Is it true you can know if a Russian has aristocratic ancestry based on his family name?
If so how?
>>1359002
Bump for interest.
Everyone has aristocratic ancestry. So, no.
>>1361363
He probably means Patrilineal.
>>1359002
There are some russian family names that are very basic.
Like zaitsev from the word zaiets which means rabbit.
or medvedev fro mthe word medved which means bear.
and so on.
On the other hand you have family names like belakonsky or Dostoyevsky or bulgakov etc..
>>1359002
> Is it true you can know if a Russian has aristocratic ancestry based on his family name?
No.
Isn't this true for a lot of countries like 'Von' in Germany or 'de' in France?
>>1364130
I can only speak for Sweden but yes. A "von"/"af" reveals an aristocratic ancestry in particular, but there are also many known aristocratic family names - you can tell they're noble by the sound/spelling of it, even if you know nothing of nobility. A tell-tale is that the name is spelled in "old Swedish".
Like >>1363194 says. If you're named Eriksson (Erik's son) you're a commoner. If your last name rather is something like Leijonhufvud (Lion's head), Silfverskjöld (Silver shield), etc you're likely of noble birth.
That said, nobility means very little in Sweden today.
>>1364276
Oh, well. You get the idea still, I'm sure. You can tell if it's a common name or a noble name - in Sweden at least. Can't speak for Russia myself.
>>1364285
My point is - in Russia you can't.
Complex old surnames mostly come from the old citizen surnames (republic of Novgorod). Really old boyar surnames are often quite simple and have animals: cats, rabbits, carps, horses, sparrows, etc (imo, tribal totems). I.e. there is no simple rule of thumb.
Even if you see clearly boyar surname, you can't have any degree of certainty of it's aristocratic origin: chances are it's a descendant of some peasant who took surname of his landlord or got "noble" surname by accident (see above - boyar surnames were often simple). And, of course, it is even less likely to meet aristocrats in Russia due to the whole "let's kill all those rich assholes" brouhaha of 1918-1922.
On the other hand, "commoner surnames" (name-based, like Eriksson) IRL are not necessarily commoners (even if over 99% are), since practically all of those surnames got ennobled by 17th century. Some are quite old (i.e. pre-Mongolian, Kievan Rus old). The most obvious example of "commoner's surname" would be Rurikovich dynasty (unless Rurik was Pomeranian tribal totem "fire eagle" or name of the city, rather than an actual person).
>>1359002
Yes, it works for all countries except maybe China and Korea.
>>1364546
Not new worlders
>>1364215
Very true. Most danish nobility houses always spell their names weirdly, like Treschow in today's Norway which comes from treskomaker, tree-shoemaker. Then we also have very obvious ones like von Munthe af Morgenstierne.
But the thing is though I don't think it's always that easy. Many lineages have weird names from old old farms. My name is taken from a farm in the 18th century, but the patrilineal lineage goes back to the 16th century, but obviously we're not ennobled, but rather it was just a convenience to have your name from a place to easily identify where people came from
>>1364743
There's a (living) noble family in Sweden called "Natt och Dag" (Night and Day).
As in, that is the actual family name. "Anon Night and Day".
Pretty cool, I think. Pic related.
