Have Russian patronymics changed over time?

MelissaKincaid

I've been doing research with Erivan and Elisavetpol taxation records, from the Russian Empire in the 1800s, from about 1852 to 1886, here on FamilySearch.

I can read Cyrillic but I studied Russian many years ago and I'm very rusty.

When I learned about patronymics I learned that they ended in -ovich/-ovna or -evich/-evna (and some variations like Yakovlevich derived from Yakov). I'm wondering now, though, whether patronymics have changed over time because in these records, sometimes the patronymic isn't written as expected. I've seen records where the record keeper lists all male patronymics as ending in -ov/-ev rather than -ovich/-evich (for example, Alekseev rather than Alekseevich) and I can't tell if this is shorthand, or if the way that the patronymic was formed used to be different. In limited instances I've also seen the ending -in (such as Mikhailin rather than Mikhailovich).

I want to transcribe people's names faithfully, so that's why I'm asking.

If anyone knows the answer I'd really appreciate it. I've done some internet research but only find fairly basic info about what a patronymic is, and some history about when they came into use.

Thanks!

IgorYa

Hello,

In short, yes, they did a lot.

This goes back from times when patronymics were written with "son of" in them, like "Ivan son of Fedor" i.e. Иван сын Федоров or Иван Федоров сын. Then eventually then started skipped the "son" and patronymic became the -ov

At first there were no last names for common people so Ivan Fedorov's Son Dmitry would be Dmitry Ivanov. Only the nobles kept the family reference/last name. Then as far as I understand this changed to last names forming from nick names or professions. Patronymics were still -ov derived from common first names of the time and last names were profession/nick -ov. I am not sure about taxation records, but for church metric books (which could be very conservative compared to official state grammar) this was the standard up until 1917 revolution. Records would be like Ivan Fedorov Sapozhnikov, meaning Ivan, son of Fedor, Sapozhnikov last name. At the same time -ovich would be an exception and a sign of more than just nobility. For example 1913 in marriage records of my ancestors, both having inherited nobility bride and groom are still spelled with -ov patronymic. At the same time bride's 1892 birth record has "Petr Dmitriyevich Dolgorukov" as godfather spelled with -evich, but he was a Knyaz (sort of prince/duke/count) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Dolgorukov

1917 changed all of that and everyone was equal, so everybody became -evich -ovich shortly after =)

Essentially if you have two part name and second ends with -ov and the first part of it is a common Russian name, I'd consider this firstname and patronymic. If it Popov, Berezin or Skvortsov it would be a last name. For most of the three-part names it would be safe to assume firstname-patronymic-lastname pattern.

I am not finding a good source, but "Patronymic" part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Slavic_naming_customs has some info.

thanks,

Igor.

MelissaKincaid

Thank you, Igor. This is so helpful.

Ellie Vance

@MelissaKincaid if you are doing research in  Erivan and Elisavetpol taxation records, you might want to talk to @Camille_Andrus - she's the expert in that area!

C E Andrus

@MelissaKincaid I'm so excited to hear these tax records are being used!

MelissaKincaid

I just saw these comments for the first time today, but @Camille_Andrus thanks so much for the work you've done linking to these records in the FamilySearch research wiki! I was very excited to find them (in April of this year) and I've made a few breakthrough discoveries about my family (Russian Molokan), some of whom I thought were lost to history for lack of records. If there's any way I can help with indexing them please let me know!