What's in a name? That which we call a rose would smell as sweet...

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What's in a name? That which we call a rose would smell as sweet...

It's interesting that the rather mundane Boris Yeltsin's surname is rather exotic (from a Turkic word (elçi) meaning envoy, messenger, herald), while the more dignified Mikhail Gorbachev's surname is rather mundane, derived from горбатый, gorbatyi, meaning humpbacked or hunchbacked!

Kruschev's earthy name seems more apt: It's derived from xрущ, cockhafer / May bug.

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Two "mutes" silenced on the same day:
Leonard "Spock" Nimoy -  Nimoy (oral form of nemóy) meaning "mute".
Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov - Nemtsov, from nemets, German or West European, originally meaning "mute.

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Just found out that as a surname Romanov is not the genitive plural of Roman, but the so-called possessive singular of Roman. You can actually say cемья Романов, sem'ya Romanov, meaning "Roman's family".

[Rodney_G.]

Genitive plurals as in the possessive of several Romans (Romans'), (Latin " Romanorum")? Since the 'ov' form appended to proper names is so common in Russian, I'm surprised you're learning this at this stage in your knowledge of Russian. Not that I knew this. On the other hand , wouldn't this form be self-evident, since it's so common, linguistically long-standing, and well , obvious in context, deriving from some individual Roman in this case, or some Stepan (ov), or Mark (ov), etc.?

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Genitive plurals as in the possessive of several Romans (Romans'), (Latin " Romanorum")? Since the 'ov' form appended to proper names is so common in Russian, I'm surprised you're learning this at this stage in your knowledge of Russian. Not that I knew this. On the other hand , wouldn't this form be self-evident, since it's so common, linguistically long-standing, and well , obvious in context, deriving from some individual Roman in this case, or some Stepan (ov), or Mark (ov), etc.?

The thing is, "Romanov" as a surname is NOT the genitive plural, but the possessive singular. (Makes sense, as there was only one Roman Zakharin-Yuriev (himself named with the two other forms of the possessive!) for the Romanovs to be descendants of.) The possessive seldom gets much mention when you learn Russian, as it's termed archaïc and / or colloquial. (Now that's an interesting combination.) But apparantly the possessive -in suffix for names and nicknames ending in -a or -ya is still productive in modern Russian, so the name of the Russian ambassador in Denmark who threatened to nuke, Vanin, is still used as the possessive of Vanya, i.e. syn Vanin = Vanya's son.

[Rodney_G.]

Genitive plurals as in the possessive of several Romans (Romans'), (Latin " Romanorum")? Since the 'ov' form appended to proper names is so common in Russian, I'm surprised you're learning this at this stage in your knowledge of Russian. Not that I knew this. On the other hand , wouldn't this form be self-evident, since it's so common, linguistically long-standing, and well , obvious in context, deriving from some individual Roman in this case, or some Stepan (ov), or Mark (ov), etc.?

The thing is, "Romanov" as a surname is NOT the genitive plural, but the possessive singular. (Makes sense, as there was only one Roman Zakharin-Yuriev (himself named with the two other forms of the possessive!) for the Romanovs to be descendants of.) The possessive seldom gets much mention when you learn Russian, as it's termed archaïc and / or colloquial. (Now that's an interesting combination.) But apparantly the possessive -in suffix for names and nicknames ending in -a or -ya is still productive in modern Russian, so the name of the Russian ambassador in Denmark who threatened to nuke, Vanin, is still used as the possessive of Vanya, i.e. syn Vanin = Vanya's son.

Am I missing something here, or being too literal in reading this? The possessive in Russian ..."is termed archaic and/or colloquial?" Not according to Russian grammars I've read. And while it's possible to express possession in more than one word ("of",or "belonging to"), those formulae would be awkward at best in many languages. This  wouldn't ever be called the reply of Rodney or the reply belonging to Rodney, but rather Rodney's. I do appreciate the usage of -in and -a or -ya as you note, but that seems pretty limited for the possessive function.

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Am I missing something here, or being too literal in reading this? The possessive in Russian ..."is termed archaic and/or colloquial?" Not according to Russian grammars I've read.

LOL, I read that in a (Penguin) Soviet-era grammar from 1961. Got any older?
My 1916 Russian grammar says the possessive is "sometimes used, especially in the popular language", but doesn't treat the -ov forms as non-productive. It also lists an -iy form as applying to a whole group, species, e.g. волчий. wolves', wolfish, of wolves, lupine.

NB I'm not saying that the genitive case forms are becoming obsolete in Russian, that is quite something else. If your name was Rodion, your reply would be "oтвет Родиона".

And while it's possible to express possession in more than one word ("of",or "belonging to"), those formulae would be awkward at best in many languages. This  wouldn't ever be called the reply of Rodney or the reply belonging to Rodney, but rather Rodney's.

In many Germanic languages: German, Dutch, Norwegian etc. this is happening as we speak, i.e. the language is going from a synthetic form (Rodneys), now mostly reserved for writing, to an analytical form with a preposition (von / van / til Rodney), which is very common in the oral language, and increasingly also in the written language. It never struck me untill now that English may be developing in exactly the opposite direction? Perhaps we tend to use pronouns to express this orally just as much prepositions: Rodney seine Antwort/ zijn antwoord / sitt svar, i.e. "Rodney his answer".

In Romance languages this happened centuries ago, already in Vulgar Latin time. Classical Latin was a synthetic language just like Russian (thus responsum Rodneii if we Romanized your nomen barbaricum to Rodneius :-). But in most modern Romance languages you express it analytically, with a preposition: la réponse de Rodney. The odd exception is the isolated Romanian (which also has been in close contact with Slavic languages): Maria, Regina României - Maria, Queen of Romania.

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The possessive (which strictly speaking is categorized as a kind of adjective) also neatly explains why the Alexander Palace is Aleksandrovsky dvorets, when it was built for just one Alexander! And why a female's palace must be Mariinsky dvorets.

Just to clear things up:
Genitive (case): pодительный (падеж)
Possessive (case): притяжательный (падеж)
Possessive adjective: Притяжательное прилагательное

You know it's a fairly synthethic language when the genitive of a possessive has its own form, e.g. Vanina - "of Johnnie's". Starts reminding me of Finnish....

[Sanochka]

The possessive (which strictly speaking is categorized as a kind of adjective) also neatly explains why the Alexander Palace is Aleksandrovsky dvorets, when it was built for just one Alexander! And why a female's palace must be Mariinsky dvorets.

Just to clear things up:
Genitive (case): pодительный (падеж)
Possessive (case): притяжательный (падеж)
Possessive adjective: Притяжательное прилагательное

You know it's a fairly synthethic language when the genitive of a possessive has its own form, e.g. Vanina - "of Johnnie's". Starts reminding me of Finnish....

Fascinating explanation.  Thank you!

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THE name in the news the last weeks, of the German murder pilot, Lubitz, is unmistakenly Slavic. (Probably due to emigration from more or less Polish-speaking areas of the German Empire westwards (e.g. Franziska Schanzkowska), to the industrial Ruhrgebiet.) Although his ancestors could hail from Löbitz in Sachsen-Anhalt, it is more likely they were from Neu- or Alt-Lobitz in southeastern Pomerania. (Records show that some people who emigrated from Alt-Lobitz called themseles Lubitz.) Neu-Lobitz is an abandoned village called Nowy Łowicz and Alt-Lobitz is a village called Łowicz Wałecki. Łowicz is a name derived from łów (noun) / łowić (verb) meaning hunt, chase, trap. (Coïncidentally, but fittingly the noun is pronounced "woof" in modern Polish!) So it means something like "Of the Hunt" or "Of Hunters". The Russian cognate of the verb is ловить. The sound change from b > v is quite common (as the development of the Greek and Russian в shows), so the German form Lobitz / Lubitz probably reflects an original more Western, Pomeranian form. The most famous Łowicz is nevertheless the city further south, in Russian Poland, which gave title to Princess Lowicz (księżna Łowicka-Romanowska), morganatic wife of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich.

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OK, so Labour leader Ed Miliband is on his way out of politics, after a catastrophic election result, but after learning that his father was a leading Marxist theoretician and his ancestors Polish Jews, I'm wonder what the origin of his name is. Is it Polish, Yiddish or Hebrew? In Polish miły means "lovely". But band? Band / bend is "ribbon" in Yiddish. NB both in Polish and Yiddish Miliband would be pronounced Milibant. Anyone who can shed light on this fading name?

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OK, so Labour leader Ed Miliband is on his way out of politics, after a catastrophic election result, but after learning that his father was a leading Marxist theoretician and his ancestors Polish Jews, I'm wonder what the origin of his name is. Is it Polish, Yiddish or Hebrew? In Polish miły means "lovely". But band? Band / bend is "ribbon" in Yiddish. NB both in Polish and Yiddish Miliband would be pronounced Milibant. Anyone who can shed light on this fading name?

Although it's strange that this is the only form where the r has disappeared, it could be a not exclusively Jewish, but a quite common name for Germans hailing from Pomerania, in the various form Milbradt, Milbrandt, Mühlbrandt, Mühlbradt, Milenbrandt etc.
It means "mild / dear brother" - either from Germanic mildi or Slavic milo / mily + berath / brat. Could originally perhaps indicate a monk or lay brother, perhaps a similar religious function among Jews?

Alternatively from Miłobądz (Polish ą is pronounced dark and nasalized), a town in Pomerania, although i instead of o is then strange.

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Other, typical variations on the Jewish Miliband name are Mileband and Milenband.

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The genuine, Polish form of Franziska Schanzkowska's last name is Częstkowska. This originally noble name must be derived from one of the two Pomeranian villages called Częstkowo, meaning "of Częstkowo". The name Częstkowo (Kashubian: Czãstkówó) shares its etymology with the famous Polish shrine Częstochowa, with the first syllable being the short form (Częstko, Częstek or Częstoch) of names such as Częstomir (often peace), Częstobor (often fight) etc. Częstkowo is thus "Częstko's place". Często (czãsto in Kashubian) means "often" in Polish and is часто in Russian. A fitting name for someone who often changed her identity!

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Interesting to see that one of the sentimental cradles of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov dynasty, the Holsteinian estate Rohlfshagen, in Rümpel just southwest of Bad Oldesloe, where Peter III's father died and he himself must have spent some time as a boy, lies right on the Limes Saxoniæ, the early medieval border zone between Saxons and Slavs (Wends), surrounded by obviously Slavic names such as the river Barnitz (bara (swamp > poodle in modern Serbian) + nica = swampy place) and the hamlets Pölitz (pole, field + nica) and Neritz (na + reka > rece = by the river).