitich (Patriarch Filaret) and Mikhail Fedorovich (Tsar).
At the end of the 15th century. among the Russian nobles the first surnames of foreign origin appear, primarily the surnames of Polish-Lithuanian and Greek (eg. Philosophy) immigrants; in the 17th century to them are added such surnames of Western origin as Fonvizins, Lermontovs. The surnames of the descendants of Tatar immigrants were reminiscent of the names of these immigrants: Yusupov, Akhmatov, Kara-Murza, Karamzin (also from Kara-Murza). However, it should be noted that the eastern origin of a surname does not always indicate the eastern origin of its bearers: in some cases, they come from Tatar nicknames that were in fashion in Moscow Rus'. This is the surname Bakhteyarova, which was borne by the branch of the Rostov Rurik princes (from Fyodor Priimkov-Bakhteyar), or the surname Beklemishev, which came from the nickname Beklemish (Turkish - guarding, guarding), which was borne by Fyodor Elizarovich, the boyar of Vasily I.
During this period, peasants usually did not have surnames; their function was performed by nicknames and patronymics, as well as the mention of their owner, since in the 16th century. The peasantry of central Russia was subjected to mass enslavement. For example, in archival documents from that time you can find the following entries: “Ivan Mikitin’s son, and his nickname is Menshik,” entry from 1568; “Onton Mikiforov’s son, and nickname is Zhdan,” document from 1590; “Guba Mikiforov, son of Crooked Cheeks, landowner,” entry from 1495; “Danilo Soplya, peasant”, 1495; “Efimko Sparrow, peasant,” 1495. In these records one can see indications of the status of still free peasants (landowner), as well as the difference between the patronymic and the surname (son of such and such). Peasants northern Russia, former Novgorod possessions, could have real surnames in this era, since serfdom did not apply to these areas. Probably the most famous example This kind of person is Mikhailo Lomonosov. You can also remember Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, a Novgorod peasant woman and Pushkin’s nanny. Cossacks also had surnames. Surnames were also given to a significant part of the population of the lands that were previously part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Belarus to Smolensk and Vyazma, Little Russia.
Under Peter the Great, by Senate Decree of June 18, 1719, in connection with the introduction of the poll tax and conscription, the earliest police registration documents were officially introduced - travel documents (passports). The passport contained information: name, surname (or nickname), where he came from, where he was going, place of residence, characteristics of his occupation, information about family members who were traveling with him, sometimes information about his father and parents.
By decree of January 20, 1797, Emperor Paul I ordered the preparation of a General Armorial noble families where more than 3,000 noble family names and coats of arms were collected.
Distribution of surnames among merchants and service peopleIn the XVIII-XIX centuries. surnames began to spread among civil servants and merchants. At first, only the richest - the “eminent merchants” - were awarded the honor of receiving a surname. IN XV-XVI centuries there were few of them and mostly of Northern Russian origin. For example, the merchants Kalinnikovs, who founded the city of Sol Kamskaya in 1430, or the famous Stroganovs. Among the merchant surnames there were many that reflected the “professional specialization” of their bearers. For example, the surname Rybnikov, derived from the word rybnik, that is, “fish merchant.” One can also recall citizen Kuzma Minin, who, as is known, did not belong to the nobility, but had his own surname already at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries.
Distribution of surnames among the clergyThe clergy began to have surnames only from the middle of the 18th century. Usually they were formed from the names of parishes and churches (Preobrazhensky, Nikolsky, Pokrovsky, Blagoveshchensky, Rozhdestvensky, Uspensky, Kosmodemyansky, etc.). Before this, priests were usually called Father Alexander, Father Vasily, Father or Father Ivan, without any surname being implied. Their children, if necessary, often received the surname Popov.
Some clergy acquired surnames upon graduation from the seminary: Athensky, Dukhososhestvensky, Palmin, Kiparisov, Reformatsky, Pavsky, Golubinsky, Klyuchevsky, Tikhomirov, Myagkov, Liperovsky (from a Greek root meaning “sad”), Gilyarovsky (from a Latin root meaning “cheerful”) "). At the same time, the best students were given the most euphonious surnames and carrying a purely positive meaning, in Russian or Latin: Brilliantov, Dobromyslov, Benemansky, Speransky (Russian analogue: Nadezhdin), Benevolensky (Russian analogue: Dobrovolsky), Dobrolyubov, etc.; on the contrary, bad students were given dissonant surnames, for example Gibraltar, or derived from the names of negative biblical characters (Saul, Pharaoh).
Distribution of surnames among the peasantryAs practice reveals, even among persons born in a legal marriage, there are many people who do not have surnames, that is, bearing so-called patronymic surnames, which causes significant misunderstandings and even sometimes abuses... To be called by a certain surname is not only a right, but it is also the duty of every full-fledged person, and the designation of the surname on some documents is required by law itself.
In central Russia, among the peasantry, surnames until the 19th century. were relatively rare. However, we can recall individual examples - the famous Ivan Susanin, who lived in XVI-XVII centuries. In addition, the names of some peasants are known - participants in certain wars, campaigns, defenses of cities or monasteries and other historical disasters. However, indeed, until the 19th century. mass distribution among the peasants of Central Russia they did not have surnames. But this is rather due to the fact that in those days there was no need for a complete mention of all peasants, and there are no documents in which peasants were mentioned without exception or in the majority. And for the official document flow of those years, if a peasant was mentioned in it, it was usually quite enough to mention the village in which he lived, the landowner to whom he belonged, and his personal name, sometimes along with his profession. The majority of peasants in central Russia were officially given surnames, recorded in documents only after the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
Some surnames were formed from the surnames of landowners. Some peasants were given the full or changed surname of their former owner, the landowner - this is how entire villages of the Polivanovs, Gagarins, Vorontsovs, Lvovkins, etc. appeared.
At the root of some surnames were the names of settlements (villages, hamlets) from which these peasants came. Mostly these are surnames ending in -skikh. Brynsky, Lebedevsky, Uspensky
However, most surnames are family nicknames in origin. Which, in turn, came from the “street” nickname of one or another family member. For the majority of peasants, this very “street” nickname was written down in the document, of which another family could have more than one. Nicknames appeared much earlier than universal family names. These same family nicknames, sometimes with roots going back many generations, actually served as surnames among the peasants of Central Russia - in everyday life, even before they were universally consolidated. They were the first to be included in the census forms, and in fact, family registration was simply the recording of these nicknames in documents. Thus, giving a peasant a surname often came down simply to official recognition, legitimization, and assignment of family or personal nicknames to their bearers. This explains the fact that in the era before the mass allocation of surnames to the peasants of Central Russia - we still know individual names and the names of peasants who took part in certain important events. When it became necessary to mention a peasant in a chronicle or in a narration about some event in which he was a participant, the corresponding nickname was simply indicated as his surname - his own, or his family's. And then, during the general assignment of surnames to the peasants of Central Russia, which occurred after the abolition of serfdom, these same nicknames were, for the most part, officially recognized and assigned.
Worldly surnames were formed on the basis of the worldly name. Worldly names came from pagan times, when church names did not yet exist or were not accepted into common people. After all, Christianity did not immediately captivate the minds, much less the souls, of the Slavs. Old traditions were preserved for a long time, the covenants of ancestors were revered sacredly. Every family remembered the names of their ancestors up to the 7th generation and even deeper. Legends from the history of the family were passed down from generation to generation. Instructive stories about the past deeds of their ancestors were told at night to the young successors of the family. Many of the worldly ones were proper names (Gorazd, Zhdan, Lyubim), others arose as nicknames, but then became names (Nekras, Dur, Chertan, Zloba, Neustroy). It should be noted here that in the ancient Russian naming system it was also customary to call babies with protective names, amulets - names with negative content - for protection, scaring away evil forces or for the reverse effect of the name. It’s like it’s still customary to scold those taking an exam, or to wish a hunter “no feather, no feather.” It was believed that Dur would grow up smart, Nekras would grow up handsome, and Hunger would always be well-fed. Protective names then became familiar nicknames, and then surnames.
For some, the patronymic was recorded as a surname. The royal decrees on conducting a census usually stated that everyone should be recorded “by first name and nickname,” that is, by first name, patronymic and last name. But in the XVII - first half XVIII centuries The peasants did not have hereditary surnames at all. The peasant family lived only for one life. For example, Procopius was born into the family of Ivan, and in all metric records he is called Procopius Ivanov. When Vasily was born to Procopius, the newborn became Vasily Prokopyev, and not Ivanov at all
The first census of 1897 showed that up to 75% of the population did not have a surname (however, this applied more to residents of the national outskirts than of indigenous Russia). Finally, surnames appeared for the entire population of the USSR only in the 30s of the 20th century during the era of universal passportization.
Frequency and list of all-Russian surnamesRussian surnames, as well as surnames created in their image and likeness, are common throughout most of Russia and in many neighboring countries. The ten most common ones look like this (to the right of the last name is the % of total number population of Russia):
1. Smirnov 1.862
2. Ivanov 1.33
3. Kuznetsov 0.998
4. Sokolov 0.856
5. Popov 0.806
6. Lebedev 0.742
7. Kozlov 0.636
8. Novikov 0.61
9. Morozov 0.568
10. Solovyov 0.486
Female surnamesFrom male Russian surnames in -ov, -ev, -in, inflected according to the paradigm of short possessive adjectives, forms of female surnames with inflection -a are formed, inflected according to the paradigm of short possessive adjectives of the feminine gender (for example, “U Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova”). From surnames starting with -iy, -yy, -oy, inflected according to the paradigm of full adjectives, forms of female surnames with inflection -aya are formed, inflected according to the paradigm of full feminine adjectives (for example, “at Sofia Vasilievna Kovalevskaya”). For the rest (except for Slavic surnames in -а/я, declined according to the paradigm of 1st declension nouns) surnames, the feminine form coincides with the masculine form, and is not declined, even if it is declined in the masculine gender (for example, “at Anna Pavlovna Sherer”) .
In the Russian tradition, women usually take their husband's surname upon marriage, although since 1918 the law has not obligated this
Family secretsWhat can a surname tell about its owner? Experts in the field of onomastics - the science of names - were able to identify the connection of family secrets not only with the social roots and professional pedigree of the owner, but even with secret societies and religious sects.
Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Georgian... - we often note to ourselves, even unconsciously, when meeting a new person and hearing his last name. And we are rarely mistaken, because the surname, as a rule, primarily indicates a person’s nationality. But to a specialist, the surname says much more - both about the person himself and about the people from which he came. No wonder he does this whole science- onomastics, and in particular its section - anthroponymy.
Today it has become fashionable to be interested in your ancestors. And this is gratifying: from Ivanov, who do not remember kinship, we are turning into normal people who do not think according to the templates established by official ideologists, but who are trying to understand the world around us in all its diversity, striving to understand our place in this world. And knowing your roots helps a lot: “where did I come from” - who your ancestors were, what they did, how they took part in the history of the country. A surname can tell a lot about this.
Most people have no idea how much information their last name carries. First of all, how it was formed in the first place. There is a naive idea drawn from historical novels, the authors of which were not strong in onomastics, that the surnames were formed either by the name of the father: Peter, Ivanov’s son, hence Ivanov, or by profession: Stepan, Kuznetsov’s son, here’s Kuznetsov. And this supposedly happened in the era of Peter I, when the reformer Tsar, following the example of his Western neighbors, ordered to be written “with the fatherland,” thus making room for another word that defines a person.
“Nothing like that,” says professor, doctor of philological sciences Alexandra Superanskaya, presenter researcher Institute of Linguistics RAS. - Surnames in Rus' took shape already in the 15th century, and trends towards their formation appeared from the very beginning of our written history. In the oldest Russian chronicles, people are called by name and patronymic. In general, in the old days, the name, patronymic and surname had much greater importance than today - they determined a person’s place in society.
True, the word “surname” itself appeared only in the 19th century; it was not used before. And in ancient times it was necessary to call people by their names “from their fathers and nicknames.” To modern ears this sounded somewhat strange. For example, Pushkar Ivan Maksimov Belyakov - this is how it is designated in one ancient document, where the person’s profession comes first, indicating his place in society, which was considered the most important characteristic. And then Ivan is his name, Maksimov is the name of his father, and Belyakov is the family nickname for the head of the family. Or by the founder of the family. From a modern point of view, it seems that he has two surnames - Maksimov and Belyakov; they are the same in form, but have different functions. Last word meant that his great-grandfather, or even great-great-grandfather, was called Belyak.
But this nickname itself has undergone a number of changes. When surnames arose, in Rus', in addition to Christian ones, there were also ancient Russian names that were given to children before baptism. Moreover, they often adhered to, so to speak, thematic selection. The chronicles have brought to us many funny combinations. Let's say in one family a child was named Peas, Cabbage, Radish. And if there was nothing else about him in the chronicle, it would be difficult to determine his gender by name. In another family - Yagnysh Baranov, son of Ovtsyn. This meant that he had three generations in his family and they were all called by different names for sheep. There was also such a name: Pie Oladiev Blinov. Again, by the names that were borne by three generations of the family and which indicate a profession passed on from father to son, which was common in those days. And this happened in the 15th and even 16th centuries. But let’s not forget that in addition to this, people also had godnames. So, according to the documents, the full name sounded like this: Mikhail Yagnysh Baranov - son of Ovtsyn. The last name, as one might assume, eventually became a surname.
Today, many people try to identify the social status of their ancestors by their last name,” says Alexandra Vasilievna. - Were they nobles, which is what I most want, or philistines, or even, God forbid, serfs. This cannot always be determined. In ancient times, not only this was put at the forefront, surnames carried a wider range of information. There were many different ways to define identity. Up to seven types of naming were used. Some by place of residence, some by father, grandfather, great-grandfather, some by profession - everything depended on how the person was assessed in society and what was more important. So, once in Novgorod they expelled a service man and invited another to the same position only because the first had a “bad” patronymic: he was the son of an unworthy father. And that means from a family that cannot be trusted.
A special place is occupied by the so-called “secret” surnames, denoting concepts familiar only to a narrow circle of people. They arose in certain communities whose members preferred not to disclose the details of their lives. No, we are not talking about criminal structures. But there were people united common name- ofeni. Small traders or artisans. And they took surnames that were completely incomprehensible to the ear, but for the initiates they denoted the secrets of their craft. Some Zhurin is walking on the ground. The surname is like a surname, and only a few know that he makes certain products that “his” people will sell. His descendants were engaged in a completely different business, but the surname remained, the meaning of which is no longer clear to them.
Onomastics destroys many traditional ideas. Remember famous phrase tanker, brilliantly played by Oleg Efremov: “The whole of Russia rests on my name”? And the last name was Ivanov. It was believed that there were more Ivanovs in Rus' than anyone else. There was even a saying: “In Rus', Ivanov is like filthy mushrooms.” But as my interlocutor explained, the popularity of the name “Ivan” increased only during the 19th century, at the end of which a quarter of the male population bore this name. This is easily explained: the church honors this name in the list of saints 64 times a year, and names were given according to the calendar. But this is a name, but the surname “Ivanov” is far from the most common. The most popular is Kuznetsov. This is understandable: the blacksmith in every village was the most necessary and respected person. Therefore, from the western regions came the Kovalevs (from “Koval” - blacksmith), and from the southern Slavs - Kovach, with the same meaning. And not only the “main” surname, but also its numerous derivatives.
Derivatives are a special matter. Many of those who try to determine the social status of their ancestors by their last name do not suspect that the ancestors themselves made their search pointless. They changed the Christian name in their own way when communicating in everyday life, and it eventually became a surname. Scientists call these unofficial variants. For example, a boy Petya grew up in the family, whom his mother affectionately called Petrunya. And the neighbors are used to calling it that way. Or they stuck on a nickname like that, as was the custom. And he himself no longer called himself anything else and went by Petrunya until his old age, and his son Ivan was written down in the documents: “Ivan Petrunin’s son.” And a new surname went across the earth - Petrunin. This is just one of the options, and there are many of them. Petrushin, Petryaev, Pityaev, Petin, Petenkin, Petishchev, Petrishchev, this is still an incomplete list. The same goes for other names - the people's imagination is inexhaustible. In our conversation, Alexandra Superanskaya listed so many variations of the most common names that people in her family or village were called that there was simply not enough space for them in the newspaper.
When they want to emphasize the large number of people involved in some business, says Alexandra Vasilievna, they usually list: Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov. And this is also a mistake. Because if there are really many Ivanovs and Petrovs, then there are very few Sidorovs. Both this name and surname are not common in Rus'. Sidor's goat is mentioned much more often, although where this expression came from is unknown. So Sidor is not a friend of Ivan and Peter, and how he got into this proverb is still a mystery to researchers.
But the situation has become transparent when families living in the same village have the same surnames, although they are not relatives. The thing is that under Soviet rule the village lived for a long time without passports. In fact, they were in the position of serfs who could not go anywhere without an identity document. Certification of the village began only under Khrushchev, and ended in the 70s. And it turned out that many families simply “lost” their surnames. They got by with nicknames that their neighbors gave them or they were simply called by their place of settlement. Let's say, several families lived behind a dam, and when they were certified, they all became Zaprudskys. They lived at the end of the village - Konechnye. On the shore of the pond - Beregovye. This is such an offensive situation when surnames do not reflect family roots.
Even worse incidents happened precisely because the peasants “lost” their surnames. When the guys were drafted into the army, they used to get confused when filling out the documents. You didn’t know what last name to give, you can’t give it a nickname. And then joining the regiment was simple: they called the surname by the name of where the father was, and where the grandfather was. And returning from the army, siblings found themselves with different surnames, which sometimes led to misunderstandings. However, in those days when a person was considered a cog in a common machine, this was rarely paid attention to.
But there are not very many of them. There are many more ancestral surnames, from our ancestors. And the most common in Rus' are Kuznetsovs, Popovs, Ivanovs, Smirnovs. They divided four zones among themselves - historically separate territories. The Kuznetsovs have the largest distribution area - from Tula, where they are most numerous, to Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. "Ivanovia" is the north-west - Pskov, Novgorod, adjacent lands. "Popovia" - the North, especially the Arkhangelsk region. "Smirnovia" - the center and northern Volga region - Yaroslavl, Vladimir and other regions from Tver to Nizhny Novgorod. And the borders of these four zones collide on Tula and Ryazan land.
We are of the same blood - you and me
It is not by chance that in the early Middle Ages there arose an interest in the family tree - identifying people related to your family by related ties to one degree or another.
Let them have different nationalities, let fate scatter them around different countries and continents, a scrupulous analysis of surnames, which often change in marriages of different generations, sometimes yields amazing discoveries that one can often be proud of.
All people are brothers, says the Bible, all descended from one root. Mathematics partially confirms this. In fact, two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents took part in your birth. A simple calculation shows that 200 - 250 years ago there were already more than a thousand of your direct ancestors, and 400 - 500 years ago - more than one million. And if we assume that each family had only two children, then somewhere on earth there are at least a million of your blood relatives walking around. So suddenly you are related to the French king and can lay claim to the throne. Don't know? But in the old days, when compiling a family tree, such an opportunity would not have been missed.
It is known that Schelling, Hegel, Schiller and Max Planck were relatives - after a common ancestor, Johann Vanth, who lived in the 15th century. Karl Marx and Heinrich Heine had a common ancestor. And Karl Liebknecht is a descendant of Martin Luther through the female line. So the violent revolutionary blood was passed on to him by inheritance. Just as the famous English Prime Minister Winston Churchill received, on the one hand, the blood of the famous pirate Francis Drake, and on the other, the blood of the Duke of Marlborough, about whom the song “Marlbrooke is about to go” was written.
Belinsky's great-niece was Plekhanov's mother, and Plekhanov's half-sister later became the mother of the organizer of Soviet healthcare N. Semashko. Historian Soloviev was Alexander Blok second cousin, and Blok on his mother’s side was related to the Aksakovs and Karamzin, not to mention the fact that she was the daughter of Mendeleev. Miklouho-Maclay was distantly related to Mitskevich and Goethe, and Marshal Tukhachevsky, through the Arsenyevs, was related to Lermontov. The poet Nikolai Klyuev was a direct descendant of the rebellious archpriest Avvakum.
Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy had a common great-great-great-grandfather, Admiral Golovin. Pushkin and the poet Venevitinov were fourth cousins, and through his children Alexander Sergeevich became related to Gogol, the Benkendorfs and the imperial family.
What's your name?
Alexandra Vasilievna Superanskaya
Doctor of Philologyuk
Let's talk about common Russian names. What do they mean? Where do they come from?
Most modern Russian names were borrowed in the 10th century AD from Byzantium along with the Christian religion. These names were legalized, recorded in special books - “saints” and declared “real”, “correct”. After the introduction of Christianity in Rus', it was allowed to give names only through the church (at baptism). The “saints” also included some names of common Slavic origin, which arose long before the baptism of Rus', in an era when the Slavic community did not break up into tribal groups, from which separate groups were subsequently formed. Slavic peoples. These common Slavic names (Vladimir, Yaroslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod...) and some Scandinavian names (Igor, Oleg...) were usually not given to ordinary people and were considered “princely” names. Only at the end of the last century these names were revived by the Russian intelligentsia. Their use expanded significantly after the revolution. At the same time, such ancient common Slavic names as Stanislav, Mstislav, Bronislav, adopted by other Slavic peoples, came into life.
The names Faith, Hope, and Love occupy a special place in their origin. The Greeks did not have such names. Nevertheless, in Greek legends there were symbolic figures of Faith (Pistis), Hope (Elpis) and Love (Agape), but they were not given to people as names. Obviously, when compiling the Russian church nomenclature, the names of these symbolic figures served as the basis for creating the names Faith, Hope, Love from the verbal material of the Russian language. This type of borrowing, when a word in another language is created based on the model of one language from its linguistic material, is called tracing paper in linguistics, and the process of such borrowing itself is tracing paper.
Where did the Byzantine names that formed the basis of the Russian “saints” come from? The Byzantine Greeks collected the best, of course, from their point of view, names of all those peoples with whom they maintained trade and cultural relations. Along with names of ancient Greek origin, they used ancient Roman and Hebrew ones. As separate inclusions in the list of Byzantine names there are ancient Persian, ancient Egyptian, Chaldean, Syrian, Babylonian...
If we begin to consider canonical names according to the meaning of the words from which they originate, we will immediately notice our own characteristics in them. For example, almost all names of ancient Greek origin emphasize good moral and physical qualities in people. Here are the meanings of some of them: Andrey - courageous; Nikifor - victorious; Tikhon - happy; Agata - beautiful; Sofia is wise. Most Roman names also celebrate the good in people: Victor - winner; Valentin, Valery - healthy; Pulchernya is wonderful. Hebrew names differ sharply from Greek and Latin names. Most of them include an element with the meaning god (il, io): Gabriel - warrior of God; Elijah - the power of God; John - God's grace.
Despite the fact that the names taken from the “saints” have been given to Russians for a whole millennium, they still remain two-thirds alien to the Russian people: after all, they arose on foreign soil and were artificially transplanted into Russia.
The names Evelina or Eleanor among our contemporaries look less strange and unusual than the names Theodora or Aquilina among their distant great-great-grandmothers of the 10th century. The difference is that the names Evelina or Eleanor are familiar to us from literary works; we meet them in newspapers and can easily pronounce them, while the poor illiterate great-great-grandmothers could not even pronounce the names that they were given at baptism, and they had never heard such outlandish words and, how and why These words came to Rus' and they could not really understand them. However, canonization is canonization, and they diligently pronounced their “outlandish” names, distorting them beyond recognition, turning Aquilina into Akulina, Theodore into Feodor, Dionysius into Denis, Diomede into Demid, Juliania into Ulyana. This is how the process of Russification of non-Russian names took place, the process of turning foreign and difficult to pronounce words into our own, familiar, close and easy to pronounce.
However, despite the fact that all canonical names without exception underwent such changes, many of them remained alien to the Russian people and the Russian language.
"Science and Life", No. 8, 1964.
The article is abbreviated
About the list of names posted on this site
The list contains various shapes spelling names ( Adrian - Andrian), their folk forms (Adrian,Andriyan,Andreyan), diminutives and short forms, Church Slavonic variants for names present in Orthodox calendars ( Sergey-Sergius), Latinized forms for names included in the Catholic calendar ( Sergius), as well as information about the meaning and origin of the name.
Abbreviations used:
decrease - diminutive
prod. - derivative
medieval - medieval
modern - modern
ancient german - Old Germanic
Old-Hebrew - Hebrew
lat. - Latin
Celtic - Celtic, belonging to the Celtic group of languages
Ancient Greek - ancient Greek
Old Scand. - Old Norse
Norman - Norman
fr. - French
old-fashioned - Old French
Provence - Provençal
Other English - Old English
A person’s name is the first thing that identifies him and distinguishes him from others. Many people are now getting carried away different interpretations certain personal data, and the name is one of the first places here. There are even specialists who predict a person’s fate, character, and personal qualities by name. Therefore, it becomes very interesting how names appeared, what they were like at the very beginning, and how they transformed over time.
Ancient names
In the earliest ancient society When a person realized that it was easier to live together, the need arose from this “together” to call for one thing. It was not always possible to come up and knock on the back, but the vocal abilities were successfully developing. That's how I learned primitive man call with the voice of your comrade, not the whole tribe, mind you, but one. And at this stage it was necessary to decide how to make it clear who exactly was being called. It turned out that everything is very simple. The man called words everything that was around him, and at the same time his comrades. The sun is Ra, which means the red-haired man in the tribe is also Ra. Water drips from the sky from a cloud - Give, so does the person whose eyes are always wet - Give. Everything was very simple, but we are wondering where the names came from!
Names of the first civilizations
During the birth of civilizations, the attitude towards name formation completely changed. Parents gave the child a name consonant with the qualities that they would like to see in their child. Vladimir rules the world, Svyatoslav glorifies the saints. These are Russian variants of names. In Europe and on other continents the same thing happened, only in other languages. In Greek, Alexander means conqueror, Paul means small, and Helen means bright. These names have come down to us, having undergone some minor transformations in sound, from the most ancient times, from the very birth of cultural civilizations.
Pagan names of the peoples of the world
Many nationalities came up with names for their children with meaning, hoping that the meaning inherent in the name would help the child throughout life. For example, do you want to know how the name Kizlyarbas appeared? It literally translates as “no more girls,” and was given by fathers to long-awaited boys born into Tajik families. The Semitic name Nebu-bulit means “Oh Heaven, give me life!” telling name. But the girl named Dzedumilla was supposed to be sweet to her grandfather all her life.
The pagans also named children after some animal, so that the child would be similar in strength and dexterity to it. For example, the wolf, revered in many nations, gave the world many names derived from this word: Vuk, Vilk, Wolf, Lupul, Vovk, Wolfgang, Vilkolaz. And these are only European derivatives!
Modern names in Russia
Fortunately, the times have passed when in Russia, paying tribute to fashion, they called children completely unthinkable names! In the 40-50s of the last century it was very popular male name Mels (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin). And what are Electrification, Oktyabrina, Cosmos, Iskra, Academy, Antenna, Vladlena (Vladimir Lenin) worth? And there were a huge number of such names. All this was a tribute to the times, no one puzzled over the question of why the names appeared, what should they mean? A blunder, and the name is ready. Then native Russian names and even non-Russian names began to return. But they were all really names, and not abbreviations invented on the topic of the day.
Let's consider the question of the origin of human names.
Proper names were identified in ancient times. Even the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (3rd century BC) identified names as a separate group of words. Today, the study of people's proper names, the patterns of their origin and development, their structure, functioning in society, and distribution is dealt with by anthroponymy (“anthropos” - person, “onima” - name).
People have always been given names. There are many legends and traditions about how they arose. Here is one of them. In a distant time, when Supreme Intelligence gave people speech, there was one language. Each word reflected the inner essence of things. Anyone who knew a word gained power over what it meant. Chaos arose in the world because people could not decide who would govern and who would obey. Then the priests came up with other words for everything in the world in order to prevent the uninitiated from using the true names of things for evil. Higher knowledge turned out to be beyond the reach of man. As a result, different languages arose, and true language was hidden and then almost completely lost. This is what is said about language, words and names in the legends of many nations. The same thing happened with people's names.
People now had to come up with names themselves. Moreover, in many cultures, a child was given two names - one close to his real name and a second one, for general use, so that no one could harm the child by knowing his real name. Our distant ancestors understood that a name is not just the name of a person to distinguish him from others, but a kind of verbal formula that is somehow connected with the fate of a person and power over him. They tried to use it in different ways.
Baby name traditions
In Indian and some African tribes They gave repulsive names in order to ward off evil spirits. Once upon a time it was believed that only the person himself and his parents should know his real name. IN Indian tribes The young man learned his real name only on the day he was recognized as an adult through meditation and communication with spirits and did not tell anyone. Old Indian shamans say that often this name could not be pronounced with normal sounds, it existed only as a mixture of image and sound.
The ancient Greeks gave a child the names of gods and heroes, hoping that the child would enjoy their favor and inherit their qualities and destiny. But calling children by similar names was somehow tactless, and even dangerous - after all, the gods of the Hellenes lived very close - on Mount Olympus, were very similar to people and often communicated with them. They might not like such familiarity. Therefore, for everyday reference to the gods, various epithets were used, which were also transformed into names. For example, - winner, - greatest. These epithets were used to call Zeus. Mars wore laurel branch, hence the name Laurus. Many gods wore headdresses such as crowns or tiaras. This is where the name Stefan - crowned - comes from.
However, the tradition of giving children direct names of gods, although not supreme ones, has also been preserved, in order to avoid their anger for such impudence. The names Muse, Apollo, Aurora, Maya are still in use. Later this desire became Christian tradition give names in honor of the righteous, canonized.
In Rus' there was another tradition: which was real - it was known to parents, godparents and especially close people. It combined the wishes for the baby, the hopes and aspirations of the parents, it reflected love for the child and the desire for his happiness. Then the child was wrapped in a matting and carried out of the threshold, as if demonstrating evil spirits, that they found an abandoned baby who was not particularly needed. And they called him a name that would scare away the evil spirits and lull their attention. "They call me Zovutka, but they call me a duck." This means what to call given name to a stranger was considered dangerous. What if the stranger was a sorcerer who could use knowledge of the name for evil. By giving the child a dissonant and repulsive name, they hoped that evil forces would not bother themselves with causing harm to the unworthy, and also that a nondescript name would not arouse the envy of the gods. The ritual of naming a second name was performed in adolescence, when the main character traits were formed. The name was given based on these features.
However, the tradition of such naming did not take root. And a person who was constantly called not by his real name, but by his real name, often acquired all the qualities characteristic of this nickname. In such a situation, the name-amulet protected the person from unknown reasons. Since the name was not spoken out loud, it had no internal connection with its bearer.
Names in Rus'
The influence of a name on a person and his fate has been noticed for a long time. It has always been believed, and quite rightly, that a word chosen for a name with love will help in life. But at the same time, giving a name, naming it means gaining secret power. IN different languages doesn't change emotional coloring words, and that which means something pleasant has a sound that is pleasant to the ear, and vice versa.
Thus, the origin of the name has a long history.
Before the adoption of Christianity in Rus', original names were used, created on Slavic soil using the Old Russian language. The Slavs chose to name their children any words that reflected:
- various properties and qualities of people, features of their character: Smart, Brave, Kind, Cunning;
- features of behavior and speech: Molchan;
- physical advantages and disadvantages: Oblique, Lame, Krasava, Kudryash, Chernyak, Belyai;
- the time and “order” of the appearance of a particular child in the family: Menshak, Elder, First, Second, Tretyak;
- profession: Villager, Kozhemyaka, etc.
Similar names were used among other nations; it is enough to recall the names of the Indians, which characterized the characteristics of a particular person: Eagle Eye, Sly Fox, etc. We had several other names, which later, with the adoption of Christianity and the consolidation of names in church calendars, became into nicknames. Some of these nicknames have come down to us in the form of surnames: Cat, Beetle, Wolf, Sparrow. It should be noted that these surnames are quite common.
The influence of Christianity on naming
From the 11th to the 17th centuries, native Slavic names fade into the background, and Byzantine-Greek ones come to the fore. With the advent of Christianity, a two-name system began to develop. In order to protect a person from evil spirits, he was given one name and called a completely different one. This period is characterized by social stratification. At this time, Old Russian names were common, which consist of two roots and contain the root -slav. These are names such as Vyacheslav, Svyatoslav, Yaroslav, Borislav, which were joined by Byzantine-Greek names with the same root: Bronislav, Miroslav, etc.
From the beginning of the 18th century until 1917, canonical names dominated, a three-part formula for naming a person (last name, first name, patronymic) developed and spread, and a pseudonym appeared.
After the revolution they became very popular. The formation of new names especially affected girls. So, they were called Idea, Iskra, Oktyabrina. There is evidence that one girl was even called Artillery Academy. It was fashionable to call twin boys and girls Revo and Lucia; the names of the boys are known: Genius, Giant (it is noteworthy that these names did not always correspond to reality, and often completely contradicted). However, at this time names appeared that continue to live now: Lilia (it is similar to the Russian name and is very euphonious), Ninel (reading the name Lenin in reverse order), Timur, Spartak.
The modern Russian name book includes many names with different origins. But still, names that we can now rightfully call Russian have a huge advantage. Although there is actually very little left. Over time, the original meaning of names was forgotten, but historically each name was a word or phrase of some language.
Almost all modern names came to us from Byzantium and have Greek roots in origin. However, many of them were borrowed from other ancient languages, or were simply borrowed from ancient Roman, Hebrew, Egyptian and other languages, and with this method of borrowing they were used only as a proper name, and not as a word denoting anything.