# Bulgarian: plural family names and related expressions



## Psi-Lord

Does one pluralise family names in Bulgarian, as in ‘The Smiths’, ‘The Petrovs’ etc.? That is, could one say _Смити_ or _Петрови_, or perhaps _Смити*те*_ and _Петрови*те*_?

And how are expressions such as ‘the Kennedy family’, ‘the Bush brothers’, ‘the Costa sisters’ etc. built? Would _семейство Кенеди_ work, would it require a explicitely definite form (_семейство*то* Кенеди_), or would another expression be used? And then, what about _братя Буш_ and _сестри __Коста_, or perhaps _братя Буш*и*_ and _сестри Кост*и* / Коста*та*_?

TIA!


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## Kanes

Yes, plural is ok, but not the article as when you use it on the name the meaning changes to possesive. Becoming something like _Kennedy's_ for example. With foreign names we don't use plural or anything though, so for example will be just _semeistvo Kennedy._ Foreign names sound amusing when try to apply our grammer so... The other example _bratia Bush_ is ok as it is already plural _(bratia),_ so no need to change the foreign name anyway.


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## Psi-Lord

Kanes said:


> With foreign names we don't use plural or anything though, so for example will be just _semeistvo Kennedy._ Foreign names sound amusing when try to apply our grammer so...


Ah, true, I remember reading that (modern) foreign names took no vocative endings, and should’ve thought Bulgarian grammar doesn’t usually change them in other ways either.



Kanes said:


> The other example _bratia Bush_ is ok as it is already plural _(bratia),_ so no need to change the foreign name anyway.


It’d change to plural if it was a Bulgarian surname, though, right? I mean, I guess I’ve got _The Brothers Karamazov_ in mind here – in Portuguese (_Os Irmãos Karamazov_), like in English, the family name would remain invariable; I see, however, that the original Russian title pluralises both words (_Братья Карамазов*ы*_), and that the Bulgarian translation reads _Братя Карамазов*и*_, so I’m assuming one might ordinarily have _братя Драганови_, _сестри Петрински_ etc. as well.


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## Kanes

Yes, if it was Bulgarian name it would be changed to plural. We would also use vocative and plural with languages that are familiar and have them as well.

I've recently came across allot of foreigners trying to learn Bulgarian, which is something new. Why did you chose it?


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## Psi-Lord

Мерси!



Kanes said:


> I've recently came across allot of foreigners trying to learn Bulgarian, which is something new. Why did you chose it?


I like languages, and sometimes study the basics of them just to ‘unlock’ them somehow. Since secondary school, I’d wanted to study Russian, but, even when I had the materials and the time to, something went wrong. I felt kind of frustrated for not being able to ‘enter’ the Slavic world, and, many years ago, a friend suggested that I tried Bulgarian. Back then, however, I didn’t have access to many (good) materials, and the Bulgarian verbal system scared me when I compared it to what I knew about the Russian one, so I declined it. Well, a couple of years ago, I started studying Serbian, and was very fond of it, but had to give it a break because of work and whatnot. A couple of months ago, I thought of retaking it, but I thought that, after this long while, and having been exposed to many other languages and their grammars, I could see what Bulgarian might bring me. Besides, I’ve got a really good Bulgarian friend who’s been studying Portuguese, and so I thought I could make things fit. So far, so good.


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## DarkChild

And I like Portuguese very much I actually find the phonology quite similar.


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## Psi-Lord

Kanes said:


> Yes, plural is ok, but not the article as when you use it on the name the meaning changes to possesive.


Bringing the thread back to life, could someone please tell me more about this particular feature of definite names acquiring a possessive meaning?


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## Ærie Descent

I'll try to take this to pieces so it would be easier for you to understand.

Петров is the name, right?
Петрови (capital letter) means the Petrovs.
петрови (small letter) means that something in its plural form belongs to Петър.
петровите (-те being the article) bears the same meaning, only, logically, articulated.

Examples: петрови градини / петровите градини = gardens of Петър's / the gardens of Петър

The ways of telling wether a name has possessive meaning or not are mostly instinctive, but here are some simple rules:
Names are never defined, so if a name has an article attached to it it's possessive.
Words with possessive meaning should only have nouns following them. Respectively, names should only have verbs. Sometimes in everyday speech names are followed by nouns. For example "Петрови къща щяха да вдигат" ("The Petrovs were going to build a house"). That, however, is not wrong due to incorrect word order and literary turns "Петрови" into an adjective to "къща". It's a whole different story how to make the difference between the cases when a name's an adjective and when it's incorrect word order though. 

Hope that didn't confuse you even more.


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## Psi-Lord

Ah, like Serbian adjectives of possession! I discussed the topic with a Bulgarian friend a while ago, but I hadn’t related it to this thread somehow… 

Every Bulgarian told me that, contrarily to other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has a very limited use for such adjectives of possession, and advised me not to bother with them. I was curious, though, and, since none of my materials had anything on the topic, I tried to ‘derive’ rules from Serbian and see how they could work in Bulgarian. 

The Serbian morphological rules I had were:


names ending in non-palatal consonants (except _-в_), _-е_ or _-о_ take _-ов_;
names ending in palatal consonants take _-ев_;
names ending in _-а_ take _-ин_;
names ending in _-в_ take _-љев_.

My Bulgarian friend told me those would indeed work fine for Bulgarian, except, obviously, for the last one (names in _-в_), but she couldn’t give me a rule for them, because, according to her, _Яков_ makes _Яковия_, _Мирослав_ gives _Мирославовия_, and she isn’t sure how to derive an adjective from _Преслав_.

By the way, don’t you use capital letters for such adjectives in Bulgarian? That is, do you write _викториина къща_ instead of _Викториина къща_?

Incidentally, not sure if this is a particular case or just some exception, but, while reading bits from the Bulgarian Bible not long ago, I got totally confused because of such endings… I found _Юдов_ and spent the longest time trying to derive it back to the noun in order to learn how to say Judah, only to find out it’s just _Юда_.  If I’d seen _Юда_ only, I’d have guessed the adjective as _Юдин_ based on those Serbian-derived rules, so I couldn’t think of _Юдов_ going to a noun in _-а_.


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## Darina

Psi-Lord, your questions make me feel stupid! 



Psi-Lord said:


> The Serbian morphological rules I had were:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> names ending in non-palatal consonants (except _-в_), _-е_ or _-о_ take _-ов_;
> names ending in palatal consonants take _-ев_;
> names ending in _-а_ take _-ин_;
> names ending in _-в_ take _-љев_.


 
Case A is the same in Bulgarian.
Case b is somehow tricky. We don't have names ending in palatal consonants but there were such in the past. So, the rule is complicated and therefore it is easier for us to learn these cases by heart.
Case C is true for female names only. Therefore юдин would mean Юда was a woman.  You will find юдин in Bulgarian fairy tales where Юda is а female evil spirit or something... 
Case D is not possible in Bulgarian. The ending is ов, Мирославов. Яков does not take an ending because it ends in ов.


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## DarkChild

Psi-Lord said:


> By the way, don’t you use capital letters for such adjectives in Bulgarian? That is, do you write _викториина къща_ instead of _Викториина къща_?


Do you mean Victor's or Victoria's house? If it's Victor's house that would be викторовата къща, while Victoria's house is викториевата къща. I believe they're spelled with lower case.


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## Darina

DarkChild said:


> Victoria's house is викториевата къща.


 
Викториина, мариина, ганкина къща are correct. The ending is always ин for feminine. Викториева would be derived from a guy called Викторий.


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## Ærie Descent

You know what,



Psi-Lord said:


> Every Bulgarian told me that, contrarily to other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has a very limited use for such adjectives of possession, and advised me not to bother with them.



absolutely correct


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## Psi-Lord

Darina said:


> Psi-Lord, your questions make me feel stupid!


Put the blame on the fifteen minutes’ walk I take four times a day to work and back – such questions usually pop up in my head somewhere along the way. 

No need at all to feel any stupid, though – I’ve been learning a lot around this forum! 



Darina said:


> Case b is somehow tricky. We don't have names ending in palatal consonants but there were such in the past. So, the rule is complicated and therefore it is easier for us to learn these cases by heart.


The closest I could get to that were indeed just names ending in _-й_: _Николай_ > _николаев_, right?



Darina said:


> Case C is true for female names only. Therefore юдин would mean Юда was a woman.  You will find юдин in Bulgarian fairy tales where Юda is а female evil spirit or something...


How interesting. If my memory serves me right, in Serbian it’s only the form that matters, so that, as long as the name ends in _-а_, it makes no difference being male or female.



Darina said:


> Case D is not possible in Bulgarian. The ending is ов, Мирославов. Яков does not take an ending because it ends in ов.


Ah, so my friend’s answer did confuse me – she was already giving me the derived adjectives *including* the adjectival ending _-ия(т)_, but I failed to realise that.  So I imagine _Преслав_ will give a regular _преславов_ then?



DarkChild said:


> Do you mean Victor's or Victoria's house? If it's Victor's house that would be викторовата къща, while Victoria's house is викториевата къща. I believe they're spelled with lower case.


Though I’ve forgotten to add the definite ending, I did mean ‘Victoria’s’ (_викториин, викториина, викториино, викториини_), because I’d understood the suffixes to behave the way Darina exposes here:



Darina said:


> Викториина, мариина, ганкина къща are correct. The ending is always ин for feminine. Викториева would be derived from a guy called Викторий.


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## DarkChild

Even if grammatically викториина might be the correct form, it sounds extremely unnatural and awkward. Anyone who wants to say Victoria's house using this system would say викториева and people would actually understand that it means Виктория and not Викторий (as this name virtually nonexistent; the male form is Виктор).


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## Duya

Psi-Lord said:


> The Serbian morphological rules I had were:
> 
> 
> names ending in _-в_ take _-љев_.




It's a bit more complicated than that, I'd say. The suffix is either -ljev or -ov, depending on the nature of the root:


Names ending in -ov must take -ljev. That includes the wide category of "possessive" surnames of Slavic origin (Petrov*ljev*, Markov*ljev*), and name Jakov as somewhat special case (Jakov*ljev*).
Names ending in -slav can take either -ljev or -ov (Miroslav*ov* or Miroslav*ljev*).
Names ending in -ljev can't take a possesive: Vasiljev, Koroljev. At least I think so, because Koroljevljev sounds very clumsy.
Other names ending in -v (presumably non-Slavic) should take -ov: Lav*ov,* Gaurav*ov *(though this is a moot point, as they're fairly rare).


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## Darina

DarkChild said:


> Even if grammatically викториина might be the correct form, it sounds extremely unnatural and awkward. Anyone who wants to say Victoria's house using this system would say викториева and people would actually understand that it means Виктория and not Викторий (as this name virtually nonexistent; the male form is Виктор).


 
Right! The name does not exist. That is why I said "it would be derived".
It is wrong to put a suffix ev, ov for feminine. Now it is time to ask Psi-Lord if he is interested in the standard Bulgarian or not! 
I would rather use къщата на Виктория, though...


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## Darina

Николаев, Преславов are correct. 



Psi-Lord said:


> How interesting. If my memory serves me right, in Serbian it’s only the form that matters, so that, as long as the name ends in _-а_, it makes no difference being male or female.


 
In Bulgarian, masculine names ending in _a_ take a suffix _ov, ev_. I guess there may be exceptions but I am not sure any more.


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## Psi-Lord

Duya said:


> It's a bit more complicated than that, I'd say. The suffix is either -ljev or -ov, depending on the nature of the root:


Ah, thanks – I’ll save these examples, since they may come in handy in the future. 



Darina said:


> Now it is time to ask Psi-Lord if he is interested in the standard Bulgarian or not!


Oh, that can be such a tough question!  Sure, given my very basic level, standard is definitely the way to go, *but* I confess I get the impression (from discussions, reading and stuff) that even standard Bulgarian may be more fluid and up to a speaker’s perception than I thought it would.

For this particular topic of adjectives of possession, it seems that the safest approach is ‘yes, these are all standard Bulgarian, but no, you won’t see native speakers using them exactly like this’ or something.



Darina said:


> I would rather use къщата на Виктория, though...


Ah, sure, though I’m interested in the morphology behind such adjectives of possession, I’ve got no idea how exactly they may be used in Bulgarian (especially because, as I said, everyone tells me they’ve got a rather narrow range of applications), and I wouldn’t use them in a simple possessive constrution myself, even if that may be regionally/dialectally the case.


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