Thread: Dmitri's last name and where to have him come from...UGHHH!

Okay.... it's been about LONG time since "we've" worked on the book people...and as I have been feeling so poorly... well, my daughter wants to try and distract me again by working on the book. SO.... BACK to the grind stone

Please be patient with my typing though... it is much harder for me these days... I will try my best to proof the things I post... Maybe you all can correct MY English this time around Honestly you should, it would be good practice for you!

SOOOOO here we go!

These two questions seem to keep haunting me. The last name I selected for Dmitri (our main hero) AND where he was from in Russia.

Part 1: Let's start with his last name:
I found an online Dictionary of Period Russian Names. http://heraldry.sca.org/paul/d.html But the two people from this forum who have seen it both had the exact same reactions.. "Ya know, that's not Russian... right?!" (okay, I added the southern speak there).

So, the name is:
Dalemir (m) -- "for peace."
Dalemir. 1229. [Mor 68]
Mor = Moroshkin, Mikhail. Slavianskii imenoslov ili sobranie slavianskikh lichnykh imen. Saint Petersburg: n.p., 1867.

I selected it because I like the double DD, the way it sounds to these American ears and the double meaning of his name within the story line. "For peace" as in "her peace".. Right now I actually have her thinking the line "For peace, how appropriate. Maybe he could bring peace into my life." after she learns the meaning of his name. And as in peace because he is Russian and this is an American book.

So... you all know I am trying my best to keep this as authentically Russian as possible and with my lack of Russian this has been a challenge but ohhh so much fun and you all have taught me a lot! What should I do about his last name? Can I keep it as Dalemir but add another line that it is a unique name? Can you come up with another name for me?

Part 2: Dmitri (Dalemir's) birthplace:
Where should Dmitri's home town be from? I have had a few suggestions and I could go on Google Maps and read about them...but what is the fun in that? I want to be able to see them from YOUR eyes so I can write about them as if I have really been there and I could ask you questions if I need to when I am writing that part and you could answer them for me accurately. I need a town that maybe is not sooo famous but that people will want to and could easily travel to if this book ever gets publish or a movie is made.

SO it needs to have something worth going to. It needs to be pretty maybe have water or mountains (or both). Something that all of you would go ... "oh I wish I lived there or had a house or apartment there." A place you would go to every chance you could if you had the money and time or would move to in a heartbeat. A place if you moved away from it, it would call to you, you would long for it no matter where in the world you lived.

Suggestions... photos are most welcome and expected!

Originally Posted by rockzmom

I found an online Dictionary of Period Russian Names. http://heraldry.sca.org/paul/d.html But the two people from this forum who have seen it both had the exact same reactions.. "Ya know, that's not Russian... right?!" (okay, I added the southern speak there).

So, the name is:
Dalemir (m) -- "for peace."
Dalemir. 1229. [Mor 68]
Mor = Moroshkin, Mikhail. Slavianskii imenoslov ili sobranie slavianskikh lichnykh imen. Saint Petersburg: n.p., 1867.

Ya know, that's not Russian... right?!

These digits, 1229, don't they mean the year AD this name is taken from? You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD. It is difficult to find valid contemporary Russian name from that time. BTW reference [Mor 68] is about Slavic names, not specifically Russian.

Second, first names and last names in Russian are NOT interchangeable. So if you are looking for the last name, don't search among first names.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Ya know, that's not Russian... right?!

These digits, 1229, don't they mean the year AD this name is taken from? You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD. It is difficult to find valid contemporary Russian name from that time. BTW reference [Mor 68] is about Slavic names, not specifically Russian.

Second, first names and last names in Russian are NOT interchangeable. So if you are looking for the last name, don't search among first names.

Ahhhh so ya telling me my problem is that it is a FIRST name!!! Did not know that one! That would mean for certain I could not use it!

Okay gang... Help me find a last name for my hero!!

Second, first names and last names in Russian are NOT interchangeable. So if you are looking for the last name, don't search among first names.

However there is some correspondence in endings like -ов, -ев or -ин of last names compare to first names. Eg: Ivan - Ivanov, Petr - Petrov.
So for "Dmitri" there is a related last name "Dmitriev"

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Ahhhh so ya telling me my problem is that it is a FIRST name!!! Did not know that one! That would mean for certain I could not use it!

Okay gang... Help me find a last name for my hero!!

It's easy to make a last name from virtually any first name. You have to add -ov or -ev depending on the name. Dalemir would become Dalemirov. Google returns no results for this name though.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD.

And who are you saying my ancestors were then? Chinese? :fool"

Originally Posted by Basil77

And who are you saying my ancestors were then? Chinese? :fool"

At that time they were Eastern Slavs... and maybe some other ethnic groups.

Or you think those specific apes which you personally are originated from also should be called Russians?

You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD.

Just as we can hardly speak about it in 2010 or, for that matter, define the moniker "Russian nationality"

You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD.

Is this the period of the writing in progress? 1229? Time of Alexander Nevsky? Veliky Novgorod was very important place at that time. A point that connected the Baltic countries to the Mediterranean and to the East > Povolzhye ,Volga and surroundings, and to the north also.

Or is the time frame >1867???

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's cat

You see, we can hardly speak about Russian nationality in 1229 AD.

Yep. It is very inexact and speculative term. There is also confusion between nation and nationality. What I meant is: there was no single Russian culture with the same collection of names. Noble names of Rurikoviches were more or less inherited but naming of simple people and even non-royal nobility was different and varied much over the territory. Languages were different, culture was different, names were mainly different. Now it is not the case. That was the point.

Originally Posted by Seraph

Is this the period of the writing in progress? 1229? Time of Alexander Nevsky? Veliky Novgorod was very important place at that time. A point that connected the Baltic countries to the Mediterranean and to the East > Povolzhye ,Volga and surroundings, and to the north also.

Or is the time frame >1867???

Something did exist. But it was rather far from the contemporary idea of Russians. Even if we assume that the term 'Rus' was widely known and popular (which is questionable.) But it is a very academic problem. The most simple criterion is: there was no expressed separation between contemporary Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians. So these contemporary nationalities did not exist by themselves.

For me personally middle-to-late 18th century looks like a good frame merely because the texts of that time finally became more or less readable.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Dmitri's last name and where to have him come from..

Can I vote even though I am not Russian?

His last name seems unimportant unless you are going to refer to him by the surname in the book.... right?
You'd probably just mention it a few times, so it oughtn't matter much unless you want the surname to reflect something about him, like..... he's Jewish or some minority background.... or he's aristocratic, or something like that. Else just go for the Russian equivalent of "Smith"... Not sure what that is - maybe Petrov?

As for where he should come from:
Well it depends on whether he should be a trendy cosmopolitan person from a large city.... or from an industrial city, a university city or a rural area?? Somewhere very cold, or somewhere not quite as cold...?

If you give some hints about that, then people here can probably help you pin down the details!

Originally Posted by Hanna

Else just go for the Russian equivalent of "Smith"... Not sure what that is - maybe Petrov?

You'll be surpised but it's... Kuznetsov: (Кузнец - Smith):

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The 20 most common Russian surnames (from the European part of Russia, as calculated by Balanovska et al., 2006,[22] ):

1.Смирнов (Smirnov, 1.61%) - "quiet man's"
2.Иванов (Ivanov, 1.30%) - "John's"
3.Кузнецов (Kuznetsov, 0.90%) - "smith's"
4.Попов (Popov, 0.79%) - "priest's"
5.Соколов (Sokolov, 0.73%) - "falcon's"
6.Лебедев (Lebedev, 0,65%) - "swan's"
7.Козлов (Kozlov, 0,58%) - "he-goat's"
8.Новиков (Novikov, 0,54%) - "novik's" (novik - a teenager on military service who comes from a noble, boyar, or cossack family in Russia of 16th-18th centuries).
9.Морозов (Morozov, 0.53%) - "frost's"
10.Петров (Petrov, 0.44%) - "Peter's"
11.Волков (Volkov, 0.44%) - "wolf's"
12.Соловьёв (Solovyov, 0.44%) - "nightingale's"
13.Васильев (Vasilyev, 0.42%) - "Basil's"
14.Зайцев (Zaytsev, 0.41%) - "hare's"
15.Павлов (Pavlov, 0.39%) - "Paul's"
16.Семёнов (Semyonov, 0,35%) - "Simeon's"
17.Голубев (Golubev, 0,32%) - "pigeon's"
18.Виноградов (Vinogradov, 0.32%) - "grape's"
19.Богданов (Bogdanov, 0.31%) - "Bogdan's" (Bogdan - a Slavic given name)
20.Воробьёв (Vorobyov, 0.30%) - "sparrow's"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._Europe#Russia

Very interesting! Thanks! I didn't know any of that.

Let's do it with first names too! How do I get the information?

PS - The Russian surnames are not always transcribed into other European languages in the same way as in English... For example Wolkoff (I know someone who has that surname). If possible, it is worth considering the alternatives

Originally Posted by Hanna

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Dmitri's last name and where to have him come from..

Can I vote even though I am not Russian?

His last name seems unimportant unless you are going to refer to him by the surname in the book.... right?
You'd probably just mention it a few times, so it oughtn't matter much unless you want the surname to reflect something about him, like..... he's Jewish or some minority background.... or he's aristocratic, or something like that. Else just go for the Russian equivalent of "Smith"... Not sure what that is - maybe Petrov?

As for where he should come from:
Well it depends on whether he should be a trendy cosmopolitan person from a large city.... or from an industrial city, a university city or a rural area?? Somewhere very cold, or somewhere not quite as cold...?

If you give some hints about that, then people here can probably help you pin down the details!

Hanna... of course you can participate in this discussion and vote! Everyone is always welcome to voice their thoughts on my threads as I find many opinions helpful and sometimes it could be the one I least expect the one that really makes me stop and go "Ohhhh"

I know.. another wall of text from Rockzmom!!!
So, let me answer your questions.
Let me take a quick step back. I started off writing this book and at my daughter's request. She had me do it in hopes that it would distract me when I didn't feel well and give me something to do when I was just in bed for hours on end. She had ideas for what she wanted to happen in the book.

To surprise her I started to base a number of the characters names and some of their personality traits off of her friends. It was easier for me to make the characters come to life when I wrote about them as I knew them. I knew all about them. I knew what they looked like, I knew their parents, their likes and dislikes, how they would talk and words they would say (example didn't or did not), what they would eat or not eat. Because of this, well the characters really came to life on the pages (or at least I hope they do).

When it came to Dmitri, well that was a name I had always liked. I don't know why but it was. It called to me. So I needed to invent a person for him and a family to be able to make him as real as I had the other characters otherwise he felt "cold" when I wrote about him. So, that was when I stopped writing for a while and came to this forum and starting my in depth Russian learning. I asked tons of questions about HOW Dmitri would say things and would react to things. I asked the guy members a list a questions (and have kept their answers secret!). And even one person from the forum was way too kind and we worked off the forum helping me to creating him.

So having a last name for him is important as it completes him AND it is important in the story line as Valentina does not know anything at all about him. She only knows his first name for about half the book and the reader does not know exactly why he is in Valentina's life until Chapter 8! So, when Dmitri does tell Valentina his last name, it is an important moment.

I feel like I write as Dmitri is NOW. But when he was a child in Russia, that piece is still missing. So when he talks about that time, it is hard for me to write. It is also hard as I only know from the perspective of an American.

One location that has been suggested is Yekaterinburg and someone else has seconded that choice. So right now, that is his home town but before I start writing all about it... I want to be certain.

BTW... now that my daughter is older, she is helping to write the book!! She has gone online and found photos of actors and made collages of them for each of the characters based off of my physical descriptions in the book to help her with writing and editing what I have already written. It is very cool to see what she thinks they look like because they do look very close to what I had in my head!

Originally Posted by Hanna

Let's do it with first names too! How do I get the information?

Check these two articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_i..._CIS_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...n_names#Europe