quest for info/suggestions. re: dialects

[Jim Rader]

The Russian word for "nightingale" is <solovei> (or <solovej> if you
want to use the Slavists' transliteration); <soloveichik> would be a
diminutive, if such a diminutive exists in Russian and isn't East
Slavic crossed with Yiddish.  I assume this is an E Ashkenazic
surname.  Alexander Beider's _A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from
the Russian Empire_ cites some places where this surname was
particularly common.  Both Beider and Hanks & Hodges' _A Dictionary
of Surnames_ (which has input from David Gold) suggest the name may
have been applied to cantors.

Jim Rader
>
> I'm predisposed to be careful with other people's names.  My family name
> came into being in the 1880s because immigration authorities in Newport
> News/Hampton Roads failed to recognize or spell my grandfather's name.
> (It was Soloveitchik, the Russian word for "nightingale".)  They wrote
> Salovesh and told my grandfather that was going to be his name from then
> on.  Since they obviously were government officials, my grandfather took
> their word for it. He never tried to recapture Soloveitchik.
>
> -- mike salovesh           <salovesh at niu.edu>                PEACE !!!