Names from Muscovite Judgment Charters; Diminutives as Documentary Forms and Name Frequency in Justice in Medieval Russia.

Marya Kargashina

© 2013 by Jessica Smith-Carlock. All rights reserved.

I have pulled names from Justice in Medieval Russia: Muscovite Judgment Charters of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries by Ann Kleimova, which discusses the 15^th and 16^th c Russian justice system with references to judgment charters. Judgment charters document the results of legal proceedings and may record processes, litigants, witnesses, judges, evidence presented and so forth. Kleimova does not give the date of all cases she discusses, but all charters referenced date to the 15^th or 16^th c. The names appear to be transliterated using the Library of Congress system; I did not see normalization of the names. These 318 names are from the chapters of the book where Kleimova discusses the persons and roles in the charters and lists names of defendants, judges, witnesses, plaintiffs, and constables.

I started this project looking for more frequency data than found in Wickenden's A Dictionary of Period Russian Names, however, my frequency study may be distorted due to the charters referred to being selected from a larger body of data by Kleimova. I will also discuss name frequency by class; names and diminutive use varies significantly from prince to peasant, with peasants referenced by a diminutive far more frequently.

Masculine Names

While the medieval Russian naming pool, at least for men, is deep and vast; a few names do occur more frequently than others. Wickenden lists Ivan/Ioann, Vasilii, Fedor, Semen and Andrei as the five most popular masculine names among the nobility as a whole, Astrid Baeklund lists Ivan, Vasilei, Grigorei, Fedor, and Semen as the most frequently found names in her study of Novgorodian names. I had similar results, with Ivan being by far the most common, followed by Fedor, Grigorii and Vasilii, then Dmitrii.

Frequently used masculine names (including diminutives):

The rest of the story is that so many of these frequent names are found as diminutives; roughly half the Ivans are Ivashko or Vania, Grigorii is Gridka or Gridia, Fedor is Fedko, Semen, Senka, Dmitrii, Mitia, and nearly all of Daniil is Danilo. Many diminutives use a -ka, -ko or -lo suffix, but not all. Peasants and non-nobles are more likely to use a diminutive. Some names, such as Sergei and Nikolai, appear in my sample as diminutives only.

Approximately two-thirds of my sample is referred to by at least one patronymic or locative byname, with only 22 mostly higher ranking individuals using two or more. The remaining third is referred to only by given name, with another twenty five referred to as 'son of'. I suspect, but cannot prove, that these are translated marked patronymics.

I have included my data set, which does include dates on many names as well as all complete names. I have attempted to avoid duplicating individuals, but due to the nature of the source, some may exist.

In summary, this data shows a pattern of diminutives used in legal documents of the 15^th to 16^th c in Russia, particularly by the lower classes, as well as differences in the overall naming pool. Additionally, I have provided examples of given names and bynames used in this time period.

Bibliography

Baeklund, Astrid, Personal Names in Medieval Velikij Novgorod, Almquist & Wiksell. Stockholm, 1959.

Baecklund, Astrid, The Names of Women in Medieval Novgorod, in For Roman Jakobson, Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Mouton & Co, The Hauge, 1956.

Blum, Jerome. Lord and Peasant in Medieval Russia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1961.

http://elar.usu.ru/handle/1234.56789/1951

Kleimova, Ann. Justice in Medieval Russia: Muscovite Judgment Charters of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Vol 65 part 6. Philadelphia, 1975.

Vydrina, Predslava. Russian Personal Names: Name Frequency in the Novgorod Birch-Bark Letters http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/predslava/bbl/

Wickenden of Thanet, Paul. A Dictionary of Period Russian Names, Free Trumpet Press West. Normal, 2000.