# Etymology of Russian names endings in -ov



## LilianaB

Where do the Russian endings -ov come from? Would they be related to the German -hoff? *<... second topic deleted>*


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## Kartof

It's related to the Bulgarian -ov/a and -ev/a through both languages' common history with Old Church Slavonic.  It's likely that the suffix was present in South Slavic languages such as Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic first and then spread to Russian through the influence of Eastern Orthodoxy.


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## ahvalj

It is common Slavic and originates from the Indo-European thematic adjectives ("-owo-") derived from the u-stems: cp. Sanskrit "vaiṣṇavah" from Viṣṇuh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishnavism). Across some IE languages, there is a parallel suffix "-eyo-" from the i-stems, and the Slavic suffix "-i-" of the relative adjectives («лисии, человѣчии, божии») may be an example of it (though phonetically it can be also derived from -iyo-).


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## LilianaB

I read somewhere that it was a result of the shift and was related to the German -off . I do not remember the source, unfortunately. It was related to the sound shifts.  What is your opinion?


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> I read somewhere that it was a result of the shift and was related to the German -off . I do not remember the source, unfortunately. It was related to the sound shifts.  What is your opinion?


So, the surname Петров must have originated from Peterhof? Or probably the opposite way? Etymology is such an obscure discipline... ,-)

Your source must have heard that the East and North German surnames and place names on -ow and -in are somehow related to the Slavic ones. This is true, indeed, but they have been borrowed in the opposite direction: from the assimilated Slavic to the German.

Back to our suffix. It's science after all. One never has to take the facts out of context. The Slavic surnames on "-ov-" do not exist in vacuum: they are part of the Slavic word formation system, and there are countless other adjectives with such a suffix. In particular, there are some adjectives derived from u-stems with a good IE etymology: «верх—верхов[ой]» (IE *wrsus—wrsowos), «мёд—медов[ый]» (*medu—medowos), «сын—сынов[ний]» (*sūnus—sūnowos), etc. (nouns related to viršus, medus, sūnus in a language I forgot the name of).


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## LilianaB

Thank you, Ahvalj, I do not know if the whole name, because some roots may be Russian, but the ending, apparently.


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Thank you, Ahvalj, I do not know if the whole name, because some roots may be Russian, but the ending, apparently.



OK, for those who believe that Earth stands on four elephants and the IE language did never exist, I will consider the alternative hypothesis. 


(1) The earliest Slavic written records come from the 9th century, when Cyril and Methodius translated the christian texts into what now is called Old Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian in Bulgaria). In these earliest texts we meet a great abundance of adjectives with the suffix -ov-, which suggests it had already existed for quite some time in the language to populate the vocabulary. On the other hand, these texts contain two definitely borrowed suffixes, «-арь» (from Latin through Gothic) and «-чии» (from Turkic, apparently received in Bulgaria in place) — these suffixes are rare and are found in borrowings as well as occasional Slavic words. This means that, had «-ov-» been borrowed too, this should have taken place considerably earlier, not less that several centuries before — i. e. in the 6th century or earlier.


(2) The Slavic dialects of the 9th century did not know the sound "f" — it existed only in the bookish style in Greek borrowings. The Germanic (Gothic) borrowings, as well as the Greek borrowings in the spoken language, contained "p" instead: «пълкъ» from "fulks", Ничипоръ for Никифоръ etc. 


(3) More than this, there was no "v" at that time: the future "v" was still half-w, probably like the Spanish bilabial "b" is now. This pronounciation still exists in the southern East Slavic (Ukrainian and southern Russian), for example.


(4) Both (2) and (3) mean that the German words with "f" had no chances to be borrowed with this sound, neither could "f" be substituted with "v" — the very first examples of this substitution appear much later, in the 12th century or so, and in the extreme west of the Slavic territory and much later than the final split of the common Slavic dialect continuum. 


(5) If we speak of the German of the 5-7 centuries, we should remember that it still had no shortened forms with "-off" or whatever variant is suggested: neither Gothic, nor the early runic Norse, nor (later) the Old German have them: they exhibit complete stems (and Gothic and the oldest Norse even had most endings preserved).


(6) Where actually could the Slavs have the chance to borrow these German toponyms? The Slavs first came in contact with the future Germans in the 6-7th centuries, i. e. pretty late. For an earlier period, history and borrowings suggest only contacts with the East Germanic tribes (Goths etc.) in the 4-5th centuries, but these tribes have no -hoff in their toponyms. 


So, supporters of profoundly alternative linguistic theories, please, elaborate your argumentation.


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## LilianaB

Thank you, Ahvalj, this has been fascinating. I always ignored shifts and sound descriptions in school but now I have been fascinated by it. I did not claim that these endings were borrowings: I simply thought that they developed independently and were a result of sound shift in the Indo-European.


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> I read somewhere that it was a result of the shift and was related to the German -off . I do not remember the source, unfortunately. It was related to the sound shifts.  What is your opinion?


There is no native German suffix _-off_. There are place names ending in_ -hof_ and _-hoff_ but those are derived from the German word _Hof _in the sense of _farm_. There are German place names ending in _-ow_ (pronounced [o:], the "w" is mute). Those are all east of the Elbe river and are invariably of Slavic origin.

There are some Russian family names, mainly Jewish, ending in _-гоф_ which are obviously derived from German _-hof(f),_ like _Дизенгоф_.


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## LilianaB

Wouldn't these last names be family names of Jewish people from Russia who adopted the Russified version of their last names and then moved to a German speaking country and the name was changed to off. But this is not really what I had in mind. I just read somewhere that the _ov _ending was a result of a sound shift and corresponded to the German hoff. I would have to find the source and read it again.I read it a long time ago so it might be hard. Thank you, Berndf.


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Wouldn't these last names be family names of Jewish people from Russia who adopted the Russified version of their last names and then moved to a German speaking country and the name was changed to off.


I don't quite understand what you mean. Ashkenazi Jewish family names where usually of German origin and "h" at the beginning of the syllable regularly becomes "г" in Russian loan from other languages. It is quite obvious that the origin of_ Дизенгоф _must have been *_Diezenhoff_ or something similar.


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## LilianaB

I do not know Berndf, I thought it was the other way round with Jewish family names, that first they had more Slavic name and then it was turned into a Germanized form like Lipkoff, if there is such a name. Are there any old German names ending with -hoff, or hauph, or a similar ending?


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Are there any old German names ending with -hoff, or hauph, or a similar ending?


Yes, they are quite frequent. Their ancestors were farm workers who got their family names from the farm (=Hof) they worked on.



LilianaB said:


> ...Germanized form like Lipkoff


Jewish names like _Abramoff_ are of course Slavic but they ended in _-ов _in Russian (_Абрамов_) and not in _-гоф_.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I think that might be it. For some reason someone thought they were related to _ov_, but I have to read more about, or do some research before I say anything else.


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Yes, I think that might be it. For some reason someone thought they were related to _ov_, but I have to read more about, or do some research before I say anything else.


The difficulty is of cause that in German and Yiddish final _-ov_ sounds like _-of _(generally, voiced and unvoiced finals cannot be distinguished; that's why Germans pronounce _eyes _like _ice_ in English). That's why it is important how it is spelled in Russian.


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## tFighterPilot

LilianaB said:


> I do not know Berndf, I thought it was the other way round with Jewish family names, that first they had more Slavic name and then it was turned into a Germanized form like Lipkoff, if there is such a name. Are there any old German names ending with -hoff, or hauph, or a similar ending?


Ashkenazi Jews are, by the meaning of their (our) title, German Jews. Ashkenaz means Germany in old Hebrew. However, most Ashkenazi Jews have moved eastwards in the late middle ages, since at the time eastern Europe was more friendly to Jews. Jews having last names, other then "Hakohen" or "Halevi", only started occuring in the late middle ages. I think you can learn very little from Jewish last names.


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## LilianaB

I did not have in mind Jewish names, but this is very interesting too. I had in mind old German names or perhaps even just Germanic.


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## ancalimon

If there was some relationship between Khazarians and Ashkenazi, ov could be related with Turkic OĞ > OĞLU  (son of).

OĞ - OW are old Turkic words with the vague meaning of "belonging to a higher power, or higher something.. or connected to a higher something"

There are also many Turks whose name were given the suffix OV in for example Russia. Thus Süleymanoğlu (son of Sülayman ~ belonging to Süleyman) became Suleymanov) especially during Stalin's time.


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## etoya

That's correct, ending -ov shows belonging in Russian. E.g. "Ivanova mashina" (Иванова машина) means "car of Ivan", "Ivanov dom" (Иванов дом) - Ivan's house. So "Ivanov" as a family name means "son of Ivan", "Ivanova" - "daughter of Ivan". In old times some people were known by their nicknames that derived from names objects, places, etc. (there could be a hundred men named "Ivan" in one village), still endings -ov and -ova (-ev, -eva) were used to show that a man/woman was a son/daughter of this person.


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## Perseas

I thought that the ending -ov in Russian names is the genitive case, which denotes the family relationship in this case . For example:  Petrov (= Peter's son/wife). The Greek equivalent is Πέτρου (= Peter's).


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## LilianaB

Hello Perseas. It would not be like that in modern Russian. The Genitive would be Petra, Ivana, Andreja. It could have been like that in Old Russian, I am not sure.


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## etoya

From the point of view of Grammar, -ov in a family name is not an ending, it's a suffix, family names may be compared to possessive adjectives (otsov dom - отцов дом - father's house).

Genitive case answers questions "of what", "of whom", "from what", "from whom" etc (кого? чего?).
убежал от Ивана (ubezhal ot Ivana - ran away from Ivan) - this is genitive case in Russian.


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## sotos

Perseas said:


> I thought that the ending -ov in Russian names is the genitive case, which denotes the family relationship in this case . For example: Petrov (= Peter's son/wife). The Greek equivalent is Πέτρου (= Peter's).


So, the -ov is the equivalent of the Gr. -ou. Is there a common ancestor of both or is it a Greek influence mediated by the orthodox church?


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## etoya

sotos said:


> So, the -ov is the equivalent of the Gr. -ou. Is there a common ancestor of both or is it a Greek influence mediated by the orthodox church?


Most probably a common ancestor, because suffix -ov is used in Russian to form possessive adjectives from nouns, not only family names.


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## berndf

etoya said:


> Most probably a common ancestor, because suffix -ov is used in Russian to form possessive adjectives from nouns, not only family names.


I wouldn't take it for granted the two are related at all. The one is a derivational suffix and the other a declensional ending, as you rightly said in #22. And the two concepts were probably already distinct in PIE.


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## ahvalj

People, what is the sense of these speculations? Slavic -ov, Greek -u: read the books, everything is discovered 150 years ago. If you have what to add or to argue, do it, otherwise it is just silly. Is it a linguistic forum or what? The Greek -u is an ending, contracted from -oo, which in turn comes from the Homeric -oio, earlier *-osio. The origin of the Slavic -ov was discussed in the beginning of this topic. Etymologically they have nothing in common.


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