New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesRe: Russian patronymics
in reply to a message by Alex
You've got most of the rules down pretty accurately.
There are some Russian surnames that don't change depending on the sex. Names ending in -ko and -chuk (both suffixes are of Ukrainian origin but are frequently found in Russian) and -nik are spelled the same regardless of the bearer's sex.
For -sky names, -skaya is a much more common transcription than -skya.
Note that Russian is written in Cyrillic, there is no one correct way to transcribe it. Some people don't drop the -y in patronymics (such as Andreyevich/Andreyevna instead of Andreevich/Andreevna). Same goes with spelling - for example, Ekaterina and Yekaterina are both acceptable transliterations.
In the past it was common to translate Russian names into their English counterparts, such as Nicholas for Nikolay and Alexis for Aleksey. Sometimes French forms were used when there was no English equivalent, like Anatole for Anatoly and Zenaide for Zinaida. (French was the dominant second language among the Russian aristocracy, and many even preferred speaking French to speaking Russian.) This is much less common today, and nowadays it is usually only used in reference to royalty or well-known historical figures.
There are some Russian surnames that don't change depending on the sex. Names ending in -ko and -chuk (both suffixes are of Ukrainian origin but are frequently found in Russian) and -nik are spelled the same regardless of the bearer's sex.
For -sky names, -skaya is a much more common transcription than -skya.
Note that Russian is written in Cyrillic, there is no one correct way to transcribe it. Some people don't drop the -y in patronymics (such as Andreyevich/Andreyevna instead of Andreevich/Andreevna). Same goes with spelling - for example, Ekaterina and Yekaterina are both acceptable transliterations.
In the past it was common to translate Russian names into their English counterparts, such as Nicholas for Nikolay and Alexis for Aleksey. Sometimes French forms were used when there was no English equivalent, like Anatole for Anatoly and Zenaide for Zinaida. (French was the dominant second language among the Russian aristocracy, and many even preferred speaking French to speaking Russian.) This is much less common today, and nowadays it is usually only used in reference to royalty or well-known historical figures.
This message was edited 10/31/2017, 1:17 PM
1
Replies
Thanks, Laslow! So exactly when are -ko, -chuk, -nik,and -sky/skaya used? When the name ends in a vowel, consonant, or what?
1