(no subject)

[yers.livejournal.com]

Top 10 Russian surnames, and what they mean:

1 Смирнов — Smirnov, “of the meek one”*
2 Иванов — Ivanov, “of Ivan (John)”
3 Кузнецов — Kuznetsov, “of the blacksmith”
4 Попов — Popov, “of the priest”
5 Соколов — Sokolov, “of Falcon”*
6 Лебедев — Lebedev, “of Swan”*
7 Козлов — Kozlov, “of Goat”*
8 Новиков — Novikov, “of the newcomer”
9 Морозов — Morozov, “of Frost”*
10 Петров — Petrov, “of Pyotr (Peter)”

*presumably from a nickname

A longer list: 50 most common Russian surnames

Comments

Re: *wow*

[yers.livejournal.com]

Not at all. It's technically "mosquito", I kind of made it more "Saxon" to reflect the speech of Russian villagers... but the name is quite euphonious and neutral. In Russian (and other languages too, I guess), you often go without noticing the meaning of a surname completely if that meaning doesn't stick out too much.

Re: *wow*

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

... hm, true. I just really liked the sound. :) (And my character is related to some serious heroes ... with the same name) *cough*.

May I ask whether you know what Rybakin means?

Re: *wow*

[yegor.livejournal.com]

"of the fisher".
But "Rybakov" os more frequent.

Re: *wow*

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And a last one - is there a Russian name associated with "wind", "sky" or "the sun"? In choosing characters' names, I go completely by sound, but I use a lot of eagle/wind/sun/light-associations with that guy.

Any help? Thanks a lot! :)

Re: *wow*

[yegor.livejournal.com]

Wind - Ветров
Sun - Солнцев
Eagle - Орлов
Light - Светлов
Sky - hmmm, hard to say. There is a surname like Небов, but i doubt it's from "Небо" as "sky"

Re: *wow*

[yegor.livejournal.com]

Ah, and again - all those are surnames, not names.

[alon_68]

Небов? Never heard of such surname. It sounds rather strange for me.

[yegor.livejournal.com]

Yes, it sounds strange, but there is such surname. Try to search it in Yandex.

Re: *wow*

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

*makes notes*

Re: *wow*

[msk01.livejournal.com]

Ветров? Небесный? Солнцев?

Re: *wow*

[yegor.livejournal.com]

Небесноватый :)

Re: *wow*

[inkittenus.livejournal.com]

Ye, and associates with бесноватый - possessed. ;-)