Most of the population of Russia received surnames only towards the end of the 19th century. The "middle name" took root among the people gradually, and it is all the more interesting to learn how it happened.
A surname is not a luxury?
The first owners of surnames in Russia were the noble inhabitants of Veliky Novgorod. Since the 12th century, this area was in a special position: it received the status of an independent republic and independently conducted business with neighboring states like the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From there came the fashion for surnames. And it has become much more convenient to keep records of the troops: you cannot confuse one Mikhail, Ivan or Boris with another. Here, for example, is the earliest of the known lists of the dead with the surnames: “Novgorodets is the same pade: Kostyantin Lugotinits, Gyuryata Pineshchinich, Namir, Jerkilo Nezdylov son of a tanner …” (The first Novgorod chronicle of an older exodus, 1240).
Following the Novgorodians in the XIV-XV centuries, princes and boyars acquired surnames. The former were usually named after the names of the lands that belonged to them. So the owners of the estates on the Shuya River became Shuisky, on Vyazma - Vyazemsky, on Meshchera - Meshchersky, the same story with Tversky, Obolensky, Vorotynsky and other -sky. By the way, -sk- is a common Slavic suffix, it can be found in Czech surnames (Comenius), and in Polish (Zapotocki), and in Ukrainian (Artemovsky). The moment when the surname appeared is considered to be its preservation for the descendants even after the loss of the corresponding lands.
Whose will you be?
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Boyars, however, received their surnames by the baptismal name of the ancestor or his nickname: such names answered the question "whose?" (meaning "whose son?", "what kind?") and had possessive suffixes in their composition. The suffix -ov- was attached to worldly names ending in solid consonants: Smirnaya - Smirnov, Ignat - Ignatov. -Ev- - to names and nicknames that have at the end b, th, th or h: Medved - Medvedev, Yuri - Yuryev, Begich - Begichev. Well, the suffix -in- received surnames formed from the names of the vowels "a" and "I": Apukhta -Apukhtin, Gavrila -Gavrilin, Ilya -Ilyin.
The most famous story of the emergence of the boyar family is about the Romanovs. Their ancestor Andrey Kobyla had three sons: Semyon Stallion, Alexander Elka Kobylin and Fedor Koshku. They gave birth to the Zherebtsovs, Kobylins and Koshkins. The latter bore this surname for several generations, until they decided that it was not too noble to be named by the nickname. And they first became the Yakovlevs (named after the great-grandson of Fyodor Koshka) and the Zakharyin-Yurievs (after the names of his grandson and another great-grandson), and after that they were completely entrenched in history as the Romanovs (named after the great-grandson of Fyodor Koshka).
Many are surprised by such surnames as Durnovo, Sukhovo, Zhivago, Chernago, Sedykh, Fominykh. In fact, there is nothing strange about them, all the same answer to the question "whose?", Only a little outdated or in the plural: Bad - Durnovo, Zhivoy - Zhivago, Sedye - Sedykh.
Russians - non-Russian surnames
The next in line to obtain surnames were the nobles. Among them there were many people who came to serve the Russian sovereigns from other countries. 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.
The surnames that were given to the illegitimate children of noble people have foreign languages: 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.
Local, but not princes
After 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.
I am Castor
The names of the clergy 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").
"Strange" 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 inhabitant of the USSR definitely had a surname. They were formed according to already proven models: suffixes -ov-, -ev-, -in- were added to names, nicknames, habitats, professions.
It turned out quite nice Petrovs, Ivanovs, Bochkarevs, Kuznetsovs, Melnikovs, Pryakhins and others. However, the Perdunovs, Smertins and other Fools crawled out from somewhere. It is clear that they also originated from nicknames: Perdun, Death, Fool, which were deservedly or not very well given to their neighbors by fellow tribesmen. But after all, the parents themselves sometimes called their children rather offensive names: Nelyub, Nenash, Bad, Blockhead, Kruchina. How in your right mind could you call your child that? The thing is that our ancestors were very superstitious and hoped with such an unpleasant nickname to protect their child from the evil eye. In this regard, it is not a fact that some modern Almazov will be more successful than Neschastlivtsev or Idiotov.
Photo: Prokudin-Gorsky