Thread: Григорий, Георгий

Am I right in thinking that the letter Й was added to these names of foreign origin to make them declinable?

E.g. if they left them as Григори and Георги, the names wouldn't decline.

Hm. It's interesting point.

Originally Posted by TATY

Am I right in thinking that the letter Й was added to these names of foreign origin to make them declinable?

E.g. if they left them as Григори and Георги, the names wouldn't decline.

Left them? Do you really think that this is the original form of these names? Георгий comes from Greek "Georgios", why in the world should it be Георги in Russian? Vowel + й is a frequent ending for maculine nouns in Russian, and "и" isn't, so it makes sense that a male name (which is a masculine noun) ends with "й"

Originally Posted by TATY

Am I right in thinking that the letter Й was added to these names of foreign origin to make them declinable?

E.g. if they left them as Григори and Георги, the names wouldn't decline.

No, I don't think so.
There's a very common tradition: many of the greek/latin words ending in -os, -us, -um get endings like '-ий' in Russian. This is true not only for names. For example, most chemical elements are translated this way: "Lithium" -- "Литий", "Rubidium" -- "Рубидий", "Plutonium" -- "Плутоний", etc.