Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Explaining Ukrainian Surnames Part Two

This post continues the summary of Grey Gressa's article, "Origins and Meaning of Ukrainian Surnames"

Many Ukrainian surnames originates from the occupation or profession of an ancestor at the time when surnames began to be recorded, which covers a time period  of over five hundred years--1300-1800.  Please read the previous post from March 9, 2016, "Explaining Ukrainian Surnames Part One".
Part Three will cover suffixes and other grammatical structures that add meaning to surnames.


Surnames from Occupations and Professions 

Surnames from Administrative and government terms

Starosta                                        village elder
Viitenk, vdichenko                       village mayor, also known as the Viit
Pysar                                            scribe, official recorder
Desyantnik                                   foreman
Voyevoda                                     governor
Vozniak, Wozniak                        bailiff

 

Ukrainian Village

 

Surnames that indicate social class
Shevchenko and the Serfs

Bachach                                 wealthy man
Kripak                                    serf
Panych                                   gentleman, noble
Holota                                    poor man/person
Shliakhta                                gentleman/gentry

 

 

Surnames from military terms

Hetman                                 Cossack leader/chief (still used during World War I)
Kozak                                   cossack, soldier who fought on horseback
Ulan                                     lancer 
Soldat                                   soldier
Zhovnir                                soldier 




  Surnames from the arts

Spivak                                 singer
Malyar                                 painter
Kynzhnyk                            scribe, writer
Dudar                                  piper 


 
Painting by Ukrainian painter Ivan Honchar

 

Surnames relating to religion or the church

Palamar                             sacristan
Vladyka                            archbishop
Diak                                  clerk, cantor 
Tytar                                 church warden 


Surnames relating to economic life, the trades and rural occupations 

Melnyk                               miller
Tkach, Tkachuk                 weaver
Kylymnyk                          weaver or maker of rugs
Vynnk                                 vinter, winemaker
Pyvovar                               brewer
Rudnyk                               miner
Hutniak                               glass maker
Bodnar, bodnaruk               cooper, a person who made barrels
Honchar                              pottter, maker of pottery and crockery 
Koval, kovalchuk               blacksmith
Kolodiy                               cartwright, built carts
Kolisnyk                             wheelmaker
Kravets, kravetsiv               tailor
kravchenko, kravchuk
krawchuk
kushnir                                 tanner
Pekar                                    baker
Orach                                   plowman
Chaban, vivchar                   shepard
Kosar                                   made/grew hay
Kupets, kupechenko            merchant, shopkeeper
Kramar                                 shopkeeper
Shynkar                                innkeeper
Ptashnyk                               person who raises fowl
Rybalka                                fisherman
Bobrovnyk                           trapper
Shevchenko, shevts             shoemaker, cobbler
Volovyk, wolowyk              oxherder    
  


Mykola Pymenenko "Gathering Hay"


Surnames derived from Individual's Physical Characteristics

These names may have come from nick-names and some have had unflattering connotations.

Surnames from parts of the body

Nis                                                     nose
Zub                                                    teeth
Noha                                                  foot
oko                                                     eye

Scene from Shostakovich's opera, "The Nose", based on a story by Gogol.

Surnames from physical characteristics  of an ancestor

Kutsyi                                               short
Holynastyi, holinaty                         long-legged
Bezushko                                          missing an ear
Hlukh                                                deaf
Rudiak                                              red headed
Borodayko                                        Has a beard
Kryvonis                                           crooked nose
Dziuba, dzioba                                  beak-nose                                      
Horbatiuk                                          humpbacked
Sostak                                               Has six fingers
Balan                                                 blond
Bilyi, Bilyk                                       light complexion

painting by Mykola Hlushchenko

Surnames from character or psychological traits of an ancestor

Dobrun                                           a good and kind person
Duma                                              thoughtful
Balaken                                           talkative
Zaderii                                            argumentative
Brekhun                                          a liar
Hulei                                               person who deceives
Hladka                                             overweight, fat or stout
Hergot, hergota                                person who sound like quacking ducks
Svystun                                            person who whistles
Mandrusiak                                      person who wanders
Dervak                                             first born
Tretiak                                             third one, probably third child
Burchylo                                         unfriendly
zakhodho                                         a loner, rarely visits others
Odynets                                           person who keeps to him/herself

Zhurba                                             sorrowful
Plaksa                                              crier, crybaby
Zabudko                                          forgetful







 






2 comments:

  1. I've been trying to figure out what my grandfather's family name was. In America, it was Krausch, but they came from Ukraine, they had Russian given names, and their native language was Russian. They were not German or Jewish as far as I can tell. They could not read or write, so when my great-grandfather spoke his family name aloud for the ship's manifest in Hamburg in 1903, it was written down as "Karausch," and so it remained until they dropped the first "a" sometime in the 1930s. I've considered many possibilities, including Khrushch. Oh, one more thing, when they arrived in Canada a clerk wrote "Bukovinan" beside their names. I don't know what city or oblast they came from. It has been recorded in various documents as Odessa, Kherson, Marion, and "Serekoko." Others who apparently came from the same area and then settled in the same part of North Dakota show their city of origin spelled variously as Sorocko, Djarkovka, Zorkova and similar sound-alikes. Many of these same people also wrote Marion or Mariana as their city.

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  2. Zuerich, Unterwalden,, South Russia; Lat: 51.8982N, Long: 47.1820E ........................................... currently Zorkino / Sorkino, Saràtov, Russia might be what you are looking for. Many of the immigrants who live/lived in North Dakota are from what was S. Russia now mostly Ukraine. Moldova is also part of that area and farther west was Bessarabia now Romainia and/or Moldova. This is the same general region where Russia has invaded Ukraine. You should check into Germans from Russia Heritage Society in Bismarck ND which might provide more information. There's a website for the group.

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