etymology

Tue Apr 1 19:09:38 UTC 2014

By whom, I wonder, and on what grounds?  It is generally thought to be Indo-European, and cognate with Latin -inus, Greek -ῖνος, etc.

It is the regular suffix for forming adjectives from nouns in -a, and also, in the earlier period, from nouns in -ĭ (e.g. гостинъ < гость); nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that the name Путин is of such antiquity that it could be derived from путь (and in any case, at that period the suffix was attached to nouns denoting persons).  I agree that it must be derived from the proper name Путя.

There is, incidentally, absolutely nothing to suggest that names in -ин are matronymic, and indeed, the commonest of them, such as Фомин, Кузьмин, indicate quite the reverse.

----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Dorian Juric" <dorian06 at HOTMAIL.COM>
Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Odoslané: utorok, 1. apríl 2014 19:32:17
Predmet: Re: [SEELANGS] etymology

I have it from a better source that the -in suffix is thought by some linguists to be a borrowing from Finno-Ugric languages. 

Dorian Juric, MA 
PhD Student 
Department of Anthropology 
Chester New Hall 534 
McMaster University 
Hamilton, ON 
L8S 4L9 
Canada 

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 17:25:24 +0000 
From: dorian06 at HOTMAIL.COM 
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] etymology 
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU 

Please don't put much stock in this, I only dabble in linguistics, but I was always led to believe that -ov endings were the most common because they related patrilineal descent and that they -in endings were for those rare matrilines that arose through various historical processes (and probably often shame). I'm not sure how that information ever came to me or how valid it is, but it seems to make sense given that it mirrors (at least BCSM) possessive forms (Jasnina jabuka, Markova jabuka). 

Dorian Juric, MA 
PhD Student 
Department of Anthropology 
Chester New Hall 534 
McMaster University 
Hamilton, ON 
L8S 4L9 
Canada 

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 00:51:59 -0400 
From: adamovitchk at GMAIL.COM 
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] etymology 
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU 

Hello, 

Firstly, Сталев, Ленов, Путев, Путьев, Медведин, Зверин, Голубин - are also all existing last names, it's not really a set rule that only certain suffixes are to be used in last names. Some are more common than others, but that often depends on a specific region more than grammatical rules. 
Last names ending in "in" - are often, though also not always, names based on belonging to a family, clan, father (sometimes mother), etc. My guess would be that (depending on how far back the last name can be traced back) - it's either from "путь" (as a native speaker, I do not think Путев or Путьев is more likely than Путин, they sound exactly the same to me as far as last names that could come from "путь"), or from Путя, short for a number of Slavic names (Путивой, Путимир, Путислав, Путисил, Путята, etc) - simply meaning "son of Путя", which could stand for any of those full names. 
My guess is that unless his family can be traced to a specific person with one of those names - it's impossible to actually say for sure, especially considering the etymology of most of those names would still trace back to "путь". 

Re- Rasputin - if you mean Grigory Rasputin - that was his actual last name, he was born to one Efim Rasputin. I suppose at one point before becoming a family name it was indeed a nickname (not an expert on Rasputin here!), but that's not really uncommon for Russian last names. 

Hope this helps, 
Best, 
Ksenia A. 

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 3:36 PM, John Dingley < jdingley43 at gmail.com > wrote: 

Hi! 

Can someone enlighten me as to the etymology of the 
Russian family name Путин? Presumably one does not 
want to derive it from путь since путь is an 
original masculine -i stem noun (the only one to 
survive into Modern Russian) and one would expect 
*Путев, which is the case with other family names 
derived from masculine -i stems, e.g 
Медведев < медведь 
Зверев < зверь 
Голубев < голубь 

As a rule of thumb, the suffix -ин is used to form 
family names from nouns ending in -а/-я, e.g 
Воронин < ворона, Ленин < Лена and feminine 
-i stems, e.g. Сталин < сталь. The suffix 
-ов/-ев being used elsewhere. This distribution 
betrays their possessive adjective origin. 

Unbegaun (p.161) explains Распутин as a nickname, 
where different formation rules apply. 

John Dingley 

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