Why in Europe they do not use a middle name, but in Russia everyone has it and what is matrimony

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Google gives almost 70 million responses to the request "Vladimir Putin", and slightly more than 5 million responses to the request "Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin". Even in Russia, address by patronymic is becoming less and less popular and in demand. In print media, they have long been writing without a patronymic, even top officials. It is simply impossible to imagine something like this in Soviet periodicals. But in colloquial speech, business communication presupposes the obligatory presence of a middle name. Why are patronymic names used in Russia, but in many countries they never existed? And will they be able to replace patronymics with mathematics?

In large companies, it is often common to refer to by name, but to "you". For the majority, especially young people, such an appeal seems to be the most acceptable and convenient. And yes, it is this form of address that meets international standards, and besides, for foreigners, to utter some "Ilyinichna" or "Aristarkhovich" is too difficult a task, it is not surprising that with such communication many deliberately remove their patronymic, pretending to be solely a name.

However, this issue is not only about the convenience of referring to this or that person, because the name (in the broadest sense of the word) is the most personal thing that a person has, what is with him all his life. It is on the name that self-identification and the definition of one's role in society depend.

At the same time, defining some standards regarding the name, the state invests certain traditions, dogmas and values. It is not surprising that in different countries an individual name is formed, based on different principles. And the role of the state in this is undoubtedly high.

Where did patronymics come from in Russia and why?

Most historians and other specialists are inclined to believe that in Russia, which has exclusively patriarchal roots, the patronymic appeared as another tribute to the father, the head of the family. The patronymic expressed the connection of the children with the father, their belonging to his ancestral line. It was a kind of foundation, their foundation, on the basis of which they could grow further. In fact, it was with this feeling that the majority lived.

The first mention of the patronymic is found in the chronicles of 945, although then it literally meant "Alexei, son of Vasily" and was not used everywhere, rather in exceptional cases. With the ending "-vich", only princes and other nobility (for example, Prince Yaropolk Svyatoslavich) could afford patronymics. The rest of the people could not be called that, and there was no need for them to emphasize their connection with a commoner, or maybe it was when the father was Prince Svyatoslav himself.

This has been the case since the 15th century, and even among the nobility, such a naming was a sign of a special privileged position, and was personally determined by the king. For example, the merchant brothers Stroganov, despite the fact that they were not representatives of the nobility, bore the patronymic of Ioannikievich. Such a broad gesture in their direction was made for the fact that they helped to annex the Urals and Siberia (a very equivalent answer, it is worth noting).

Since then, it has become commonplace that the slaves did not have a middle name, noble people had a middle name, but without the end of "vich". For example, Ivan Osipov Petrov. If the patronymic ended in ich, then it was a sign of special privilege. Eventually, this ending became something of a prefix like "de" for the French or "Van" for the Dutch.

Peter the Great made the patronymic obligatory for all, regardless of origin, the name of the father had to appear in the documents. Needless to say, everyone eagerly began to indicate their patronymics, feeling at the same time that they were joining something more sublime and hitherto inaccessible. Catherine the Second made patronymics legally justified, but at the same time she divided them by rank and patronymic. Those who belonged to the first five ranks had to be addressed by their first name and patronymic ending in HIV, representatives from the fifth to the eighth rank were called by their patronymic, but without this ending, the rest were called only by their first name.

Nevertheless, in the 19th century, everyone turned to each other using the form of patronymic to which we are accustomed now, the restrictions concerned only references in documents and other clericalisms. At the same time, it came into use only by patronymic, as emphasized respectful, but at the same time familiar. There are many examples of this in Russian classical literature.

How do names stand in Europe?

In Iceland, middle names are used. Name and patronymic, but with surnames the situation is more complicated. On average, every tenth citizen has them, and most often they received their surname abroad. All lists, for example, in alphabetical order, are compiled based on the first letter of the name. This creates a number of difficulties, since it will not be possible to identify members of the same family based on the name alone.

The British are quite simpler about the names of their citizens. A parent can register their child under any given name and surname. Nobody will find out if you have the right to wear them. Unless they will clarify how to write them correctly.

But this is the case with the British, in a number of countries there are bans even on what name children can be called and what not. So, in Germany, you cannot call children with words that denote objects or, even worse, food. Even in Germany, you cannot change your first or last name. Denmark, Sweden and Iceland even have their own committee that determines the lists of names available for use - the naming of children.

For most countries of the world, the use of the name and surname is quite enough to designate a person as an individual person and his belonging to a certain genus, dynasty, surname. And no special emphasis on the mother or father in the name of the child, as it happens in Russia from century to century.

Will the patronymic disappear in Russia and how can this threaten?

Philologists are sure that the Russian three-name system of names of people in the large-scale sense of the word is quite special. This is not just a tribute to one's own family, but also respect to others, addressing by name and patronymic, that is, defining in the address the name of the one who gave life, the interlocutor, as it were, emphasizes the importance of the person.

Often, a person is addressed by the priest during a joking conversation, fictitious patronymics are given for foreigners, and jokes of this nature can slip through the programs. If we turn to classical literature, it turns out to be a long tradition. Herzen Jean Baptiste Boke called in letters Ivan Batistovich, in Turgenev's "Noble Nest" there is Christopher Fedorovich, who is actually Christopher Theodor Gottlieb Lemm.

Such a playful folklorization of foreign names, which lives on to this day, only emphasizes the national peculiarity of the three-name system. Often, a middle name is left when they address a person in a diminutive form. Lyubonka Nikolaevna, Andryusha Petrovich - sounds ambiguous and very colorful.

The middle name, especially if you know the history of its origin, was intended to distance its owner from everyone else, which is why this form of address is adopted in business speech. However, at work, where most adults remain Ivan Petrovich and Ekaterina Evgenievna, warm friendships are often struck, the distance is rapidly closing, and the habit of naming each other by name and patronymic remains.

However, it is precisely the patriarchal-minded system that has a detrimental effect on the institution of patronymic in Russia. Despite the fact that everyone has it from birth, they begin to add it to the name only with age, after a person has won some authority. If we exclude certain professions, then most often a young specialist joins the team, having only a name, he himself addresses everyone by name and patronymic.

Such a system is retained even by the abstract "Andrey", who does not want to become "Andrey Vasilyevich" and look like a pot-bellied old man - the head of a neighboring department. Perceiving the middle name as a burden of past years, most young (and not so) people are deliberately asked to refer to them exclusively by their first name. Therefore, it is not at all excluded that in the near future the need for a patronymic will disappear, but, of course, we are not talking about it ceasing to be used in official documents. Still, the more complex the structure of the name, the more individual, informative and useful it is.

What is matchmaking and who needs it?

Suppose a certain Vitaly, swore in love to a certain Olga, asked to give birth to a joint child. Olga, however, seemed to be inflamed with feelings in response, dreaming of a family, quickly gave birth to an heir. It was then that the young dad decided that friends and drinks were more important to him, and the child himself would somehow grow up. And in general, what is his mother for?

The story would seem strange if it were not banal. To date, the amount of alimony debts in Russia is 152 billion rubles, the overwhelming part of which has been accumulated by careless fathers. So should the joint child of abstract Vitaly and Olga wear the patronymic "Vitalyevich" as a sign that he is a descendant of this valiant husband? While Olga works two jobs alone, to raise a child alone and not to deprive him of anything.

A huge number of such "Olga" decided that this state of affairs is completely unfair and the name of the father, who participated only in the conception of the child, should not be reflected in his patronymic.

Article 58 of the Family Code states that the patronymic is given by the name of the father. True, the subjects were left with the right to use other options, for example, based on national customs. Despite this, in Russia there is not even the concept of "matrimony", the part of the name formed on behalf of the parent is always called the patronymic. However, in Russia there are already attempts to indicate the mother's name in this column of the birth certificate. However, officials do not register such options.

A compromise, however, has been found. Names are used that are similar in pronunciation to the mother's name. Raisa - Rais, Maria - Mariy, Olga - Oleg, etc.

Needless to say, such an initiative was taken up not only by ardent feminists, but also by many women who consider it fair to have their own name in the patronymic of a child?

Otherwise, matronies are called matronyms, and society reacts to such an innovation in a very ambiguous way. And if women approach this, albeit with caution, but often with understanding, then men feel deeply offended, especially those who hoped to continue proudly bearing the title of father, without making any efforts in this regard.

However, there is another side to the question, even if such a phenomenon takes root, then what will it be like for a person with a matronym in the future? Will Petr Svetlanovich be able to manage the plant or at least a team of workers? Will the mother's grievances against men carry in years and will be able to remove the label of “fatherlessness”, because how many centuries must pass for society to react to motherhood as a matter of course?

In addition, this phenomenon is very young and it will be possible to talk about some results at least in a good ten years, when the Svetlanovichs and Yelenovichs grow up a little. By the way, the same article 58 says that anyone who has reached the age of majority can change his middle name to any other.

And it is this law that is used by other women who grew up without fathers and do not plan to continue to bear their names as patronymics. So, there are already precedents when an adult woman changed her patronymic from Alexandrovna to Annovna. A petition has been created that demands to consolidate matronyms at the legislative level, by the way, it still has more opponents than supporters.

By the way, matrimony is not such a new phenomenon in the history of Russia, but rather a well-forgotten old one. Even in Russia, some children received not patronymics, but matronyms, most often this meant that the baby was "half-hearted", "boletus", or, more simply, illegitimate. He did not receive a patronymic because he had no right to it, because he was "born in sin." And if then the child was deprived of his patronymic as a punishment for the misconduct of his parents, now only one man is to blame, and it is he who turns out to be unworthy of his name being included in the patronymic. The idea of family values has changed over the course of several centuries!

However, some children received the names of their mothers, even if they were born as a result of legal marriage, this happened if the woman's family was much more eminent, or it was necessary to transfer hereditary rights. Sometimes children were transferred to matronymics if it turned out that their patronymic was dishonored by the bad deeds of their father. So they tried to protect the new generation.

In the old patriarchal times, the patronymic was something much more valuable, but artificially creating respect for the father is stupidity. As well as trying to resist inevitable social processes. And if once the patronymic disappears, then so be it. After all, if you recall the deeply patriarchal Russia, then other details seem not at all humane, for example, how they treated illegitimate children in Tsarist Russia.