# Cerveny, female surname?



## CKM367

Hi!

I wonder if it is possible for a Slovak girl to have name 'Paula Cerveny' or would it be 'Paula Cervena'?


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## Azori

If she lived in Slovakia it would be most likely "Paulína Červená", I think.


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## CKM367

Azori said:


> If she lived in Slovakia it would be most likely "Paulína Červená", I think.


Yes, she supposedly lived in Slovakia in XVII century. Why Paulina, not Paula? Was that impossible for her to have surname *Červený* or just unlikely? I don't know Slovak but I see červený be adjective (red) of male gender, right?


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## Azori

CKM367 said:


> Why Paulina, not Paula?


It could have been Paula, too. But the Slovak name day calendar (in its usual form) has Paulína, not Paula. The regulations regarding names were more strict in the past (like during the communist era) than they are now. However, neither Paulína nor Paula are common first names in Slovakia.





> Was that impossible for her to have surname *Červený* or just unlikely? I don't know Slovak but I see červený be adjective (red) of male gender, right?


Yes, _červený_ means "red" and is of masculine gender. I think it's more impossible than unlikely to have such a surname for a female here.


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## CKM367

Many thanks, Azori!


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## bibax

IMHO it depends on context. In the parish registers the usual forms of surnames were identical for both genders and of masculine gender, of course; especially when written in Latin or German, e.g. Paula n(ata) Cžerwenÿ.

The feast day of St. Paula of Rome/svätá Paula Rímska is January 26 (Roman-Catholic calendar). Thus Paula certainly was an allowed Christian (first) name in Slovakia or Upper Hungary (Horné Uhorsko).


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## CKM367

I have to translate some parts of 'House of Bathory' by Linda Lafferty into Russian. The action takes place, particularly, in Čachticé, near Piešťany, in 1610. One of peasants was a girl named Paula Červený. I am afraid, the American author knows Slovak and Slovakia still less than I do. That is why I check the suspicious Slovak words and names.


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## bibax

The book is a literary fiction. There is a dialogue about the orphan girl Paula Cerveny between Erzsébeth Báthory and Brona (Bronislava?) in the kitchen - very implausible. They hardly were using a vernacular Slovak dialect. They probably spoke Hungarian and Hungarian has no genders. In the documents written in Hungarian the name of the girl could be written as Paula Cserveny or Cserveni.

If I had to translate the book into Czech, I should use Paula or Pavla Červená (feminine gender form) as we even normally say and write Nastasja Kinská or Monica Lewinská.


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## CKM367

bibax said:


> They hardly were using a vernacular Slovak dialect. They probably spoke Hungarian and Hungarian has no genders. In the documents written in Hungarian the name of the girl could be written as Paula Cserveny or Cserveni.



The author writes that the servants, including Brona, did not know Hungarian.



bibax said:


> If I had to translate the book into Czech, I should use Paula or Pavla Červená (feminine gender form) as we even normally say and write Nastasja Kinská or Monica Lewinská.



I do so. Though, in Russian, it is accustomed to write Настасья Кински or Моника Левински however odd that may sound - I think, because those names are not considered Polish anymore. 
By the way: are Czech and Slovak very similar?


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## Apollodoros

bibax said:


> The book is a literary fiction. There is a dialogue about the orphan girl Paula Cerveny between Erzsébeth Báthory and Brona (Bronislava?) in the kitchen - very implausible. They hardly were using a vernacular Slovak dialect. They probably spoke Hungarian and Hungarian has no genders. In the documents written in Hungarian the name of the girl could be written as Paula Cserveny or Cserveni.
> 
> If I had to translate the book into Czech, I should use Paula or Pavla Červená (feminine gender form) as we even normally say and write Nastasja Kinská or Monica Lewinská.



Hi reading this after while, just a comment.

In Upper Hungary (Slovakia) prior to 1919 it was common not to add the feminine ending to surnames. This was probably under foreign language influence as Slovak was never official language in the Kingdom of Hungary (Latin by 1843, then Hungarian, with some short periods of German if I remember well). I have regularly seen documents with women signing themselves with their first name and the masculine form of their surname (husband's/father's surname) dated even after 1919. I suspect that in the birth records books (matrika) the names were only given in masculine form. The practice of adding feminine suffixes seems to be broadly introduced only after 1919 under Czech influence. So the form Paula Cerveny fits the period that the book is set in.

Also the nobility in Hungary was not exclusively ethnically Hungarian, they did form a part of the medieval concept of _Natio Hungarica_ but this was not based on ethnic/language characteristics. The nobility living in what is now Slovakia did necessarily speak some Slovak as they were interacting with serfs on a daily basis. I dare to say that for a lot of them Slovak was their first language. It is true that then when things got hot in XIX. century the most of them would declare themselves as Hungarians. I believe that Alžbeta Báthory spoke at least some Slovak.


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## CKM367

Apollodoros said:


> In Upper Hungary (Slovakia) prior to 1919 it was common not to add the feminine ending to surnames.



Many thanks, Apollodoros; your comment was useful.


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## bibax

However *červený* is a common adjective. And the book is not a historical document but a novel.

Nowadays it is common to use the surname of one of Báthory's female servant in the feminine form: Benická or Benecká, even in English and Russian.

_"Служанки Елизаветы – Илона Йо, Дорота Сентеш и Катарина *Беницка* были сожжены заживо, ..." (from Wiki)_


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