Russian surnames of illegitimate children

In the Russian Empire, illegitimate children were sometimes given artificial surnames, rather than the surnames of their parents. In some cases an illegitimate child of a Russian aristocrat was given a surname derived from the surname of the father by truncation of the first syllable. For example, Trubetskoy was trimmed to Betskoy. There were some other ways to hint at the parent's surname, while in still other cases new surnames had no direct relation to that of parent's.[1][2][3]

Other truncated surnames include: Yelagin to Agin, Repnin to Pnin, Golitsyn to Litsyn or deLitsyn [ru], Vorontsov to Rantsov, Rumyantsev to Umyantsev,[1] and Potemkin to Temkina.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Boris Unbegaun, Russian surnames, — Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972; Russian version: Русские фамилии, 1989, Chapter IX: "Artificial surnames"
  2. ^ НЕСТАНДАРТНЫЕ РУССКИЕ ФАМИЛИИ, citing Суслова А.В., Суперанская А.В., О русских именах, Л.: Лениздат, 1991
  3. ^ И. М. Ганжина (I. M. Ganzhina). "Словарь современных русских фамилий" (Dictionary of Modern Russian Last Names). Moscow, 2001. ISBN 5-237-04101-9

Further reading