regional names

[Wilson Gray]

I'm no native speaker of Russian, by any means. But, daring to use my
non-native-speaker's sprachgefühl, Moskvich, Moskovich strike me as Jewish,
since ethnic-Russian surnames never end in -vich, which means, like ben-,
"son of." Clearly, Mosk(o)vich could not mean "son of Moskow" in any
ordinary sense, but it could possibly mean, "from Moscow" or "descended from
a person originally from Moscow."

Cf. Riurikovich, the clan name, I guess you could call it, of all rulers of
Russia through 1612, who were considered to be direct descendants of the
(legendary?) Swedish Viking, Hrörekr), who is credited with the foundation
of what we now know as Ukraine and Russia as states. Obviously, all these
Riurikovichi were not literally *sons* of Riurik, but they were all accepted
as *descending* from him. In like manner, a Jew from Moscow or descended
from such a person might consider himself to "desend" from Moscow in a sense
similar to the way that the Riurikovichi considered themselves to "descend"
from Riurik.

As for Moskovitin, AFAIK, this strikes me as a genuine, Slavo-Russian name,
as do Ryazansky "inhabitant of Ryazan," Tobolski "inhabitant of Tobolsk,"
Smolensky "inhabitant of Smolensk," and Varshavsky "inhabitant of Warsaw."
Moskvin "inhabitant of Moscow" is as genuinely Slavo-Russian as Putin. This
doesn't mean that these names couldn't be borne by Jews - I don't think. I
know nothing of the social position of Jews in Tsarist Russia, beyond random
references to scenes bad enough to make me glad that I'm a black now and not
a Jew then. And that time predates Hitler!

-Wilson

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: regional names
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> No real need to puzzle over such things. Although not universally true
> of such names, it used to be quite common for Jewish families to acquire
> names associated with places of origin--some by choice, some because
> name construction used to follow patterns similar to Arabic, some
> because the names were given as a part of the conversion process (no
> difference whether it was by choice or by force). This is, in part,
> responsible for Slavic names that I mentioned earlier, such as Moskvin,
> Mosvich, Moskvitin, Moskovitch, Ryazansky, Rjewski, Tobolski, Smolensky,
> Litvak, Varshavsky, etc.--which are often recognized by Russian and
> Polish speakers as odd formations for supposedly Slavic names (in
> contrast, for example, with Podolski, Polonski and Dombrowski--not quite
> sure why). The same is true of many non-Slavic names as well--Deutsch
> and French are common Jewish family names in the US, although not
> exclusively Jewish AFAIK--but also, Berlin, Berliner, Wiener, Vinner,
> Frank, Frankfurter, Hamburger. Some may be many generations
> post-conversion and no longer recognize coming from Jewish families,
> others may come from other sources, e.g., Italiano and Deutsch may be
> obvious Ellis Island creations (where French would have been less likely
> to have been misinterpreted, hence lack of Francais) or people from
> families who migrated within Europe. And names from Ladino-speaking
> territories may look very different and not recognizable in the same way.
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 3/21/2010 11:14 AM, George Thompson wrote:
> > I have long been puzzled by names like "Italiano" and "Deutsch" -- what
> would lead to someone being called "the Italian" in an Italian speaking
> community (or, "the German" . . . )?
> > I suppose the name "English" could have been acquired by an Englishman
> living in Scotland.   I don't think I've encountered the name "Francais".
> > Once upon a time, the peninsula of Italy was a multitude of princedoms
> and republics -- was one region considered the real "Italy" -- or should I
> be thinking of Trieste or the Italian-speaking communities in the Austrian
> Alps?  As for Deutsch, I suppose that that is a name that might have been
> assigned in Austria, or in German-speaking Switzerland?
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> >
> >
>
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>


Wilson

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