Thread: Foreigners making patronymics

Originally Posted by emka71aln

Actually, it seems to me that old fashioned names are getting popular again in the US, so Edmund is actually a pretty cool name to have.

Does anything like this ever happen in Russia, where names go in and out of "style"?

Sure it does. For example a female name Anastasiya was out of style for a long time. I almost don't meet women of 40 years old named like this. But my grandma was Anastasiya, she was born in 1911 and I met some girls of 18-23 named Anastasiya too. I've called my young daughter Anastasiya.

Anastacia is a nice posh girls' name in English. is it derived from Russian?

Originally Posted by Oddo

Anastacia is a nice posh girls' name in English. is it derived from Russian?

This is not russian name actually. This is an ancient Greek name and it means "(she) rised from the dead". Nastya is diminutive form of Anastasiya.

I see nothing wrong with foriegners making patronimics if they are living in Russia, to adapt to their culture. Who cares if it sounds funny. Maybe you could lie and make up your own patronimic.

(ie if my fathers name was John, I would not be Джоночев, I would change it to Иваночев)

Originally Posted by TheMoonMonst3r

I see nothing wrong with foriegners making patronimics if they are living in Russia, to adapt to their culture. Who cares if it sounds funny. Maybe you could lie and make up your own patronimic.

The german's names don't sound funny. The governor of my region is Эдуард Эргартович Россель, he is russian german and his name sounds not bad.

(ie if my fathers name was John, I would not be Джоночев, I would change it to Иваночев)

Джон->Джонович, Иван->Иванович

Originally Posted by JJ

Джон->Джонович, Иван->Иванович

You're right

Originally Posted by JJ

Originally Posted by Oddo

Anastacia is a nice posh girls' name in English. is it derived from Russian?

This is not russian name actually. This is an ancient Greek name and it means "(she) rised from the dead". Nastya is diminutive form of Anastasiya.

I read that most girls' names in Russian aren't really Russian. There are only three exeptions: Vera, Lyubov' (Lyuba) and Nadezhda. All others are of Greek or other origin.

Originally Posted by Gollandski Yozh

Originally Posted by JJ

Originally Posted by Oddo

Anastacia is a nice posh girls' name in English. is it derived from Russian?

This is not russian name actually. This is an ancient Greek name and it means "(she) rised from the dead". Nastya is diminutive form of Anastasiya.

I read that most girls' names in Russian aren't really Russian. There are only three exeptions: Vera, Lyubov' (Lyuba) and Nadezhda. All others are of Greek or other origin.

Йожык, you are right that a lot of female names are not Russian, but you're wrong about only 3 exeption. There are many names like Lyudmila (Людмила - людям мила - people like her, Svetlana (Светлана - the root is свет - light), Lada (Лада - from old russian pretty, lovely), Vlada (Влада - the root is влад- like in a word владеть - to own, posses), Rada (Рада - from the word радость - joy) and so on.

in a lot of Russian literature there seems to be some character that is either french or german and they have a weird patronymic...whats her face, the Marmeladov's landlady was German and she had a patronymic like "Yohanovna", and also I think Lara's mother had some weird french or german patronymic..

By the way, Oddo, it seems "Nicola" or some variant of it is an extremely popular name in the UK. Is that true?

Originally Posted by Pravit

in a lot of Russian literature there seems to be some character that is either french or german and they have a weird patronymic...whats her face, the Marmeladov's landlady was German and she had a patronymic like "Yohanovna", and also I think Lara's mother had some weird french or german patronymic..

By the way, Oddo, it seems "Nicola" or some variant of it is an extremely popular name in the UK. Is that true?

What's weird about Yohanovna? The name Johann is very common in Germany. Or it used to be in the 19th century; I don't know about now.

Originally Posted by Pravit

in a lot of Russian literature there seems to be some character that is either french or german and they have a weird patronymic...whats her face, the Marmeladov's landlady was German and she had a patronymic like "Yohanovna", and also I think Lara's mother had some weird french or german patronymic..

By the way, Oddo, it seems "Nicola" or some variant of it is an extremely popular name in the UK. Is that true?

Nicola and Nicole are both fairly common names in the UK, for example my next door neighbour is called Nicole and my sister's friend is called Nicola

Do the Brits really pronounce "Schedule" "Shedule" and not "Skedule"?
You'd think its from the "Sch" german thing, but they don't say "Shool"

I've heard them say "schism" like "shizm" too. Technically it is supposed to be pronounced "sizm" but "skizm" is more common. However, neither schism nor school nor schedule are from German. They're Latin words loaned from Greece, and as we all know the Latin diphthong ch (kh in Greek) is equivalent to the Russian hard h. So, it is grammatically incorrect to say "shedule" (not to mention annoying). For once it is the Americans who are pronouncing something right

Yes, in this case Americans are definitely right.

pronounciation is defined by common use, not by which language its from... speaking of common use changing meaning:

On being elected president - Nixon: "I can't believe the enormity of what has happened"

enormity is actually supposed to mean absolutely wicked and terrible. Perhaps he might have chose a more flattering word....

PS: americans, stop saying tomayto. It makes my brain melt...

Originally Posted by Oddo

pronounciation is defined by common use, not by which language its from... speaking of common use changing meaning:

On being elected president - Nixon: "I can't believe the enormity of what has happened"

enormity is actually supposed to mean absolutely wicked and terrible. Perhaps he might have chose a more flattering word....

PS: americans, stop saying tomayto. It makes my brain melt...

If pronunciation is defined by common use, then why should the US be the ones who change? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica 69% of the 427m native English speakers in the world are from the United States. A two-thirds majority makes it seem pretty commonplace to me.

Note: in all there are 1.5 billion English speakers, but it would be both impossible to estimate how many say "tomayto" versus "tomahto," and silly to regard a non-native speaker's opinion (for the same reason no one would consider our opinions on Russian grammatical issues).

Originally Posted by Oddo

pronounciation is defined by common use, not by which language its from...

But why then do you pronounce "character" as "Karakter"? Pronounce [character] if you are so logical.

PS: americans, stop saying tomayto. It makes my brain melt...

We should make our own Russian rules of pronounciation English words. Word "tomato" we will pronounce like "pomydoro". It will become a newest and most modern English dialekt

Originally Posted by mike

If pronunciation is defined by common use, then why should the US be the ones who change? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica 69% of the 427m native English speakers in the world are from the United States. A two-thirds majority makes it seem pretty commonplace to me.

Note: in all there are 1.5 billion English speakers, but it would be both impossible to estimate how many say "tomayto" versus "tomahto," and silly to regard a non-native speaker's opinion (for the same reason no one would consider our opinions on Russian grammatical issues).

1.The tomayto thing just gets on my nerves.
2. Who is this non-native speaker? Does one now need to be american to be a native speaker or is the dumbing-down of America so widespread that an average american cannot recognise the british flag?
3. If the encylopedia is correct then the US has nearly 300,000,000 native english speakers

Originally Posted by Oddo

Originally Posted by mike

If pronunciation is defined by common use, then why should the US be the ones who change? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica 69% of the 427m native English speakers in the world are from the United States. A two-thirds majority makes it seem pretty commonplace to me.

Note: in all there are 1.5 billion English speakers, but it would be both impossible to estimate how many say "tomayto" versus "tomahto," and silly to regard a non-native speaker's opinion (for the same reason no one would consider our opinions on Russian grammatical issues).

1.The tomayto thing just gets on my nerves.
2. Who is this non-native speaker? Does one now need to be american to be a native speaker or is the dumbing-down of America so widespread that an average american cannot recognise the british flag?

A non-native speaker is someone who does not speak English as a first language. To me at least, the grammatical usage preferences of these people are negligible (and incalculable). And it's not that America is dumbed down (well, perhaps it is, but not in this case), but that you apparently can't read your own language. The sentence I wrote was rather straightforward and I have no idea how you took it to be talking about you. I think you need to take the language stick out of your pooper, Edmund.

3. If the encylopedia is correct then the US has nearly 300,000,000 native english speakers

Very sorry, that was a typo. It's 327m. Or more exactly, 326,652,000. The number of native-English speakers in the US is 224,900,000. This accounts for 68.85%. To put things into comparison, the UK had 56,830,000 native English speakers (or 17.39%). Note that these numbers are from 1995, and have probably increased. I have no idea where I would begin to find more recent data, but I doubt the percentages have changed significantly.