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date: 17 January 2025

Russian, Ukrainian, and Other Eastern Slavic Family Names 

Source:
Dictionary of American Family Names
Author(s):
Alexander BeiderAlexander Beider

Traditionally, Eastern Slavs were called by two names. The first one, usually a Christian saint’s name authorized by the Orthodox Church, was acquired during christening. Most of these were of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew origin. The second name was optional and had no religious associations. Sometimes it was a Slavic given name from the period before the adoption of Christianity, which took place at the end of the 10th century. In other cases, the second, vernacular, name was a nickname. In official documents, people were generally referred to by their given name (the first or the second one) and the patronymic, constructed by adding special suffixes to the father’s given name. In Russian, the suffix depended on the morphology of the father’s name. If the latter ended in a hard consonant or ... ...

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