Fiecare limbă vorbită pe pământ își are farmecul și tainele ei. Ieri am vizitat o biserică rusă din Irvine, la sud de Los Angeles și un frate care lucrează la o misiune internațională mi-a spus cum se traduce numele lui Vladimir Putin: ,,calea spre conducerea supremă a lumii“.

Am venit casă hotărît să cercetez puțin această problemă și am găsit căteva perle lingvistice. Vi le afișez aici cu regretul că n-am timp să le traduc și în limba română. Poate că ne ajută cineva …

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What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall in love in Shakespeare’s lyrical tale of “star-cross’d” lovers. They are doomed from the start as members of two warring families. Here Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called “Montague”, not the Montague name and not the Montague family. Romeo, out of his passion for Juliet, rejects his family name and vows, as Juliet asks, to “deny (his) father” and instead be “new baptized” as Juliet’s lover. This one short line encapsulates the central struggle and tragedy of the play, and is one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes.

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The name Vladimir is a Slavic baby name. In Slavic the meaning of the name Vladimir is: Universal ruler. People with this name are excellent at analyzing, understanding, and learning.

Putin – means someone belonging to the way/road, someone who goes along the way.

In English it’s PATH, so Putin can be translated as “Paths” probably (Pathson).

Iată alte câteva fascinante traduceri ale numelor de persoane din alte limbi ale lumii:

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The study of names itself is interesting in general.

• given names
• occupational names
• location names
• nicknames

In Japanese people often have names related to location. Murayama is Mura plus Yama, village plus mountain.

Tanaka-Looks like “In the Rice Field”

Mori=Forest.

Since the characters often look like what’s being described, it’s a great visual reminder of the name when seen with Chinese characters.

First names are a bear, though. Just the last names are easy.

In German, French, and English, the last names are sometimes related to profession-Kaufmann, for example. What about Slavic last names?

It varies, but in Czech most of them are descriptive terms, some of the most common names in the Czech Republic mean the following:

Novak – Newman
Svoboda – Freeman
Novotny – Newman again basically
Cerny – Black
Nemec – German
Polak – Pole
Cech – Czech
Sokol – Falcon
Skoda – pitiful
Nedved – Bear
Kovar – Blacksmith
Dvorak – owner of a courtyard
Horak – highlander, from the moutains
Vesely – funny

Russian surnames are usually the same, usually they are in Genitive case showing the belonging of something to something, or they can be adjectives made of nouns, verbs etc.

The most widespread Russian surname according to the Census is

Smirnov(a) – meaning son or daughter of a quiet person.
Putin – means someone belonging to the way/road, someone who goes along the way.
Stalin means a man made of steel
Tolstoy is an old Russian adjective for “fat”.

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Thank-you. I didn’t realize that about Putin, but it makes sense because of the “put” part which has something to do with travel-like Sputnik. Stalin reminds me of “Stahl”; I just learned the meaning of “Tolstoy” yesterday-interesting.

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I used to live in an area where it wasn’t uncommon for people to have “ik” as part of their last name. Is that Polish? A patronymic used as a last name? They weren’t Russian.

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I found the answer to my own question. “ik” is supposedly “little” (duh!) or “son of” in Polish last names if I read correctly.

*LOLić (a little LOL)!*

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The ending >ić< in BCMS or >ič< in Slovenian means exactly what K. T. wrote above. For instance if K. T. would happen to be my father, villagers would call me and my siblings – (K. T.ić) Kejtić; Kejtići (in plural).

Categories: Articole de interes general