The first surnames among Russians appeared in the 13th century, but the majority remained "unprotected" for another 600 years. The name, patronymic and profession were enough.
When did surnames appear in Russia?
The fashion for surnames came to Russia from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Back in the XII century, Veliky Novgorod established close contacts with this state. Noble Novgorodians can be considered the first official owners of surnames in Russia.
The earliest of the known lists of the dead with the surnames: "Novgorodets the same pade: Kostyantin Lugotinits, Gyuryata Pineshchinich, Namirst, Drochilo Niezdylov son of a tanner …" (The first Novgorod chronicle of the older exodus, 1240). The surnames helped in diplomacy and in the registration of the troops. So it was easier to distinguish one Ivan from another.
Boyar and princely families
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In the XIV-XV centuries, Russian princes and boyars began to take surnames. Surnames were often formed from the names of lands. So, the owners of the estates on the Shuya River became Shuisky, on Vyazma - Vyazemsky, on Meshchera - Meshchersky, the same story with Tver, Obolensky, Vorotynsky and other -sky.
It must be said that -sk- is a common Slavic suffix, it can be found in Czech surnames (Comenius), and in Polish (Zapotocki), and in Ukrainian (Artemovsky).
Boyars also often received their surnames by the baptismal name of the ancestor or his nickname: such surnames literally answered the question "whose?" (meaning "whose son?", "what kind?") and had possessive suffixes in their composition.
The suffix -ov- was added to worldly names ending in solid consonants: Smirnaya - Smirnov, Ignat - Ignatov, Petr-Petrov.
The suffix -Ev- was attached to names and nicknames that have a soft sign at the end, -y, -ey or h: Medved - Medvedev, Yuri - Yuriev, Begich - Begichev.
The suffix -in- received surnames formed from the names of the vowels "a" and "i": Apukhta -Apukhtin, Gavrila -Gavrilin, Ilya -Ilyin.
Why are the Romanovs - Romanovs?
The most famous surname in the history of Russia is the Romanovs. Their ancestor Andrei Kobyla (a boyar of the time of Ivan Kalita) had three sons: Semyon Stallion, Alexander Elka Kobylin and Fedor Koshka. From them came the Zherebtsovs, Kobylins and Koshkins, respectively.
After several generations, the descendants decided that the surname from the nickname is not noble. Then they first became the Yakovlevs (named after the great-grandson of Fyodor Koshka) and the Zakharyin-Yuryevs (by the names of his grandson and another great-grandson), and remained in history as the Romanovs (named after the great-grandson of Fyodor Koshka).
Aristocratic surnames
The Russian aristocracy originally had noble roots, and among the nobility there were many people who came to the Russian service from abroad. It all started with surnames of Greek and Polish-Lithuanian origin at the end of the 15th century, and in the 17th century they were joined by the Fonvizins (German von Wiesen), the Lermontovs (Shotlet.
Also, foreign language stems for the surnames that were given to illegitimate children of noble people: Sherov (French cher "dear"), Amant (French amant "beloved"), Oksov (German Ochs "bull"), Herzen (German Herz "heart ").
Side children generally "suffered" a lot from the parents' fantasy. Some of them did not bother with inventing a new surname, but simply shortened the old one: this is how Pnin was born from Repnin, Betskoy from Trubetskoy, Agin from Elagin, and from Golitsyn and Tenishev the "Koreans" Go and Te came out. They left a significant mark on Russian surnames and Tatars. This is how the Yusupovs (descendants of the Murza Yusup), the Akhmatovs (Khan Akhmat), the Karamzins (Tatar kara "black", Murza "lord, prince"), the Kudinovs (distorted Kazakh Tartars. Kudai "God, Allah") and others.
Surnames of servicemen
Following the nobility, servicemen began to receive surnames. They, like the princes, were also often called according to their place of residence, only with simpler suffixes: families living in Tambov became Tambovtsevs, in Vologda - Vologzhaninovs, in Moscow - Moskvichevs and Moskvitinovs. Some were given a “non-family” suffix, denoting the inhabitant of this territory in general: Belomorets, Kostromich, Chernomorets, and someone received the nickname without any changes - hence Tatiana Dunay, Alexander Galich, Olga Poltava and others.
The names of the clergy
The names of the priests were formed from the names of churches and Christian holidays (Rozhdestvensky, Uspensky), and were also artificially formed from Church Slavonic, Latin and Greek words. The most amusing of them were those that were translated from Russian into Latin and received the "princely" suffix -sk-. So, Bobrov became Kastorsky (lat. Castor "beaver"), Skvortsov - Sturnitsky (lat. Sturnus "starling"), and Orlov - Aquilev (lat. Aquila "eagle").
Peasant surnames
Surnames of peasants until the end of the 19th century were rare. Exceptions were non-serf peasants in the north of Russia and in the Novgorod province - hence Mikhailo Lomonosov and Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva.
After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the situation began to improve, and by the time of universal certification in the 1930s, every resident of the USSR had a surname.
They were formed according to already proven models: suffixes -ov-, -ev-, -in- were added to names, nicknames, habitats, professions.
Why and when did the names change?
When the peasants began to acquire surnames, then for superstitious reasons, from the evil eye, they gave the children surnames that were not the most pleasant: Nelyub, Nenash, Bad, Bolvan, Kruchina. After the revolution, queues began to form at the passport offices of those who wanted to change their surname to a more euphonic one.