Names

[A. Vine]

Joseph McCollum wrote:
>
> In Russian, the patronymic is the middle name and not the surname.
> Mikhail Sergeivich Gorbachev's father was named Sergei.
> In the last days of the Soviet Union, C-SPAN televised the proceedings of
> the Soviet
> Parliament.  Members would get up and say, "Mikhail Sergeivich, you're
> ruining the country!"  Now, no one ever called me by first and middle
> names except my mother.
>

Well, you could call it a middle name because it sits in the middle, but the
form of address given-name + patronymic in Russian is the equivalent of the
English "Ms./Mr." + family-name.  In the communist era, you would hear "Citizen"
+ family-name.

Andrea Bernardovna
--
Andrea Vine, avine at eng.sun.com
Sun-Netscape Alliance i18n architect
Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
-- Dr. Dave Farber (father of SNOBOL and one of the creators of Token Ring)