# dworsky



## William Stein

Hi everybody,

Does anybody know the etymology of "Dworsky" (at least that's how it's spelled in German, it might be "Dvorsky" in English). I couldn't find it in the Oxford Russian-English so maybe it's archaic or from another Slavic language. I originally thought it meant "aristocrat" because "dvor" means court, but it might also mean "farmer" or ???


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## gvozd

If you are referring to* дворский* - it's an ancient form of _*дворецкий*_ (this word is available in dictionaries). It was a 'manager' of a prince


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## William Stein

Okay, thanks. It must be *дворский **i**n Russian, **as you say.*I was curious because  have a German client named Dworsky (I think she's married to a Russian) and I wondered whether the name had something to do with "court" because of *двор.  *It's funny because it could refer to the highest medieval status (royal court) or lowest (skotny dvor'). I also had an American teacher named "Dworkin" (I'm not sured how it's spelled in Russian). Is that related to *двор* too?
When you say ancient do you mean "Church Slavonic"? Is that the oldest form of Russian people know about because there was no writing before that or has some older Slavic language been "reconstructed"?


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## gvozd

No, I didn't mean Church Slavonic. I meant Old Russian, which isn't the same. If there was no writing, we would never have known about all these words. The writing did exist but was substantially different. Compare modern English and Old English.
Дворкин is related to двор, I presume, but I don't know for certain.


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## William Stein

Do you mean the Glagolitic alphabet? I didn't know about that script until I found it on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolithic_alphabet). It's funny because according to that article it was created, at least in part, by Saints Cyril and Methodius around 862. "Cyrillic", which I thought was invented by Saint Cyril, supposedly wasn't invented until a few centuries later!


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## gvozd

William Stein said:


> Do you mean the Glagolitic alphabet? I didn't know about that script until I found it on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolithic_alphabet). It's funny because according to that article it was created, at least in part, by Saints Cyril and Methodius around 862. "Cyrillic", which I thought was invented by Saint Cyril, supposedly wasn't invented until a few centuries later!



The language was the same - Old Russian, also it was used in Church Slavonic. Alphabet is not a language, it is a way to express words. Cyrillic was invented in 9th century as well, but its modern version actually formed in 16th century.


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## William Stein

Thanks, you sound like a real Russian linguist, much more interesting than my boring German-English patent translation. We should probably stop here though because the discussion is "off topic" (I'm such a nomad I even wander in my discussions!)


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## gvozd

LMAO, I am a simple Russian guy, not even well-read, as I think


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## Maroseika

William Stein said:


> It's funny because it could refer to the highest medieval status (royal court) or lowest (skotny dvor').



Двор (dvor) is, first of all, just a yard, but your idea about the highest and lowest status is right. Russian term дворянин (dvoryanin - noble) derives from dvor in the sense of court (calqued in the 17th cent. thru Polish and German from the French _courtois_). But at the same time there is another (older?) derivative from двор - дворовый человек (lit. yard man) - house-serf.



> I also had an American teacher named "Dworkin" (I'm not sured how it's spelled in Russian). Is that related to *двор  *too?



No, it relates to the Jewish female name Двора, Двойра (Dvora, Dvoira) < Hebrew Deborah - a bee.


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## LilianaB

I agree with Maroseika with everything here, and I believe that _Dworsky_ is first of all related to yard. This does not mean that the person may not have any noble descent, but it would not be related to this name itself. A member of nobelty is _Dvoryanin _--  _Dvoryanskiy_ as an adjective.


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## WordOrder

LilianaB said:


> A member of nobelty is _Dvoryanin _--  _Dvoryanskiy_ as an adjective.



Moreover, Dvoryanskiy (Дворя́нский) is a Russian surname. I knew a person with this one.


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## LilianaB

Hi, William. Is the person of Russian descent or Polish. In Polish _dworsk_i -- spelled with an _i _means related to the court -- courtly. (as in Royal Court). Noble families would hardly ever have such a name in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It would be more related to someone working for the Court. It could have a totally different origin though. Sometimes people just take names because they like them. It was common in the past.

By the way, _dworski_ is spelled with _w_ in Polish, so it is not a German spelling, except it is spelled with an _i_ at the end in contemporary Polish, but people living in English-speaking countries for a long time have it sometimes changed to _y_ -- sky.


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## Maroseika

Moreover, Dvorsky can originate from дворик (lit. small yard) - small settlement (cf. numerous Russian village names such as Дворы, Дворищи, Дворики), or even from дворка - joke (according to Dahl).


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## grinski

Дворский is archaic name for дворецкий (butler). Dates back to the 12 century.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9


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## William Stein

Maroseika said:


> Moreover, Dvorsky can originate from дворик (lit. small yard) - small settlement (cf. numerous Russian village names such as Дворы, Дворищи, Дворики), or even from дворка - joke (according to Dahl).



Ok, thanks Moroseika, Liliana,  Word Order and Grinski. Now we're ready to publish a sequel to Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Percetion": "Perceptions of Dwors" 
Maybe Dworsk(i) is Polish, I'll ask.
"Bee" would be a good name for Dworkin. He's was one of my professors in first-year law school (which is like boot camp!) and his questions kept buzzing around our heads like bees (or Hitchcock's "The Birds" might be a better anaology")
It's true that the high nobility doesn't seem to have  last names, at least in Englih."  Just a First name + of/von/de + Place name. John of Guant, etc. The people who have last "aristocratic" surnames like King, Queen, Knight, and Earl are all commoners!


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## Maroseika

William Stein said:


> It's true that the high nobility doesn't seem to have  last names, at least in Englih."  Just a First name + of/von/de + Place name. John of Guant, etc.



Only princes (князь, княгиня) were addressed sometimes by names, but they had surnames anyway.


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## LilianaB

I think the Russian and the Polish-Lithuanian nobility had last names, just not that kind, usually. Oginskiy, Chertoryskiy, etc.


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## grinski

The meaning and origin of the surname Dworski. (ru)
http://www.onomastikon.ru/proishogdenie-familii-dvorskiiy.htm

It is said there that Poland, Belorussia or Ukraine are the most probable places of origin. The vast majority of Dworsky's are related to the Polish noble class, Szlachta. (10%)

Also in Russia such surname would be given to graduates of the seminary if he had a distant ancestor with this surname. These cases number about 29%.

Mostly the surname originates from the birthplaces, villages etc.


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## LilianaB

I am not sure, Grinski, how reliable this site is. Many such sites base their theories on folk etymology. I have never found this kind of name in relation to the Polish-Lithuanian nobility. In none of the books about that period of history, geneological sources or sites. It really looks like a name related to something else, like a butler, or just chosen. Poland, Belarusia and Ukraine were also one country, or  a part of the Russian Empire, at the time _szlachta_ was in power.


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## Maroseika

LilianaB said:


> I am not sure, Grinski, how reliable this site is.



Absolutely unreliable - as judged from their orthography and sintax. Just a wild compilation like all of such sites whose only aim is getting your personal data or selling "VIP ancestral diploma". They have several different "etymological" explanations, in which they randomly change surnames.


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## LilianaB

Yes, you are absolutely right. I visited one of those sites to check upon a part of my last name, because the site advertised it had information about it. The information was boilerplate, and they did not even know which part of the world my name can come from. Everything was vague, dressed up in the mist of mystery. They even said it came mostly likely from a name of a trade, which is not even vaguely true. It was an English site, or a site in English, not a Russian one, but they may be all similar.


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## grinski

Well, they say Dvorskiy families are written in books as Pskov boyars in the 17-18 centuries and listed in census of Ivan the Terrible.


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## Maroseika

grinski said:


> Well, they say Dvorskiy families are written in books as Pskov boyars in the 17-18 centuries and listed in census of Ivan the Terrible.



Just for curiosity - check 10 other surnames and you will see they copypaste all the same about all of them, only changing towns. Do you believe people writing with such horrific errors really ever opened any census?

And of course my special recommendation is "Slavic Kiev clergy surname" Дворсон. Enjoy.


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## William Stein

It does seem like there would be a big financial incentive for those etymology/geneology sites to diisplay advertisements like: Prove your pure aristocratic bloodline to all your friends and acquaintances for only $9.99!

If it were really that easy, Rodney King could have just shown his id card to the cops in LA and they would have said "A King! Oh, excuse us your Majesty!"


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## grinski

Big biography encyclopedia gives three boyars with Dvorsky surname, two from Galicia and one from Kiev.
http://dic.academic.ru/searchall.php?SWord=дворский&stype=0

One of Dvorsky's is mentioned in the historical movie
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Даниил_—_князь_Галицкий_(фильм)


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## William Stein

grinski said:


> Big biography encyclopedia gives three boyars with Dvorsky surname, two from Galicia and one from Kiev.
> http://dic.academic.ru/searchall.php?SWord=дворский&stype=0
> 
> One of Dvorsky's is mention in the historical movie
> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Даниил_—_князь_Галицкий_(фильм)



Maybe "Dvorsky" is used as an adjective. If there are several people named Igor, for example, if you were talking about the Igor who works in the royal court you could say:  Igor Dworsky (or dworksii Igor), Then people started referring to him as Igor Dvorskii and Dvorskii became his "last name". Do you think that makes sense or it's a crazy idea?


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## grinski

It's very possible.


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## Sobakus

Actually that's how most -skij surenames came about. They all mean "of/from <something>".


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## William Stein

Would a person born in a ski resort be called skiiski?


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## Maroseika

William Stein said:


> Would a person born in a ski resort be called skiiski?



Of course, not. Why this ii? It would be Skiyskiy - if only Russian had such a word - ski.


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## LilianaB

_Ski _is really a Polish ending. _Skiy_ is Russian.


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## William Stein

Believe it or not, it wss supposed to be a joke. "Harvard Lampoon" used to have some hilarious weekly article entitled "Why jokes aren't funny!", where some old German philosopher would tear apart every joke based on some pedantic criticism.


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## LilianaB

A person born in a skiing resort would most likely be called Lyzninskiy.


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## grinski

William Stein said:


> Would a person born in a ski resort be called skiiski?



Resortsky.


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## Константин

выражение "дворский" связано с происхождением терминов "дворянин", "дворянство". впервые термин "дворянин" встречается в xv веке. он обозначал низшую часть привиллегированного служилого сословия - "городовые дворяне" (служилые люди, жившие в каком-либо городе). до этого, например, в xiv веке употреблялось выражение "дворский", означавшее лично свободного человека, управлявшего хозяйством ("двором") знатного феодала или князя.


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## LilianaB

Was it more like a butler or like an administrator of the court? Did they have such people in the 15th century, or is it just the old form of the word  that comes from that time. Where did you get this information from, I just wonder. I just want to make sure it is not from one of those genealogy sites. As a last name, I don't think it comes from Dvorianin. The Russian nobility hardly ever had this kind of names, especially in the early times, like the 15th century.I would think it has more chances to be related to somebody who worked for the court.


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