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 elderViitenk, vdichenko village mayor, also known as the Viit
Pysar scribe, official recorder
Desyantnik foreman
Voyevoda governor
Vozniak, Wozniak bailiff
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| Ukrainian Village |
Surnames that indicate social class
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| Shevchenko and the Serfs |
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 singerMalyar painter
Kynzhnyk scribe, writer
Dudar piper
Painting by Ukrainian painter Ivan Honchar
Surnames relating to religion or the church
Palamar sacristanVladyka archbishop
Diak clerk, cantor
Tytar church warden
Surnames relating to economic life, the trades and rural occupations
Melnyk millerTkach, 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
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| 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 noseZub teeth
Noha foot
oko eye
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| Scene from Shostakovich's opera, "The Nose", based on a story by Gogol. |
Surnames from physical characteristics of an ancestor
Kutsyi shortHolynastyi, 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
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| painting by Mykola Hlushchenko |
Surnames from character or psychological traits of an ancestor
Dobrun a good and kind personDuma 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
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.
ReplyDeleteZuerich, 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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