Thread: My names

So I am from Lithuania, however my family are of Ukrainian and Russian origin so therefore are my names Russian, but in Lithuania we try to change everything to fit Lithuanian ways :P

My name was
Вадим Владимирович Козловский

but now
Vadim Vladimirovič Kozlovskis

I just thought to post this as I think maybe for someone here it will be interesting!

In Lithuania we try to change everything! :P

But nobody calls me by Vadim, but my

Your surname sounds Polish.

Bushs, Putins - good names too

Originally Posted by TATY

Your surname sounds Polish.

There used to be a Lithuanian and Polish commonwealth a few hundred years ago, so that's not entirely unlikely. So if his forebearers wanted to adjust to the Lithuanian version, they may have taken a more localized version of Kozlov, which could in fact have been a Polish name. Which you probably already knew -- and were probably just talking out loud.

Kozlowski is a Polish name.

Ski is a Slavic ending. Lithuanian is not Slavic.

Russian names don't tend to end in -ski. The ones that do are often of Polish origin. Lots, maybe most POlish names end in -Ski, and also in neighoubring Belarus' and Ukraine.

He said his parents came from Russia/Ukraine.

Wait. Козловский is Kozlovskiy and Kozlovski is Козловски. Thus the first one is russian the second - Polish. I believe Kozlovski in this case was Russian second name. or what??

Originally Posted by TATY

Kozlowski is a Polish name.

Ski is a Slavic ending. Lithuanian is not Slavic.

Russian names don't tend to end in -ski. The ones that do are often of Polish origin. Lots, maybe most POlish names end in -Ski, and also in neighoubring Belarus' and Ukraine.

He said his parents came from Russia/Ukraine.

No, no, I understand that. My conjecture was simply that at some point there was a large Polish community in Lithuania, and it followed that such a common name as Kozlovski would be present there -- a Russian who wanted to sound more localized may adopt that variant, since it was from a similar, Slavic language in a place where such a name was normal. That was all. Consider a scenario in which a person in what was then the Louisiana territory in the US would have been named de la Francais, but adopted de la Francia in order to be more "localized" (in this case, to appeal to the Spanish speaking Mexican authorities in Texas). He didn't adopt Frank/Frankman/Frankwhatever. Again, maybe I'm completely off base, but that was just a theory...

Originally Posted by Leof

Wait. Козловский is Kozlovskiy and Kozlovski is Козловски. Thus the first one is russian the second - Polish. I believe Kozlovski in this case was Russian second name. or what??

No, in English we usually write -ский and just -sky or -ski

then tell me one thing - do the Polish family names end with ский or ски

tnx KV!

Originally Posted by ivanushki

In Lithuania we try to change everything! :P

The same is in Ukraine.
Apparently somebody in the government cosiders it's funny to translate russian last names into Ukrainian regardless of people's will. Thus Скворцов according to his new passport becomes Шпаков, etc. It's humiliating. Thanks God my last name can't be translated since nobody knows what it means.

Originally Posted by Leof

then tell me one thing - do the Polish family names end with ский or ски

Well I think it must be russian, unless there is polish heritage somewhere but I have never ever been told of this! By the way we write it Kozlovskis only because we lived in Lithuania, originally it would be and still is by my family there written Kozlovskiy. My father was from Cheljabinsk and mother's family were from Kyiv.

My mother's name is Naталья Оставівна Золотова. Zolotova to me is russian I think but I have no clue about her origins to be honest.

In Polish names end in

-ski

See in Russian and Belarussian the standard endings for adjectives are long, like doubled:

новый
новая
новое
новые

In Ukrainian you can write them long, but the standard form is short, but the long form is retained in the masculine:

новий
нова
нове
нові

In the other slavonic languages they have short endings:

E.g. in Serbian, the adjective Serbian is Српски, Српска

In Polish the names end in
-ski or -ska (m/f).

Thus Mr. Kaczyński is married to Mrs. Kaczyńska.

But when Polish names are transliterated into Russian, they Russify them to:

Качиньский , Качинськая. If you see something written about the Polish president, Lech Kaczyński, in a Russian newspaper they'll put -ский at the end even though in Polish it ends -ski. (Лех Качиньский)

This means the names will decline:

Дом Качиньского - Mr. Kaczyński's house

Of course in Polish the name would decline in the same way:

Dom Kaczyńskego

Originally Posted by ivanushki

Well I think it must be russian, unless there is polish heritage somewhere but I have never ever been told of this! By the way we write it Kozlovskis only because we lived in Lithuania, originally it would be and still is by my family there written Kozlovskiy. My father was from Cheljabinsk and mother's family were from Kyiv.

My mother's name is Naталья Оставівна Золотова. Zolotova to me is russian I think but I have no clue about her origins to be honest.

-ов(а) is a Russian ending for a name. Although there are lots of people in Ukraine with such names, they are not Ukrainian in origin.

I can say, that in Slovakia we have many different endings of surnames, but only the females surnames have to end in this form: [b]-ov

Originally Posted by TATY

...

thank you for explaining so widely - now I understood about the second names

talking of the long (full) and short forms, the Russian long forms have appeared later than common-slavic short forms. IIRC, "long" forms were originally a combination of an adjective and a pronoun.

Originally Posted by translations.nm.ru

talking of the long (full) and short forms, the Russian long forms have appeared later than common-slavic short forms. IIRC, "long" forms were originally a combination of an adjective and a pronoun.

Thanks. I thought as much since only Russian and Belarussian have them, so it was likely they developed later.

In Ukrainian they tend to be only found in archaic texts or in poetry and sounds (to aid rhyming).

Interestingly it is the other way round when it comes to мною тобою etc. (long form instrumental endings) In Ukrainian these are the usual forms, whereas in Russian they have reduced are more poetic.

Like Я говорю українською мовою -
українською мовою is the Instrumental of українська мова

In Russian the -ою in the endings of adjectives and nouns have reduced to -ой.

There is another problem in SLovakia, but I am not sure if anybody cares about it....

In our language we say: Anna Kournikovova... I think in Russian it is: Anna Kournikova

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