# bernadaky - family name



## Jeki

Hello,

a girl named Marie de Bernadaky is mentionned in the french book that I work on. She is told to be Polish.
My question is : does family name Bernadaky sound familiar to you and is it written like that, how is it pronounced in Polish? And if I may ask another little question: in Polish *Marie *is *Marija*, isn't it? (that is an international first name, Marie(in French), Marry (in English), Marija (in Serbian), Maria (in Italian) etc.)

Thank you very much for any help!


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## Karton Realista

Marie in Polish is Maria, unless you're referring to the mother of Jesus - then it's Maryja. Maria is pronounced as Marya.
-ky is not a Polish ending. But it looks that the ending was wrongly simplified - the real ending here would be -cki, which is pronounced tskee. Somebody took ck to represent k sound, but it doesn’t, c in Slavic languages is ts or tz (like in the word quartz).
The surname seems to come from the name Bernard, but again, it could have been simplified and the second r was just eaten by the scribe.
The surname is also in incorrect masculine form, it should end on -cka, but this mistake is common in countries which don't have gendered surnames.
PS. Sorry, I just saw that you're Serbian, I shouldn't have answered with English approximates. C is obviously the same as ц in Serbian.


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## Ben Jamin

Even if the name was formed from the name _Bernard _it would not necessarily contain two "r".
_Bernadecki _is even more probable than _Bernardecki_.
This said, I consulted a list of 400 000 Polish names, both actually used and extict, and neither _Bernadecki _nor _Bernardecki _is to be found there. There are, however, 157 persons called Bernadek.
So, the name is either fictional or the correct form is Bernadek.


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## Karton Realista

Ben Jamin said:


> This said, I consulted a list of 400 000 Polish names, both actually used and extict, and neither _Bernadecki _nor _Bernardecki _is to be found there


I typed Bernadecki in Google and got some results, confirming that it exists, but surely isn't common. Eugenia Bernadecki
Mrs Eugenia's name ends on cki probably because she was born in 1899, when there was no Poland.


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## Ben Jamin

Karton Realista said:


> I typed Bernadecki in Google and got some results, confirming that it exists, but surely isn't common. Eugenia Bernadecki
> Mrs Eugenia's name ends on cki probably because she was born in 1899, when there was no Poland.


I want to add folowing to my posting. I found the following names on the list:
Bernadek
Bernadi
Bernadiuk
Bernadkiewicz
Bernadowicz
Bernadowski
Bernadski
Bernadt
Bernady
Bernadyn
Bernadysiak
Bernadyszes
Bernadyszew
Bernadzik
Bernadzikiewicz
Bernadzikowski
Bernadziński
Bernadziuk
Bernadzka
Bernadzki
each one of them with only one "r".


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## Karton Realista

Ben Jamin said:


> each one of them with only one "r".


Ok.


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## Jeki

Thank you so much!
And I must apologize. I am really, really ashamed. I made a mistake. I wrote Bernadaky instead of Benardaky. 
I just found that the person in question is _Maria de Benardakya. 
_
Sorry guys!


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## Karton Realista

I just looked for some context and found out that this person actually existed and was a Russian or a Greek (depending on Wikipedia version, whether it's Polish or English wiki).
She was a spouse of that guy: Michał Radziwiłł Rudy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, who actually was Polish.
And her name here is Be*rnar*daky, oddly enough.


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## Jeki

Thank you, Karton Realista!
Do you see, on the link you gave me, it's written: spouse Maria Nikołajewna de Bernardaky. Another variant??


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## Karton Realista

Jeki said:


> Thank you, Karton Realista!
> Do you see, on the link you gave me, it's written: spouse Maria Nikołajewna de Bernardaky. Another variant??


Nikołajewna is simply отчество, name derrived from father's name, a Russian thing.


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## Jeki

I thought of Bernardaky.
 Benardaky, Bernadaky and Bernardaky.


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## Ben Jamin

The Russian wikipedia gives the name as "de Bernardki" (де Бернардки) which suggests that she was born in a noble estate called Bernardki. The Polish is version is obviously an uncritical copy of the English article. Possibly everybody is wrong, and the name of the woman was different from all these unreliable sources, even if the Russian article gives the most plausible version of the name (Bernardki* is a regular village name that could exist in a Polish speaking area).
*It is plural diminutive of the name Bernard, there are many villages with an analogical name formed from a name (Marki, Adamki, Andrzejki, Anielki, and so on)


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## Karton Realista

Ben Jamin said:


> copy of the English article. Possibly everybody is wrong, and the name of thalso woman was different from all these unreliable sources, even if the Russian article gives the most plausible version of the name (Bernardki* is a regular village name that could exist in a Polish speaking area).


No.
I found this listed as a source on Russian wiki: http://chopin2010.pl/fileadmin/cont..._radziwill_rudy_1870-1955_dariusz_j.pesla.pdf
Here she also is called Bernardaky. That source has Polish description and has been directly copied word by word from the Polish article. Russian article has fewer sources overall.
Polish article was created in year 2005, English one in year 2011. So no, it's just otherwise, English version is based on the Polish one.
Here's even the edit:

(cur | prev) 18:54, 2 November 2011‎ Dr. Blofeld(talk | contribs)‎ . . (983 bytes) *(+983)*‎ . . (translated from Polish wikipedia)
Russian edit:

(текущ. | пред.) 15:34, 7 ноября 2014‎91.195.136.62 (обсуждение)‎ . . (9203 байта)*(+9203)*‎ . . (← Новая страница: «{{Однофамильцы|Радзивиллы}} {{Государственный деятель | имя = Михаил Радзивилл Р…»)
7.11.2014...

Due to that source, she was indeed Greek.


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## Karton Realista

And in that source I probably found your French book!


> Zresztą nie tylko Michał znalazł się w gronie wielbicieli uroczej Wenus, w której żyłach
> płynęła grecka krew. Jej urodą zachwycał się również dobry znajomy pań de *Bernardaky*,
> francuski pisarz, Marcel Proust, który poznał ją i jej matkę Nelly w 1887 roku. Wiele lat później
> postać Marii o nieco zmienionym nazwiskiem - jako „Maria *Benardaky*”, następnie jako „Maria
> Kossichef” - umieścił w niedokończonej, uważanej za autobiograficzną, powieści pt. „Jean
> Santeuil” (I wyd. 1952). Opisywał ją wówczas jako rosyjską dziewczynkę z długimi czarnymi
> włosami, jasnymi i uśmiechniętymi oczami, różowymi policzkami lśniącymi zdrowiem, życiem i
> radością. Tytułowy Jean Santeuil wspomina ją z wielkim uczuciem, określając Marię „wielką
> miłością swojego życia”5
> .


In short, Marcel Proust wrote a novel called Jean Santeuil and in there he slightly changed her last name. He described her as a great love of his life.
Is that what you're reading?

What that 5 at the end stands for: Marie de Bénardaky


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## Ben Jamin

Karton Realista said:


> And in that source I probably found your French book!
> 
> In short, Marcel Proust wrote a novel called Jean Santeuil and in there he slightly changed her last name. He described her as a great love of his life.
> Is that what you're reading?
> 
> What that 5 at the end stands for: Marie de Bénardaky


Come on! _Bénardaky_ a Polish name? The name quoted in the Proust's book seems to be distorted and not likely to be the original name of the woman. For me the Russian version seems more plausible.


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## Jeki

Karton Realista said:


> In short, Marcel Proust wrote a novel called Jean Santeuil and in there he slightly changed her last name. He described her as a great love of his life.
> Is that what you're reading?



No, it's not the book that I'm reading, but a book about Proust written by his housekeeper Céleste Albaret.
I am confused by this particle "de". She was noble and she lived in France and maybe she and her family adopted that particle too. I don't know...


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## Karton Realista

Ben Jamin said:


> Come on! _Bénardaky_ a Polish name? The name quoted in the Proust's book seems to be distorted and not likely to be the original name of the woman. For me the Russian version seems more plausible.


That's just what I said. It's in the quote from the article, look the whole thing up again. Her name was Bernardaky, and he misspelled it for the sake of the novel.


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## Karton Realista

Jeki said:


> She was noble


No, the article says that she was a Greek woman and she certainly wasn't noble - that thing caused a controversy among Radziwiłł family.


> De Bernardaky nie należeli przecież do arystokracji


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## Jeki

Yes, but look at this site Marie de Benardaky — Wikipédia
Sorry, it is in French. 
"Son père (Le père du père de Marie de Bénardaky), Dimitri, fils d'immigré grec de Smyrne obtient, par décisions du Sénat russe des 28 novembre 1850 et 6 septembre 1861, la noblesse héréditaire avec ses fils et ses filles."

His grand-father (that was Greek) got the hereditary nobleness by the decision of the Russian Senate and that nobleness referred to all grandsons.


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## Karton Realista

Jeki said:


> His grand-father (that was Greek) got the hereditary nobleness by the decision of the Russian Senate and that nobleness referred to all grandsons.


I was confused. She was a noble, but that doesn't mean she was an aristocrat.


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## jasio

Karton Realista said:


> The surname is also in incorrect masculine form, it should end on -cka, but this mistake is common in countries which don't have gendered surnames.


Not necessarily a mistake. 
Their *legal systems* accept only non-gendered surnames, so "Bernadecki" and "Bernadecka" would be considered two *distinct* surnames, and a daughter would inherit the surname of her father in the form which sounds masculine for us. If she wanted to be called "Bernadecka", she would need to legally change her last name, just as if she wanted to change it to "Lewinsky". Only when dealing with the Slavs (and perhaps some other nations) they accept that a single last name may have two or more different forms.


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