Origin of the surname with the ending yak. Beautiful Ukrainian surnames: meaning and list

Where did such surnames as Yushchenko, Khmelnitsky, Gavrilyuk and Shevchenko come from? What do Tyagnibok and Zhuiboroda have in common?

This is a unique “-enko”

Surnames ending with the suffix “-enko” are considered the most typical for Ukrainians, and not because they constitute the largest group, but because practically none are found among other Slavic peoples. The fact that such surnames have become widespread in Russia is explained by the fact that Ukrainians, after joining the Moscow State in 1654, constituted the second largest ethnic group after the Russians.

It should be noted that Ukrainian surnames came into use earlier than Russian ones. The very first mentions of a surname with the suffix “-enko” date back to the 16th century. Their localization was typical for Podolia, a little less often for the Kiev region, Zhytomyr region and Galicia. Later they began to actively spread to Eastern Ukraine.

Researcher Stepan Bevzenko, who studied the register of the Kyiv regiment of the mid-17th century, notes that surnames ending in “-enko” accounted for approximately 60% of the entire list of family names of the regiment. The suffix “-enko” is a diminutive, emphasizing the connection with the father, which literally meant “little”, “young man”, “son”. For example, Petrenko is the son of Peter or Yushchenko is the son of Yuska.
Later, the ancient suffix lost its direct meaning and began to be used as a family component. In particular, it became an addition not only to patronyms, but also to nicknames and professions - Zubchenko, Melnichenko.

Polish influence

For a long time, most of today's Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which left its mark on the process of formation of surnames. Surnames in the form of adjectives ending in “-sky” and “-tsky” were especially popular. They were mainly based on toponyms - names of territories, settlements, and water bodies.

Initially, surnames with similar endings were worn exclusively by the Polish aristocracy, as a designation of the rights of ownership of a particular territory - Potocki, Zamoyski. Later, such suffixes spread to Ukrainian surnames, being added to names and nicknames - Artemovsky, Khmelnytsky.

Historian Valentin Bendyug notes that from the beginning of the 18th century, “noble surnames” began to be assigned to those who had an education, primarily this concerned priests. Thus, according to the researcher’s calculations, over 70% of the clergy of the Volyn diocese had surnames with the suffixes “-tsky” and “-sky”.

the appearance in Western Ukraine of surnames with endings in “-uk”, “-chuk”, “-yuk”, “-ak” also occurred during the period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The basis for such surnames became baptismal names, but later any others. This helped solve the problem of identification - separating a specific person from society and separating a Ukrainian from a nobleman. This is how Gavrilyuk, Ivanyuk, Zakharchuk, Kondratyuk appeared, although over time these suffixes became more widely used - Popelnyuk, Kostelnyuk.

Eastern trail

Linguists have established that the Ukrainian language contains at least 4,000 Turkic words. This is due to the active resettlement of some Turkic and other eastern peoples in the Black Sea and Dnieper regions due to the increased Islamization of the Caucasus and Central Asian regions.

All this directly affected the formation of Ukrainian surnames. In particular, the Russian ethnologist L. G. Lopatinsky argued that the family ending “-ko”, common in Ukraine, comes from the Adyghe “ko” (“kue”), meaning “descendant” or “son”.

For example, the frequently occurring surname Shevchenko, according to the researcher, goes back to the word “sheudzhen”, which the Adygs used to call Christian priests. The descendants of those who moved to the Ukrainian lands “sheudzhen” began to add the ending “-ko” - this is how they turned into Shevchenko.

It is curious that surnames ending in “-ko” are still found among some Caucasian peoples and Tatars, and many of them are very similar to Ukrainian ones: Gerko, Zanko, Kushko, Khatko.

Lopatinsky also attributes Ukrainian surnames ending in “-uk” and “-yuk” to Turkic roots. So, as evidence, he cites the names of the Tatar khans - Kuchuk, Tayuk, Payuk. Researcher of Ukrainian onomastics G. A. Borisenko supplements the list with Ukrainian surnames with a wide variety of endings, which in his opinion are of Adyghe origin - Babiy, Bogma, Zigura, Kekukh, Legeza, Prikhno, Shakhrai.

for example, the surname Dzhigurda - an example of Ukrainian-Circassian anthroponymic correspondence - consists of two words: Dzhikur - the name of the Zikh governor of Georgia and David - the Georgian king. In other words, Dzhigurda is Dzhikur under David.

Cossack nicknames

The environment of the Zaporozhye Cossacks contributed to the formation of a large number of a wide variety of nicknames, behind which serfs and representatives of other classes, who escaped from dependence, hid their origin for safety reasons.

“According to the rules of the Sich, new arrivals had to leave their surnames behind the outer walls and enter the Cossack world with the name that would best characterize them,” writes researcher V. Sorokopud.

Many of the bright and colorful nicknames, consisting of two parts - a verb in the imperative mood and a noun, subsequently turned into surnames without any suffixes: Zaderykhvist, Zhuiboroda, Lupybatko, Nezdiiminoga.

Some of the names can still be found today - Tyagnibok, Sorokopud, Vernigora, Krivonos. A number of modern surnames come from one-part Cossack nicknames - Bulava, Gorobets, Bereza.

Ethnic diversity

The diversity of Ukrainian surnames is the result of the influence of those states and peoples under whose influence Ukraine has been for centuries. It is interesting that for a long time Ukrainian surnames were the product of free word creation and could change several times. Only at the end of the 18th century, in connection with the decree of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, all surnames acquired legal status, including in the territories of Ukraine that were part of Austria-Hungary.

Professor Pavel Chuchka points out that a “Ukrainian surname” should be distinguished from a surname belonging to a Ukrainian. For example, the surname Schwartz, which is still found in Ukraine, has German roots, but its derivative Schwartzuk (son of Schwartz) is already typically Ukrainian.

Thanks to foreign influence, Ukrainian surnames often acquire a very specific sound. For example, the surname Yovban, according to Czuchka, has always been prestigious, as it comes from the name of Saint Job, which in Hungarian is pronounced Yovb. But the researcher sees the surname Penzenik in the Polish word “penzic”, which translates as to scare

Surnames starting with “enko” are known to be considered typically “Ukrainian”.

Although they are also common in Belarus, where the number of their speakers is 1 million people, that is, every tenth. However, these are mainly residents of Mozyr, Rechitsa, Gomel, etc. that is, where Ukraine is not far away. Therefore, the influence of the Ukrainian factor is undeniable.

In Russia, the Baltic states, etc. Moreover, almost all bearers of the surname ending with “enko” are in one way or another connected with Ukraine.

Where did they come from exactly in Ukraine? Why did this particular form become characteristic of Ukraine? But for Russia and Belarus, analogues are still rare (-yonok, -onok)

The fact is that, in essence, it was not originally a surname in the modern sense of the word, that is, a generic name (nomen in the Roman tradition), that is, a certain proper name that is passed on from father to son, identifying the clan as such.

In fact, the form “on enko” is something like the modern concept of “patronymic”, only on the contrary, “sonship”, so to speak.

That is, someone with the nickname Ugrin came to sign up - they wrote him as Old Ugrin. And they wrote Ugrinenko for their son. That is, “ugrenyonok” in the vocative case. The letter ё did not exist in the Russian language of the 17th century either. Even in the time of Pushkin, there were disputes about how to correctly say “immortal” or “immortal”.
That is, Ugrenenko is the vocative case of Ugrenenok. In modern Russian, the Polish version of “Hungarians” is used for Magyars. In traditional Russian - Ugrians, and Hungarian is, accordingly, Ugrin. That is, “Ugrinenko” is the son of a Hungarian, an Ugrin. Moskalenko is, accordingly, the son of a Muscovite (Moscow Rusyn). Lyashenko is the son of a Lyakh (Pole) Litvinenko is the son of a Litvin (Belarusian). It is characteristic that the surname “Ukrainchenko” somehow does not appear. Well, that's clear.

But the absence of the “Rusinenko” option is much more curious. However, this is quite understandable because the Rusyns were either Muscovites or Litvins. In principle, no other Rusyns existed. That’s why there are surnames “Litvinenko” and “Moskalenko”, but not “Rusinenko”. There is no liquid either, for obvious reasons. Nobody recorded them anywhere in any military registers.

For reasons other than military registers, there was no reason to keep records at all.

That is, when in Ukraine, which was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they began to register, for example, registered Cossacks, etc. In the 17th century, fathers and sons often came. Accordingly, the father was written "as is" while the sons were written adding the traditional diminutive suffix "enk". (by the way, it is in this form that it is traditionally in Russian; in modern Ukrainian it would be “enk”). The ending "-o" is due to the fact that it is the vocative case.

By type, the Cook is a cook, the Leo is a lion cub. Malets - little boy, etc.

Moreover, for modern literary Ukrainian this suffix, even in the form “enk”, in this meaning is not very typical. For example, instead of “little fox” - “lisenya” instead of “baby elephant” - “baby elephant”, etc. However, there is “richenka”, “pussy”, etc.

Thus it is a traditional Russian suffix, but became widespread as “sonship” in 17th-century Ukraine. Especially in the Bratslov Voivodeship, that is, the Podolia region.

However, as a “surname” in the modern sense of the word, it began to spread en masse exclusively in the 30s of the 20th century during the period of mass Soviet passportization. Most peasants did not have any surnames at all.

That is why the passport offices of the Ukrainian SSR, to which exactly this “tradition” was recommended, without further ado, clung to the nickname or the name of the father or grandfather, simply this very “enko”.

Hence all these Nikolaenki, Efimenki, Fomenki, Pivovarenki and so on. Because it is clear that if these were traditional Ukrainian surnames and not a remake of the Soviet regime, there would be Mykolenko, Yokhimenko, Khomenko, Brovarenko, etc.

It is with this Stalinist passportization that the fact is connected that on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, which in the 30s was part of the USSR, there is a completely prohibitive number of people bearing the surname “enko”. And not any tradition of the 17th century. In that part of Ukraine that was not part of the USSR, that is, Galicia, Volyn, etc. surnames starting with “enko” are almost exclusively migrants from more eastern regions.

This is precisely what explains the incident, why the form on “enko” without a soft sign (enko), which is completely atypical for the modern literary Ukrainian language.

There was nothing like this in Belarus. There was no order to register all Belarusian peasants in the form of a patronymic, that is, “ovich”. Therefore, in Belarus, about one and a half million people have surnames starting with “ovich”, which is about 15 percent of the population. Basically, in Belarus, surnames are formed according to the same scheme as in Russia, that is, from the masculine gender the possessive suffix “ov” “ev” from the feminine “in”.

Well, that is, from “oak” there will be “oaks” from “birch” - berezin.

Another thing is that since the Belarusian language was still different from Russian, for example, Bochkarev and Kuznetsov are not Belarusian surnames. Unlike Kovalev and Bondarev. However, in Russian it can also be a cooper. How is it possible for a farrier to come from the word forge and not from the word forge.

Initially, this form is just a patronymic. That is, Ivanov is a patronymic, that is, Ivanov’s son. While “ovich” is both a patronymic and “sonship”. "ich" is one of the oldest Slavic suffixes of "sonship".

Example. Tsarevich. That is, the son of the Tsar = the Tsar’s son + ich, that is, it is shown that it is the son and not the servant, etc.

However, later the patronymic turned into a surname, and the category of sonship in combination with the patronymic became simply a patronymic.

That is, Ivan-ov from a patronymic became a surname, that is, a family name (nomen)
While Ivan-ov-ich became just a patronymic.

That is, if a person bears a surname starting with “enko,” this only means that one of his male-line ancestors most likely lived on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR in at least the 30s of the 20th century. It is clear that ethnically it could be anyone, just as the rest of this person’s ancestors could also be anyone.

Where did such surnames as Yushchenko, Khmelnitsky, Gavrilyuk and Shevchenko come from? What do Tyagnibok and Zhuiboroda have in common?

This is a unique “-enko”

Surnames ending with the suffix “-enko” are considered the most typical for Ukrainians, and not because they constitute the largest group, but because practically none are found among other Slavic peoples. The fact that such surnames have become widespread in Russia is explained by the fact that Ukrainians, after joining the Moscow State in 1654, constituted the second largest ethnic group after the Russians.

It should be noted that Ukrainian surnames came into use earlier than Russian ones. The very first mentions of a surname with the suffix “-enko” date back to the 16th century. Their localization was typical for Podolia, a little less often for the Kiev region, Zhytomyr region and Galicia. Later they began to actively spread to Eastern Ukraine.

Researcher Stepan Bevzenko, who studied the register of the Kyiv regiment of the mid-17th century, notes that surnames ending in “-enko” accounted for approximately 60% of the entire list of family names of the regiment. The suffix “-enko” is a diminutive, emphasizing the connection with the father, which literally meant “little”, “young man”, “son”. For example, Petrenko is the son of Peter or Yushchenko is the son of Yuska.

Later, the ancient suffix lost its direct meaning and began to be used as a family component. In particular, it became an addition not only to patronyms, but also to nicknames and professions - Zubchenko, Melnichenko.

Polish influence

For a long time, most of today's Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which left its mark on the process of formation of surnames. Surnames in the form of adjectives ending in “-sky” and “-tsky” were especially popular. They were mainly based on toponyms - names of territories, settlements, and water bodies.

Initially, surnames with similar endings were worn exclusively by the Polish aristocracy, as a designation of the rights of ownership of a particular territory - Potocki, Zamoyski. Later, such suffixes spread to Ukrainian surnames, being added to names and nicknames - Artemovsky, Khmelnytsky.

Historian Valentin Bendyug notes that from the beginning of the 18th century, “noble surnames” began to be assigned to those who had an education, primarily this concerned priests. Thus, according to the researcher’s calculations, over 70% of the clergy of the Volyn diocese had surnames with the suffixes “-tsky” and “-sky”.

The appearance in Western Ukraine of surnames with endings in “-uk”, “-chuk”, “-yuk”, “-ak” also occurred during the period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The basis for such surnames became baptismal names, but later any others. This helped solve the problem of identification - separating a specific person from society and separating a Ukrainian from a nobleman. This is how Gavrilyuk, Ivanyuk, Zakharchuk, Kondratyuk appeared, although over time these suffixes became more widely used - Popelnyuk, Kostelnyuk.

Eastern trail

Linguists have established that the Ukrainian language contains at least 4,000 Turkic words. This is due to the active resettlement of some Turkic and other eastern peoples in the Black Sea and Dnieper regions due to the increased Islamization of the Caucasus and Central Asian regions.
All this directly affected the formation of Ukrainian surnames. In particular, the Russian ethnologist L. G. Lopatinsky argued that the family ending “-ko”, common in Ukraine, comes from the Adyghe “ko” (“kue”), meaning “descendant” or “son”.

For example, the frequently occurring surname Shevchenko, according to the researcher, goes back to the word “sheudzhen”, which the Adygs used to call Christian priests. The descendants of those who moved to the Ukrainian lands “sheudzhen” began to add the ending “-ko” - this is how they turned into Shevchenko.
It is curious that surnames ending in “-ko” are still found among some Caucasian peoples and Tatars, and many of them are very similar to Ukrainian ones: Gerko, Zanko, Kushko, Khatko.

Lopatinsky also attributes Ukrainian surnames ending in “-uk” and “-yuk” to Turkic roots. So, as evidence, he cites the names of the Tatar khans - Kuchuk, Tayuk, Payuk. Researcher of Ukrainian onomastics G. A. Borisenko supplements the list with Ukrainian surnames with a wide variety of endings, which in his opinion are of Adyghe origin - Babiy, Bogma, Zigura, Kekukh, Legeza, Prikhno, Shakhrai.

And, for example, the surname Dzhigurda - an example of Ukrainian-Circassian anthroponymic correspondence - consists of two words: Dzhikur - the name of the Zikh governor of Georgia and David - the Georgian king. In other words, Dzhigurda is Dzhikur under David.

Cossack nicknames

The environment of the Zaporozhye Cossacks contributed to the formation of a large number of a wide variety of nicknames, behind which serfs and representatives of other classes, who escaped from dependence, hid their origin for safety reasons.
“According to the rules of the Sich, new arrivals had to leave their surnames behind the outer walls and enter the Cossack world with the name that would best characterize them,” writes researcher V. Sorokopud.
Many of the bright and colorful nicknames, consisting of two parts - a verb in the imperative mood and a noun, subsequently turned into surnames without any suffixes: Zaderykhvist, Zhuiboroda, Lupybatko, Nezdiiminoga.
Some of the names can still be found today - Tyagnibok, Sorokopud, Vernigora, Krivonos. A number of modern surnames come from one-part Cossack nicknames - Bulava, Gorobets, Bereza.

Ethnic diversity

The diversity of Ukrainian surnames is the result of the influence of those states and peoples under whose influence Ukraine has been for centuries. It is interesting that for a long time Ukrainian surnames were the product of free word creation and could change several times. Only at the end of the 18th century, in connection with the decree of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, all surnames acquired legal status, including in the territories of Ukraine that were part of Austria-Hungary.

Professor Pavel Chuchka points out that a “Ukrainian surname” should be distinguished from a surname belonging to a Ukrainian. For example, the surname Schwartz, which is still found in Ukraine, has German roots, but its derivative Schwartzuk (son of Schwartz) is already typically Ukrainian.

Thanks to foreign influence, Ukrainian surnames often acquire a very specific sound. For example, the surname Yovban, according to Czuchka, has always been prestigious, as it comes from the name of Saint Job, which in Hungarian is pronounced Yovb. But the researcher sees the surname Penzenik in the Polish word “Penzyc”, which translates as to scare.