Forms of Slavic surnames and their distribution. Forms of Slavic surnames and their distribution Slovenian surnames

In the lower reaches of the Drava (the old territory of Srem and the adjacent part of Vojvodina), “almost every family has, in addition to the official surname, its own family nickname” - porodicni nadimci; form is absolutely dominant in them -s- Jovanka Mihailovich collected them from Vojvodina. P. Rogic said that they are also on the Dalmatian islands, and “in the past there were much more of them.” Formant -s moves to the “periphery,” but not territorially, but to unofficial systems of anthroponymy, to diminutive and other derivative forms of personal names, to nicknames, etc.

Absolute dominance of the formant -ich(originally a common Slavic diminutive formant) among the Serbs and with a slightly smaller percentage among the Croats also does not separate them from other Slavic peoples. Their Slovenian neighbors -ich covers 15%. Bulgarians have surnames -ich were not uncommon, but in the last quarter of the last century they decreased to 1%; reverse process - replacement -s on -ich- occurred among the Serbs of Niš and adjacent territories. The formant often occurs in expanded form -ovich, -evich(Mickiewicz) among the urban population of Poland, for example in Lodz, it is even 20%, among the population of Silesia - 5%. In the surnames of Ukrainians in Transcarpathia, it ranks second in frequency, probably under Polish or, as P. P. Chuchka believes, South Slavic influence. The Russians had it a thousand years ago -ich served as a patronymic formant for the privileged elite; even in the 19th century. Most Russians had a dominant patronymic -s, A -ich used as a respectful form in relation to superiors or elderly and respected people. Today -ich- This is the exclusive form of patronymic for all Russians, an obligatory component of the official three-term naming. The oldest documentary evidence of Slavic anthroponymy that has reached us proves that the formant -ich has been characteristic of all Slavs since ancient times: in the 10th century. the head of the Serbian principality of Zahumi (near Dubrovnik on the Adriatic), Prince Vyshatic, brought his anthroponym there from distant Moravia. Bearers of surnames formed by formant -ich (-ich), probably more than 20 million. It is unnecessary to recall the enormous, well-known weight of this formant in the toponymy and ethnonymy of all Slavic peoples.

The formant is involved in surnames in all Slavic languages -sk-, forming, like -s, adjectives, but with a different meaning. They designated either the owner of the area, the name of which served as the basis (the Russian prototype of this is princely naming Suzdal, Shuiskie etc., later - many noble families), or the names of those who arrived from the area, the name of which became the basis (Volzhsky, Kazansky). Later on the finished formant model -sk- began to join other bases. Formant -sky (-tsky) most often found among Poles, originally from the name of land ownership; later it became, as it were, an emblem of the gentry.

The opinion of P. Smoczynski about the direct historical connection of surname forms with the geography of the population is interesting: “Surnames on -ski in Lesser Poland there are few, since the soil there is infertile, and therefore villages were rarer than in Greater Poland... In Mazovia, where the number of estates exceeded Lesser Poland and Greater Poland, surnames on -ski more popular than in Lesser Poland, but due to the large number of villages belonging to the minor nobility, surnames there -ski less often than in Wielkopolska." This explanation remains to be tested, but the differences themselves are undeniable. Model -ski spread uncontrollably and now covers half of all Poles, among them the most common surname in Warsaw is Kowalski. Among Czechs, surnames of this model account for 3%. Among Russians, it is still impossible to accurately determine the frequency of surnames of this model, since there are large fluctuations: in the rural areas of the Central Russian strip it was almost absent, now in the villages such surnames are not isolated, but not more often than 1-2%; there are a lot of them in the North: in Kholmogory and Shenkursky districts in 1897, surnames with -sky worn by 4% of the rural population, in cities - 5%. On average, Russians have a frequency of surnames of -sky hardly exceeds 4%, but this is still more than 5 million people. Among Belarusians, the frequency of surnames of this model ranges from 10% in the south and east of the republic to 30% in its north-west, among eastern Ukrainians - 4-6%, among western ones - 12-16%, but these are calculations based on the number of surnames, not by the number of their speakers, which reduces the accuracy of comparisons. Slovaks have surnames -sk- are approximately 10%, for Czechs - 3%. The share of these surnames among Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs is insignificant, but significant among Bulgarians - about 18%. Among the Macedonians, it covers half of the population, the border of the zones of predominance of surnames is -s And -ski runs from the north of Macedonia to the south, leaving to the west on -ski(Tetovo, Gostivar, Prilep, Ohrid, Strugu, Resen, Prespu), to the east on -s(Titov, Veles, Shtip, Strumica, Gevgelija, Bitola). It was believed that the formant -sk- in the surnames of Macedonians and Bulgarians was brought from Poland; objections to this were based on phonetic materials. However, no one noticed the parallel: a form with an epenthetic labial V (-Sun-), most common in southwestern Macedonia (Ohrid), decreases as you move away from there; Same -Sun- is well known in Polish surnames, as Academician wrote about. K. Nitsch. All bearers of surnames with formant -sk-(-tsk-) among the Slavs there are significantly more than 30 million.

Huge group of surnames with formants -To-, -ak, -ek, -uk, -ik, (-ka, -ko, -enko), complicated by many formants such as -Nick, -chuk etc., we must add to them -ka, -ko with expanded form -enko. Moreover, it has been proven, for example, that there are dozens of suffixes in the Polish language -ak(and not just one!), completely different not only in their meanings, but also in origin. They are the results of phonetic changes, and the disappearance of sounds, and reinterpretations, and onomatopoeia, and formally identical endings form a clear statistical community on the map. This is probably due to three factors: 1) many of these forms may still have a common origin; 2) phonetic features of the language or dialect apply (for example, territorial delimitation e/A); 3) “pulling into a row” occurs according to the law of alignment with the predominant form.

Map 5. Eastern wing of the Slavic array of surnames with formant -To-

1 - -enko; 2 - -uk; -chuk, -yuk; 3 - -ak

In the west of the array with formant -To- 16% of Slovenians have surnames with a final -To(overtaking there the general Yugoslav -ich), mainly -To, -ek. According to the reverse dictionary of Czech surnames (out of almost 20 thousand presented in the book by I. Benes), 22% of them are formed by the final -To and another 6% -ka And -ko; my calculations for the city of Pilsen gave 21 and 6%, respectively. The Slovak ones are very close to the Czech indicators - 20% from -To and 5% from -ka, -ko. These surnames are also common in Poland, especially in the south. In the past, they were contemptuously called “servile”, since they are common among Ukrainians and Belarusians. In general, the names of models with -To cover almost 20% of all Poles. In southern Poland, data from the Nowotar eldership showed 18% of surnames with -ak(as opposed to Silesia, where more often -To And -ek), almost 9% from -ek, total with formant -To more than 35%; about 3% with formants -ka, -ko. Maximum surnames per -ak is also typical for the Ukrainians of neighboring Transcarpathia. Northeast formant -ak retreats before -uk(including -chuk and spelling -yuk: Maksimuk, Kovalyuk, Kovalchuk, etc.), uniting Ukrainians of Volyn (surnames in -uk worn by a third of residents) and Podolia ( -uk- 20-27%) with the Poles of south-eastern Poland and the Belarusians of Polesie (in the Brest region the surnames of the group -uk cover 50%, in most parts of the republic - less than 10%, and in the entire region they are single or absent). The modern boundary between the zones of predominance of surnames on -ak And -uk, shown by Yu. K. Redko, is even more obvious on the materials of the 18th century. It ran north, east and south of Lvov; west of the formant -ak prevailed over -uk. Further to the east extends a vast zone of predominance of surnames on -enko, which in the Dnieper region and Left Bank Ukraine cover in some places 60% of the population.

The zone of their dominance is directly extended throughout the entire eastern strip of Belarus. It was outlined by: Yu. K. Redko in Ukraine and N. V. Birillo in Belarus, but neither one nor the other noticed the main thing - the border of the range -enko goes not along the border of the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages, but from north to south, uniting eastern Ukrainians with eastern Belarusians and distinguishing both from the rest of the Ukrainians and Belarusians. These apparent paradoxes have not yet been explained. Back in 1649, among the Cossacks in the Kiev regiment, 54% of employees had a formant -enko, although it is unknown whether these were already surnames or still hereditary nicknames.

Among Belarusians, surnames with “pure” formants are predominantly common -ko, -ka, although they are also characteristic of Ukrainians and West Slavic peoples.

There is a single array of surnames with -To-, stretching in a huge arc across half of Europe - from the Adriatic to the Sea of Azov.

Form of surnames formed by the original common Slavic formant -in, is common only among Russians (second place in frequency; depending on historical conditions, it varies geographically and socially from 20 to 35%). Even centuries before the emergence of surnames, the meanings of formants -in And -s were completely identified, despite their different origins, but the relic word-formation difference is strong: final -A stems require a suffix -in, but not -s(with identical meaning: synonymous fathers, But daddy's). In all other Slavic languages, surnames with -in there are, but their number is small (for example, among Croats - 1%).

Surnames of the five most common forms considered ( -s, -ich, -sky, -in, -To) cover more than 4/5 of the entire Slavic population. And less frequent forms are not confined to one language, but almost each is familiar to several Slavic languages. Most Slavic languages have surnames in the form of adjective names with adjectival inflection without a suffix or with a common Slavic adjective suffix -n-, less often -at, -av; among Czechs they make up 5% of surnames and a much larger percentage of carriers (the most common ones are Novotny, Cerny, Vesely, etc.). There are slightly fewer surnames of this model among Slovaks, Poles, and Ukrainians; among Russians it is archaic (more often than 1% it is found only in the North - in the Arkhangelsk region).

From the Carpathians to the Alps, the form of surnames is often -ets(Podunaets, Vodopivets, Krivets), which can be called “Pannonian” based on its historical territory. It is common among the Croats (among the Shtokavian Croats in the form -ats), Slovenes (in the absolute majority with a final sonorant consonant of the stem -n, -R, -l, th, often with a drop-down -e-- Dolenc, Zayc), Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians of Transcarpathia, Rusyns of Vojvodina, and Serbs. Its frequency is maximum in opposite sections of the territory - among Slovenians and Transcarpathian Ukrainians it covers 7-8% each. Surnames of this model are not uncommon among the Luchi residents (Kamenets, Trubanets, etc.), and they are characterized by similarities with the Slovenians (in terms of sonorant consonant and deletion -e-) and Macedonians (Belichanets, Kurets). Area of surnames -ets forms an almost closed ring on the map, covering the territory of the Hungarians who came to the Danube in the 9th century. Spreading pattern of surnames -ets could bypass Hungary, but it is not entirely excluded that -ets in the surnames of Transcarpathia is due to South Slavic influence. It is most likely that not only before the emergence of surnames, but even before the arrival of the Hungarians, who tore apart the solid Slavic population of the former Pannonia, those identical word-forming components were formed in the Slavic languages, which centuries later formed a model of surnames in -ets.

With regional Russian surnames in the genitive plural form on -their, -s The same surnames correspond to the Silesian Poles (Skrynski, Szymanski), and the Czechs (Bashkov, Stranski). Researchers knew them only by region and did not have the opportunity to compare them, so it is difficult to blame Art. Rospond, who adopted Silesian surnames -their for a tracing paper of the German model in the form of the genitive case (Diederichs, Arnolds). The presence of such a form among a number of Slavic peoples (Russians have thousands of such surnames) refutes the hypothesis; Slavic origin of surname patterns on -their, -s undoubtedly.

Infrequent Czech, Polish, Ukrainian surnames in -xno(Mikhno, Stekhno, Yakhno) - an echo of medieval names, also known among the southern Slavs.

Another type of surname is a common noun, which became a surname without any changes (Smetana), even with visible suffixes, but formed not a surname, but also its basis (Melnik). Surnames of this type, dominant in the non-Slavic languages of Europe, among Slavic peoples are most often found among Czechs and Slovenes, less often among Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.

The seemingly disordered surnames from the two origins in the Slavic world are not separated by language. On the contrary, they are combined into interlingual groups according to the grammatical relationships between their constituent elements. Here are two of the groups: 1) definition + definable: Czech. Zlatoglavek, Ukrainian Ryabokon, Russian Krivonos, Croatian. Belobraydich. A variation of this group is a numeral instead of an adjective: Russian. Semibratov, Ukrainian Trigub, Croatian. Stokucha, Czech. Six-year-old. 2) object of action + verb stem: gender. Domoslavski, Slovenian. Vodopivets, Croatian. Booker, Russian Griboyedov. Variety - imperative + object of action: Croatian. Derikrava; Ukrainian ones are especially frequent. Perebiynos, Zabeyvorota, Podoprigora, Pokinboroda (this surname was documented back in 1649 and still exists today). There are direct doubles - the Czech and Croatian surname Zlatoglavek, the Bulgarian Vartigora and the Ukrainian Vernigora, the Croatian Krivoshia and the Russian Krivosheev, the Croatian Vodopia, the Slovenian Vodopivets, the Ukrainian Vodopyan and Russian Vodopyanov, the Ukrainian and Czech Kapinos, the Ukrainian Otchenash and the Czech Otchenashek, etc. d. - This is only a small part of many such parallels. In many cases, it is typical to preserve the archaic form of the noun-object in the form of direct, rather than indirect, case (Ubeikobyla).

The areas of surnames or their forms do not coincide with the boundaries of languages (not to mention dialects). A striking example is a single array of surnames on -enko, running across linguistic boundaries, uniting the eastern part of Ukraine with the eastern strip of Belarus. “Against” the boundaries of languages, the forms of surnames are also placed on -ets, -ak, -uk etc. The surname Horvat in Croatia itself is very common in the north, but is completely absent throughout the entire territory of the republic outside this zone. But far away, in the southwest of Slovakia, the surname Horvat ranks second in frequency, and with derivatives (Horvatic and others) in the capital Bratislava, as noted by V. Blanar, even first. That this connection is not accidental is proven by the evidence of Croatian anthroponyms from the southwest of Slovakia in a document of 1569. Until now, the parallel that opens this chapter has not been noted: the surname Popov, the most common in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk region) and almost absent in huge spaces of settlement of the Slavs to the south, prevails at the opposite boundary of the Slavic world.

Some of the common Slavic features of surnames are genetic - traces of the former linguistic unity of the Slavs, others are due to the direct interchange of surnames (and with them their forms) between Slavic peoples, for example, Russian-Ukrainian, Russian-Belarusian, Polish-Ukrainian, Polish-Belarusian, Czech-Polish etc. The centuries-old communication of the Slavs with non-Slavic peoples drew into the Slavs many non-Slavs by origin, who brought with them their foreign surnames. Czechs have many German surnames, Poles have German and Lithuanian surnames, Bulgarians have Turkish surnames, Russians have Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Ibero-Caucasian, etc.

The researchers were pleased with the coincidence of the onomastic map with the dialect map. This is justified while the young branch of knowledge has not yet firmly established itself and is looking for support in related sciences. But coincidences are only a special and not very common case. Mismatches are more common. And it is better to rejoice at the discrepancy: the coincidence only confirms what is already known, discovered by related sciences, and the discrepancy reveals what has not yet been discovered, which turned out to be inaccessible to other sciences.

Among Croatian surnames, the most common form is -ic, including -ovic, -evic, -inic. The most common surnames ending in -ic are marked. They can be ranked in order of frequency as follows:

Kovaljevic (the second most common surname in Croatia);
Kovacic;
Markovich;
Petrovich;
Popovich;
Vukovich.

A number of observations on Croatian surnames of this form were made by V. Splitter-Dilberović, but she did not concern either frequency or placement. The predominance of forms in -ic (Russian -ич) unites Croats with Serbs.

But among the Serbs -ic is a monopoly; out of 1000 surnames collected in central Serbia, there are 953 of these, and among the Croats this form is somewhat crowded out by others, not uncommon among their neighbors to the west - the Slovenes and other neighboring Slavic peoples.

The predominance of -ich forms in Croatia is uneven: in its central zone, more than 2/8 of the population have such endings of surnames (Kotary Petrinja, Ogulin, and in Kotar Vojnic even 71%), in Slovenia and Dalmatia - more than half the population.

And although in the north, in the border Kotar Prelog, there are only 1/64 surnames in -ich, here too this form is the most common and its minimum percentage for Croatia is much higher than among neighboring Slovenes, where there are 15% of such surnames.

This form of surname is common among Poles; recorded from the 15th century, it especially became more frequent in the 17th-18th centuries, became the predominant form of surnames among townspeople (artisans and merchants), in Lodz it covered 20% of the population.

Dubrovnik Croatia

Slovaks, Belarusians, and Ukrainians also have surnames of this form in some quantity; they are rare among Czechs and Bulgarians. Among Russians, this form did not penetrate the surname, but it completely conquered a special anthroponymic category - patronymic.

According to O. N. Trubachev, the form in -ich appears later than in -ov. This confirms his thesis that the new first conquers the center of the region, pushing the archaic to the periphery, in this case, to Montenegro and Vojvodina.

Croats and Serbs have retained many unofficial surnames - these are former family names (porodicni nadirnci), among which forms in -ov predominate. In some areas, each Croatian family has two surnames, for example in Baranja.

The second most common group of surnames ends in -k.

-ak (including -sak, -scak) - Bosnjak, Drobnjak, Dolinschak, Dvorak (among them Novak is the fourth most common surname in Croatia, it is also the most common among Slovenes and Czechs, the sixth among the Poles of Warsaw, and not uncommon among Slovaks).

This form of surnames is ubiquitous in Croatia. It is formed by many suffixes that characterize the bearer according to some characteristic (appearance, character traits, ethnicity, place of origin, occupation, position in society, serial number of the child in the family, etc.). The form is common in surnames in southern Poland, Slovakia and western Ukraine.

-ek (including -sek, -sec -sec). Surnames with such endings have the same meanings as surnames ending in -ak (appearance, etc.); Diminutives are also common, for example from the personal name of the father (Jurek, Michalek).

This form of surnames is almost absent in Dalmatia, but successfully competes with -ak in Slavonia, and is common in Prelog (almost 7% of residents), although somewhat less common than -ak.

In the “inverted” dictionary of the Serbo-Croatian language (not by initials, but by finals), appellatives ending in -ak are 11 times more common than with -ek. The highest frequency of surnames with -ek is characteristic of Slovenians - 6% (twice more than with -ak), Czechs - 12% (four times more often than -ak).

-ik (~nik). The meanings are the same as for surnames with -ek, and the placement is similar: in Dalmatia and the middle part of the country they are very rare, they are found in Slavonia and Prelog.
-uk. The form is less common than with -ak and -ik, but is represented by many dozens of surnames, among which there are frequent ones: Tarbuk - 513 people, Tsafuk - 340, Biyuk - 302 people, etc. On the vast territory of Right Bank Ukraine (Volyn, Podolia) and the south-west of Belarus, surnames in -uk (-chuk) take first place, and they are also found in the south-east of Poland.

Surnames of the -k group make up 15% of the population in Prelog kotar, 4-8% each in the remaining kotars included in the count, decreasing to 1% in Voynich and Gospić. The forms -ko, -ka are also associated with them, representing in their origin a variant of them, differing only phonetically.

On Croatian territory, surnames ending in -ko, -ka are found more often than 1% only in Slavonia. Their absolute maximum zone is in Ukraine and partly in Belarus.

Researchers of Slavic surnames divided this group into dozens of small ones - according to suffixes. Another approach is also legitimate - to consider them as a whole. They are united not only by a common core -k, but also by geographical unity, forming a single massif stretching on the map of Europe in a grandiose curved arc from the Adriatic to the Sea of Azov.

Surnames of this group rank first in frequency among Slovenes (more often than -ic), among Czechs (28%), are very frequent in Poland (in Silesia they reached 31%, in Lodz -30%), and are absolutely prevalent among Ukrainians.

The distinction between -as and -es (Russian -ats, ets) is very characteristic. Surnames with the final -ac are common throughout the southern part of the country and in Slavonia, are not uncommon in the middle zone and much less common in the north, and -es, on the contrary, are rare in Dalmatia and Istria, infrequent in the middle zone and in Slavonia, but are maximum north of the Karlovac line -Sisak - Bjelovar, i.e. in the territory of the Kajkavian dialect (according to a sample count, almost 90% of bearers of surnames ending in -es live there).

The surname Varazdinec in the Shtokavian Kotar Petrinja refers to the Kajkavian city of Varazdin. These are the indications of “paired” surnames: the surname Novoselac is borne by 833 people in Croatia, of which 757 are in the Kajkavian territory, 76 in Slavonia, and of the 529 bearers of the surname Novoselec, 471 people live in Slavonia, 14 in Dalmatia and 44 in the Kajkavian kotars.

The demarcation of the pairs Posavac - Pasavec, Brezovac - Vrezovec, Stimac - Stimec, etc. is similar. These examples give the impression that there is a dialectal phonetic difference. But the solution is not so simple.

Although the statistical and geographical demarcation of surnames into -ats/-ets expresses the same tendency as the demarcation with -ak/-ek, but somewhat differently and to a different extent; With two non-coinciding boundaries, the boundary between the predominance of toponyms -ac/-es does not coincide, although with the same basic tendency.

To this group should be added surnames with a consonant ending (almost always sonorant), that is, with a dropped vowel: Zhvorts, Novints. Unlike neighboring Slovenia, they do not constitute a noticeable amount - even in the north-west and west of Croatia they do not reach 1%.

Of the remaining forms of surnames, only very few cover more than 1% of the population.

Surnames in -ag (Russian -ar) are predominantly nomina agentis, i.e. names based on occupation: Ribar, Lonchar, Tsiglyar; some of them are identical with Slovenian and Czech (Kramar - Korchmar). Surnames with this formant are not limited to this meaning, but are also formed from other stems (Magyar); there are German surnames with the same ending.
-ica (Russian -itsa) is a diminutive form, sometimes ironic. In Croatia as a whole, its frequency barely exceeds 0.5% - 22,000 people.
Among the surnames with the final -sh, there are indisputably Hungarian ones, for example Cenkas in Prelog (from Hungarian “boatman”), Veres throughout the north-eastern border of Croatia (from Hungarian, “bloody”).

The Croatian Iles, Ivanes, Markos, Matiyas, Mikulas, together with Bradash, Dragas, Punas, Radosh and others confirm that this form is not borrowed.

It is also common outside of anthroponymy: the reverse dictionary of the Serbo-Croatian language lists 735 words with the final -sh, and it is impossible to doubt the actual Slavic origin of such words as, for example, golish (“naked, naked”).

The situation is similar with surnames with the ending -iya, although there are many surnames from Turkish names with -ia associated with the church.
About 5,000 Croats have surnames ending in -anin (from Russian -anin): Bishchanin, Cetinjanin, Cvetcanin, Gracanin, Jananin, Oresanin, Redicanin, etc.; they are most common on both slopes of Kapela and in the adjacent valleys, they are not uncommon in neighboring territories (Vrginmost) and in Slavonia, but have not penetrated to the north and west.
Several surnames of Polish origin ending in -ski cannot overshadow Croatian surnames of the same form: Zrinski - 636 people, Slunski - 870, Dvorski - 560. People derived from the names of the cities of Zrin, Slunj, Dvor, and other similar surnames. Hundreds of thousands of Macedonian surnames echo them - in the western regions of Macedonia, the dominance of this form of surnames is absolute.

The results of observations can be presented in the following zones:

Kaikavskie kotars. The minimum frequency for Croatia of the predominant form is -ich. The largest percentage of surnames ending in -k for Croatia. A huge predominance of forms in -ets over -ats and almost equal to -ak and -yok. Maximum surnames Horvat (14,753 people out of total, 20,147 people throughout Croatia). There are no surnames in -anin and almost none in -itsa. Increased percentage of last names ending in -sh.
Slavonia. The predominant form in -ich covers more than half of the population. Rivalry of surnames na~ak and -ek with a variable predominance of both and the predominance of -ats (34%) over -ets (0.5%). The minimum number of forms is -itsa. Significant weight of the Horvat surname (4185 people), especially in the northern border zone.
Dalmatia. The predominant form -ich covers from iU to 2/3 of the population. The highest frequency of surnames in Croatia begins with -ats, with an almost complete absence of surnames with -ets. The highest frequency of the formant in Croatia is -itsa. Lack of the Horvath surname.
Middle lane. The predominant form -ich covers more than 2/3 of the population. There is a large predominance of surnames in -ats over -ets. The surname Horvat is not common.
Zagreb forms a separate zone. The capital always absorbs the features of all zones. However, Zagreb’s indicators do not completely coincide with the arithmetic average - it is also noticeable in them that the city arose on Kajkavian territory, moreover, administratively, the surrounding Kajkavian villages are included here.

The first attempt at zonal characteristics is only preliminary. It's very incomplete. The west was left out of the calculation (Istria, Delnice, Rijeka, Kvarner). The boundaries between the zones are unclear and the very nature of the boundaries is unknown - where they are sharp and where they are blurred.

Serbian surnames have certain characteristics that indicate their nationality. At the same time, they are close to all Slavic peoples, which allows us to draw an analogy and show how much they have in common. The article provides examples of the most common and well-known surnames, as well as the rule for their declension.

Features of Serbian surnames

The Serbs as a people were formed through the assimilation of the ancient Greeks, descendants of the Roman Empire and the Eastern Slavs, who created a South Slavic subgroup that settled in the north-west of the Balkan Peninsula, where local tribes of Illyrians and Dacians lived. For a long time, Croats, Serbs and Bosnians had a single literary language, but since the middle of the 20th century, their own language was created based on the Cyrillic “Vukovica”.

By tradition, the Latin “gajevica” is also used, which brings Serbs closer to other Balkan peoples, whose languages are similar, and there is mutual understanding between the speakers. Today, two-thirds of Serbs live in the lands of the former Yugoslavia (8 million people), including 6 million directly in Serbia. There are another 4 million foreign diaspora, well represented in the United States.

It is distinguished by Serbian surnames, which, as a rule, contain a characteristic suffix - ich, which has a decreasing value. For example, the surname Petrich can be interpreted as little Peter. The suffix is often associated with the word "son": Milkovich is the son of Milko. The difference is fundamental, because 90% of the surnames of Serbian citizens have the suffix - ich.

There are exceptions. For example, a world-famous film director, a native of Sarajevo, considers Orthodox Serbs his ancestors, but his uncharacteristic surname reveals the presence of Muslim roots. 17% also end in - ovich (evich), but their peculiarity is the fact that, as a rule, they owe their origin to baptismal names: Borisevich, Pashkevich, Yurkovich.

Serbian surnames: list of the most popular

A study of the most common surnames in Serbia since 1940 yielded the following results:

The most used ones come from personal names: Jovanovic, Nikolic, Markovic, Petrovic, Djordjevic, Milosevic, Pavlovich.
Based on professional activity, personal qualities and other words, the following are popular: Stankovic, Ilic, Stojanovic.

Using the last name as an example, you can see how many famous people are its bearers:

The now living writer and journalist Radosav Stojanovic, author of the novels “Moonship”, “Angelus” and “Wild Graft”.
Serbian and Russian actresses with the same name Daniela Stojanovic.
Beginning tennis player Nina Stojanovic.

The research also concerned the most commonly used combinations with male and female names, which most often are of Slavic origin and are not divided into full and diminutive (in the passport you can find both Miloslav, Milan, and Milko). There are also Orthodox names (although Serbs do not have a tradition of celebrating name days), as well as compound ones, “glued together” from two words with a Slavic component (Marislav, Negomira).

The most common Serbian first and last names:

The beauty of sound and famous personalities

Beautiful surnames delight the ears of those who hear and pronounce them. Nothing pleases more than the successes and achievements of fellow citizens glorifying their historical homeland. Today the whole world knows the Australian Nicholas Vujicic, whose lack of limbs did not prevent him from becoming famous and becoming the best motivational speaker of our time, instilling hope in seriously ill people. But few people know that his parents are Serbian emigrants, as evidenced by the surname that sounds today in all languages of the world and has lost its original correct reading - Vujicic.

Beautiful Serbian surnames today belong to hundreds of athletes, cultural and scientific figures. Among them are the best tennis player, football legend Dragan Djajic, NBA center player Vlade Divac, world-class football players Branislav Ivanovic, Bojan Krkic, Milos Krasic, Hollywood beauty Milla Jovovich, composer Goran Bregovic, singer Radmila Karaklajic, the greatest scientist Nikola Tesla, who gave the world X-rays and lasers . By the way, the absence -ich often speaks of belonging to the lands of Vojvodina or Kosovo and Mitohija, where this suffix is less common.

Analogies

The emphasis in long surnames among Serbs, as a rule, falls on the third syllable from the end: Stamenković, Vukobratović, which distinguishes them from representatives of other Slavic nationalities. If the base is the root -wook, a similar surname in Russian will be formed from the word wolf: Volkov, Volchkov, Volchaninov. For example, Vukic, Vukovich, Vukoslavljevic. The following Serbian surnames also come from the names of animals: Paunovic (peacock), Sharanich (carp), Vranich (crow). Russian analogues: Pavlinov, Karpov, Voronin.

Russian surnames formed from professional activities (Kuznetsov, Bondarev, Karetnikov) correspond to: Kovachevich, Kacharovich, Kolarevich. Other analogies with the underlying words are also interesting. Example: Gromov - Lomich, Lukin - Lukovich, Bezborodov - Chosic, Koldunov - Veshtitsa, Kleymenov - Zhigich.

Declension

Serbian surnames are declined according to the rule of the Russian language, which states that surnames ending in a consonant -h in the feminine gender, the cases do not change:

I'm following Ana Ivanovic's game.

And in masculine - they bow without fail:

Nominative (who?): Dusan Ivkovic;
Genitive (of whom?): Dusan Ivkovic;
Dative (to whom?): Dušan Ivković;
Accusative (of whom?): Dusan Ivkovic;
Creative (by whom?): Dusan Ivkovic;
Prepositional (about whom?): about Dusan Ivkovic.

The surnames of Slavic peoples are sometimes difficult to divide into “national apartments,” although recently they have been trying to do this in Ukraine. For many centuries, the so-called writing people strived for Slavic unity. They studied from the same books in both Russia and Serbia. The Kiev monk Pamvo Berynda, who created an excellent lexicon, believed that he was writing in a “Russian” language (that is, Russian), although his own language by that time was already Ukrainian. The famous lexicographer Vladimir Ivanovich Dal included words from all East Slavic languages in his dictionary, without dividing them into Ukrainian and Belarusian, but only noting “western” and “southern”.

Moreover, all this applies to surnames. After all, people do not sit still; in the history of our homeland there were mass migrations, and movements of individual people, and marriages between representatives of different branches of the Slavs. It is especially difficult to determine the linguistic affiliation of the surnames of people in the Smolensk region, in Belarus, in Western Ukraine, where Orthodoxy and Catholicism met, where there were significant Polish penetrations, and in some parts of this zone, at one time, documentation was conducted in Polish.

The most pronounced Polish and Belarusian elements are felt in surnames that include a combination of the letters dz, dl, and partially rzh. For example, the Belarusian surname Dzyanisau corresponds to the Russian Denisov and is written that way in Russian. The Polish surname Dzeshuk is formed from the name Dzesh, a derivative of Dzeslaw (a two-part name formed from the stem of the verb do (sya) + the Slavic component) with the suffix -uk, indicating that Dzeshuk is the son of a man named Dzesh.

Common features of the surnames of Slavic peoples

The Polish surname Orzhekhovskaya corresponds to the Russian Orekhovskaya, Grzhibovskaya - Gribovskaya. Since these surnames end in -skaya, they do not come directly from the words mushroom or nut, but are most likely derived from the names of places with such stems.

The Polish surname Szydlo corresponds to the Ukrainian Shilo, the Polish Sverdlov corresponds to the Russian Sverlov.

The Polish surname Dzenzeluk is derived from the name or nickname Dzendzel, which comes from the word dzenzol - woodpecker. Breaking away from the original word, surnames develop dozens of similar variants. The surnames Dzenzelovsky, Dzenzelevsky (with the transformation of the second “d” into “z”) and the Ukrainianized surname Dzynzyruk mentioned by the author of the letter, Elena Dzenzelyuk, go back to the same basis.

The Polish-Belarusian surname Golodyuk is derived from the word hunger (Polish glut). The Polish dictionary of surnames, compiled by Professor Kazimierz Rymut (this is the modern Polish pronunciation of the name, which is traditionally written in Russian Kazimir), along with the forms Glud and Glod, also lists the surnames Hunger, Goloda, Golodok. The form Golodyuk indicates that the bearer of this surname is a descendant of a person named Golod.

The Ukrainian-South Russian surname Murienko is derived from the nickname Mury (Ukrainian Mury), which a person could get from the color of his hair. V.I. Dal explains: mury (about the fur of cows and dogs) - reddish-brown with a black wave, dark motley. In the Ukrainian-Belarusian dictionary of V.P. Lemtyugova, these meanings of the adjective are confirmed and the addition is made - “with a red, dark face.” The surname Murienko suggests that its bearer is a descendant of a person with the nickname Murii. The suffix -enko, more widespread in the eastern part of Ukraine than in the western part, is similar to the Russian patronymic suffix -ovich/-evich. Compare in fairy tales: the Russian Ivan Tsarevich corresponds to the Ukrainian Ivan Tsarenko.

The Ukrainian-South Russian surname Kvitun is formed from the verb to get even - to settle, to avenge an insult, to pay a debt; -un - suffix of the name of the figure, as in screamer, squeaker, talker. There are Polish surnames with the same basis: Kvit, Kvitash, Kviten, Kvitko.

The surname Sitar is most likely Czech. It was formed from a nickname by profession: sitar - one who makes sieves.

The surname Kuts is very interesting, which can be compared with words in different languages. I always perceived it as coming from the short adjective kuts, corresponding to the full form kutsy. But the semantics of this word “short-tailed, tailless, short-haired” is far from any characteristic of a person. True, in the 17th-18th centuries, a short dress or short caftan was called a “German dress” in contrast to Russian long-skimmed caftans, and there was also an expression: a short captain of a plucked team, but this does not explain the surname formed from the short form of the adjective.

The surname Kuts is in the Polish language. It is formed from the same word, which has developed some other meanings there. For example, the verb “squat” means to squat, which indicates short stature. This means that a short man could have received the nickname Kuts. The Poles use the word kuts to describe a small horse, including a pony.

Finally, the surname Kutz may be of German origin, as formed from one of the many derivatives of the name Conrad. The surname Kunz is of the same origin.

The surname Kakov is of Greek origin. In Greek, “kako” means evil, damage, loss, misfortune; kakos - bad, evil, no good, compare the word cacophony - bad sounds, bad sound. The surname could be formed from the name given “from the evil eye.”