Puzzling Patronymics

KristinKolk

My great grandfather and his siblings have multiple documents with their "middle" name being Andreevich. There are also several documents with it being Alfonsovich, which makes sense because their father's name was Alphonse. Even some service records in the archives use the middle name Andreevich - and I did verify with a family memoir that they are the same people, their service matched my great aunt's description (ie. position/location/dates etc), but I can't help but feel like I'm missing something. Does anyone have any idea why it seems to alternate between the two? Is this common? Please forgive my ignorance if so!

Kristin

IgorYa

Hello,

there was a lot of confusion in names back then, some names could be written in several ways, people had "street name" apart from the "official" last name etc.

Before 1917 only official source of data for metric records was the church where people would spell the same name differently depending on the person who does the records, make mistakes and leave out the last names depending on the region because they were optional. Add to that a few revolutions, the first World War, general document loss in fires or otherwise etc. If there was no record remaining one could get a new record by providing information himself confirmed by witnesses or unofficial documents.

There may have been an immigration travel where the new country would come up with a similar name that is easier for them to use. Also Alphonse may have been a noble or related to government/policy/military before 1917 and would change the name to a much more common Andrey to avoid repressions and/or children could change the patronymic to break that tie.

So the short answer is yes, this was very common.

Just a recent example, my greatgreatgrandfather's name was somewhat uncommon Dermidont, sometimes spelled as Darmidont. His daughter in death certificates and birth records of her children dated as late as 1938 would be referred to as Dermidontovna, Darmidontovna, Darmidorovna and even Feofanovna.

Igor.

KristinKolk

That is quite interesting, thank you for the clarification! He was involved in the government prior to 1917 so that makes a lot of sense as to why it changed. Thank you again for taking the time to respond!

Kristin