# Russian lasted names with nationalities as the root.



## Apa2001

Does the Russian language have many last names, where the root is a nationality? I can only come up with two:
Немцов- of the Germans?
Поляков -of the Poles?
Спасибо,
Апа


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## Enquiring Mind

There was, of course, a certain Антон Павлович Чехов, but I'm not sure if the name is based on the nationality.


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## morzh

Apa2001 said:


> Does the Russian language have many last names, where the root is a nationality? I can only come up with two:
> Немцов- of the Germans?
> Поляков -of the Poles?
> Спасибо,
> Апа



LastED names? As in "how long do the name last"? 

On a serious note, "Немцов" does not necessarily come off "немец" - could be from "немой" (a mute). Although they are cognates - "немец" does come from ""немой" which meant "the one that does not speak clearly".

As for "Polyakov" - this is, BTW a Jewish last name, not Russian. Yes, cognate with "Поляк" but does not mean someone who descends from poles.


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## Enquiring Mind

I hesitate to suggest Швейцаров as I suspect it's probably from the porter/concierge rather than the nationality ...

And Bенгерцев... but "в южных говорах слово «венгерец» имело также значение  «бродячий торговец, продающий по городам и поместьям товары и  лекарства». Поэтому не исключено, что прозвище Венгерец относится к  числу так называемых «профессиональных» именований, указывающих на род  занятий предка."

Another late arrival at the ball - well, he had to come all the way from Vienna - Ракушан?  It's something of a leap of linguistic faith in Russian to get from австриец to pакушан, but I think the Slavonic link is possibly there. Or maybe not?

Греков, I'm led to believe, doesn't count as it's of Russian noble ancestry...

A Французов?

Емельян Игнатьевич Украинцев?

Игорь Яковлевич Болгарин?   Михаил Булгарин?

Александр Михайлович Румынцев?

Ольга Вячеславовна Китайцева?


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## morzh

Enquiring Mind said:


> I hesitate to suggest Швейцаров as I suspect it's probably from the porter/concierge rather than the nationality ...
> 
> And Bенгерцев... but "в южных говорах слово «венгерец» имело также значение «бродячий торговец, продающий по городам и поместьям товары и лекарства». Поэтому не исключено, что прозвище Венгерец относится к числу так называемых «профессиональных» именований, указывающих на род занятий предка."
> 
> Another late arrival at the ball - well, he had to come all the way from Vienna - Ракушан? It's something of a leap of linguistic faith in Russian to get from австриец to pакушан, but I think the Slavonic link is possibly there. Or maybe not?
> 
> Греков, I'm led to believe, doesn't count as it's of Russian noble ancestry...
> 
> A Французов?
> 
> Емельян Игнатьевич Украинцев?
> 
> Игорь Яковлевич Болгарин? Михаил Булгарин?
> 
> Александр Михайлович Румынцев?
> 
> Ольга Вячеславовна Китайцева?




Well, ethnicity (rather than nationality), ot at least the word that is at the Russian root of this particular ethnicity name, is definitely at the roots of these last names, but not necessarily directly so.
That is, if someone is "Булгарин" (as Фаддей Булгарин) - this means not Bulgarian, but Volga Bulgar (a turkic tribe) that gave name to Bulgarians (slavs mixed with turkics, yes!) and also was an ethnos that became a part of Volga Tatars (Kazan, Astrakhan etc).

Немцов - often times, although it may go back to the "немец" ethnos, the last name might be given to a Russian who decided to acquire some German-like habits, or spent time in "неметчина" (Germany).


Украинцев -  "Украина" as geographical designatijon appeared in Russian language relatively recentlym whereas the last name may be older than that. It might'be meant a person who settled on the outskirts of a village, which is "Окраина / Украина", and thus have nothing to do with the ethnicity.


Поляков - "поляк" In old times meant a person from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, Commonwealth of both nations), that is not necessarily a pole by ethnicity.
It also meant a person who lived in fields, from "поле" (field). 

So, again, even if the roots may be cognates with the respective ethnicities, they did not necessarily mean the ethnicities,


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## estreets

Apa2001 said:


> Does the Russian language have many last names, where the root is a nationality? I can only come up with two:
> Немцов- of the Germans?
> Поляков -of the Poles?
> Спасибо,
> Апа


I think, not so many. A lot of Russian last names were made of nicknames, and an ethnonym should have become a nickname before it could be used to form a last name. And sure most last names derived from ethnonyms relate to ethnicities inside Russia but not outside.
Well, in our Nizhny Novgorod region one of our ministers' last name is Англичанинов. Among others I could name Арабов, Шведов, Итальянцев, Японцев.
Those made from domestic enthicities are much more numerous: Мордвинцев, Башкиров, Татаринов, Карелов, etc.
And it's quite understandable because nicknames to form last names can be much easily made from domestic ethnicities than from foreign ones.


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## LilianaB

What about Польских? Like the actress.


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## Maroseika

Русских.
Евреинов.
Калмыков (from Kalmyk).
Литовцев (from литовец - Lithuanian).
Ляхов, Ляшенко, Ляшевич, etc. (from лях - Pole).
Чухонцев, Чухнин  (from чухна (Finns) < чудь - ancient name for Ugro-Finnish tribes in the North-West of Russia).
Гуцул, Гуцулов (Guzul - ethnic group of Western Ukrainians).
Мурманцев (a wild guess - from мурманы < норманы - Northmen; maybe thru the geographical name Мурма́нское море, Мурма́нский берег).

As for Поляков, Польских, they can just refer to those arrived from Lithuania.


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## LilianaB

Hi, Maroseika, why would you think that names like  Поляков, Польских would be names of people from Lithuania. They could be from any region, in my opinion. Maybe they denoted the language rather than place. Do they come from _Polis__h_, at all? Or from the _field_? What about the ending -их.


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## Maroseika

Because Lithuania was an equal part of Rzeczpospolita (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów), but Russians could not care to distinguish them. Actually Литовцев also could mean ethnical Pole.


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## LilianaB

By it could have come from any other part as well, right? I agree with you that those names may have nothing to do with ethnicity, perhaps just with language.  You wouldn't call  Поляков a man who spoke Lithuanian.


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## Maroseika

Are you sure the common Russian people in the 16th century distinguished well between ethnical Poles, Samogitians, Lithuanians, Belorussians? Especially taking into account that Old-Belorussian was the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Of course "diplomats" knew these features, but the common people, I guess, looked only on the place of origin of a person. The one arrived from Polish lands was a Pole, simple as that.

For example, Арсений Грек was a Jew, but since he came from Greece, he was called Грек in order to tell him from other people with the same name Арсений.


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## LilianaB

I am not so concerned about ethnicity here, I think everybody is whatever that person considers himself or herself to be. I just doubt they would call a person speaking Lithuanian or Belorussian a Pole, unless they called everybody a Pole if they came from the Kingdom of Poland. By the way, it was not Belorussian then, but Old Russian, I think. I think Polish was introduced as the official language of Lithuania around 1627.


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## ahvalj

As far as I know, most people with the pretty widespread surname Литвинов (+ Ukrainian Литвиненко, Литовченко) are of an ethnically unspecified ancestry from the former Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth. Also, the few Поляков's I know are all Jews (see also: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Поляков).


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## Maroseika

LilianaB said:


> I am not so concerned about ethnicity here, I think everybody is whatever that person considers himself or herself to be. I just doubt they would call a person speaking Lithuanian or Belorussian  a Pole, unless they called everybody a Pole if they came from the  Kingdom of Poland.


The notion of nation, nationality, national language, ethnicity were quite different those far-off days. Many (most?) people even never  pondered over the name of their language, the more so about the name of the alien's languages. Any alien, if he wanted to be understood, had ot speak local language and hardly anybody cared of his native language name.
Besides, Slavic languages those days were much more mutually intelegeable than now, and even ambassadors in the 15-16 cent. could go without interpretors. Therefore a stranger from what we now call Poland, Lithuania or Belorussia just tried totalk local Russian, and if he got a nickname based on his origin, it should have been rather place than 'nationality' or language.



> By the way, it was not Belorussian then, but Old Russian, I think. I think Polish was introduced as the official language of Lithuania around 1627.



I am not sure what exactly language to mean you take 'Old Russian', but the language they used for clerical work in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until 1693, was what is called now Old-Belorussian. This language has many other names, but it is an ancestor of modern Belorussian and not Russian language.


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> As far as I know, most people with the pretty widespread surname Литвинов (+ Ukrainian Литвиненко, Литовченко) are of an ethnically unspecified ancestry from the former Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth. Also, the few Поляков's I know are all Jews (see also: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Поляков).



This article reports that Поляков is Russian and Jewish surname.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> This article reports that Поляков is Russian and Jewish surname.


Of course, but the Поляков *I know* are Jews.


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> Of course, but the Поляков *I know* are Jews.



I see. Just wondered why you accompanied your utterance about Jewish Polyakov's you know with the link telling about Russian and Jewish surnames. Actually Polyakov's whom I know personally, are also Jews, but many of those I know from other sources, are not.


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## morzh

Maroseika said:


> I see. Just wondered why you accompanied your utterance about Jewish Polyakov's you know with the link telling about Russian and Jewish surnames. Actually Polyakov's whom I know personally, are also Jews, but many of those I know from other sources, are not.



I wrote the same in the very beginning of this topic's discussion.
All Polyakovs I know are Jews (including a family of my parents' friends). Which is not that important.
The last name may have different origins, and the ethnicity, directly or indirectly, may be one of them. Along with "поле".

I think though that we are starting to mire in trying to regurgitate and chew this cud again.

Someone should summarize this and put an end to it,  as this is no longer clear what we are trying to achieve here.


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## Maroseika

morzh said:


> Someone should summarize this and put an end to it,  as this is no longer clear what we are trying to achieve here.



No problem, Sir:



Apa2001 said:


> Does the Russian language have many last names, where the root is a nationality?


Yes, it does.


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## Apa2001

Morzh,
Thanks for your well-thought out answer.


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## Apa2001

Morzh,
eyE will tRi knot too mAk Eni moore meStEaks


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## Albertovna

I recall Иностранцев ("of the foreigners"), Инородцев (approximately the same), and Иноземцев (the same).


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## Saluton

We have missed the surnames Литвинов and Шведов. Also, Apa2001, you didn't ask about the ethinicities in surnames, but there are sure lots of them in Russian, too. They come from the names of Russian peoples (and, strictly speaking, so does Литвинов since the name литвины includes Belorussians):
Мещеряков, Мещерский - Meshchera tribe
Зырянов - Komi-Zyryan
Пермяков - Komi-Permyak
Мордвинов, Мордюков - Mordva
Черемисин - Cheremis (Mari)
and I'm sure there are many more. Ягудин can also be put on the list because it comes from the Old Jewish name Yahuda, which means "Jew." Hope that helps.


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## Albertovna

Aleksei Yagudin is a Jew...  Interesting.


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## morzh

Albertovna said:


> Aleksei Yagudin is a Jew...  Interesting.



Ягудин, Ягудаев, и, кстати, Яг*о́*да (оттуда же) - все одного корня. Да, еврейские фамилии, от слова "еврей" (Йехуд).
Отсюда же имя "Йехуд / Йехуди" (Йехуди Менухин (скрипач) / Йехуд Барак (премьер-министр)).


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