Names

Joseph McCollum prez234 at JUNO.COM
Mon Dec 18 08:48:28 UTC 2000


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.

The particle -vich or -ich (in the case of Ilya ==> Ilyich) itself is not
a patronymic.
Are there any of these middle name/surname particles that do not indicate
"son of?"

Gaelic:                 Fitz-, Mc-, Mac-, O'
Anglo-Saxon:     -son, -sen
Romance:        De-, Di-, d',
Hebrew:         Ben-
Russian:                -vich, -ich

Now that I think of it, the "de" particle in Spanish can mean "wife of"
rather than "son of," (I want to say that the de in Javier Perez de
Cuellar indicates his mother was named Perez and his father was named
Cuellar.  However, in a name such as Jose DeLeon, his father was also
named DeLeon.)



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