A (very brief) guide to some Livonian naming patterns.

A (very brief) guide to some Livonian naming patterns.

Compiled by ffrw ffride wlffsdotter, last updated 3 January 2022.

  1. Introduction.
  2. Masculine Patronymics.
    • Marked Patronymics using -poy(e) and -dels.
    • Unmarked Patronymics.
  3. Descriptive and Occupational Bynames.
  4. Feminine Relationship Bynames Ending in -sche.
  5. Bynames meaning "Livonian."
  6. Patterns in Livonian names.
  7. Acknowledgements.
  8. References.

1. Introduction.

In the 13th century, the Northern Crusades reached the present-day territories of Estonia and Latvia. From this point on, the names and languages of the inhabitants of this region, called Livonia, were recorded with increasing frequency (Sutorp 2015:15). Living primarily on the Gulf of Riga, and along the rivers of the region, was the indigenous people that gave the area its name; the Finnic-language speaking Livonians, or Livs. By the 13th century the Livonian language had developed into two dialects; Salaca Livonian, centred on the Salaca river near the present-day Latvian-Estonian border, and Courland Livonian on the south-eastern shores of the Gulf (Grünthal 2015:97) (Figure 1).

A map showing the area where Livonian was spoken in Latvia.
Figure 1: Historic distribution of the Livonian language (dark brown), and the region where where the last first-language speakers of Livonian lived (black), overlaid onto a map of the Republic of Latvia. Image by Jukka, Wikimedia Commons.

From the 14th century onwards, the Livonian peoples started to assimilate into the surrounding groups that spoke Baltic languages. Ultimately this mixing gave rise to the people today known as the Latvians (Līvõ Kultūr sidām, 2021). The Livonian language continued to be spoken in these regions, although the Latvian language was also increasingly used by the Livs (Līvõ Kultūr sidām, 2021). By the early 20th century the Livonian language was only spoken in villages along the Livonian coast of northern Courland, although a larger number of people identified, and identify, as Livonian (Līvõ Kultūr sidām, 2021). Today, the Livonian language and culture is safeguarded and cultivated by multiple organisations and people (Druviete and Kļava 2018).

With this long period of interaction, between Livonians, Latvians, and the Low German-speaking record writers, someone who identified as being a Livonian person may not have borne an unambiguously Livonian-language name. Strenga (2021:67) for instance, mentions a Claus Lachermunt (Standard German: Lachermund "laugher-mouth") who was a member of the beer-carter's guild of Riga in the 15th century. He had an entirely German-language name, but was described as non-German (undudesche), so was most likely to have been a Latvian or Liv. According to Strenga (2021:64) this is because "the scribes usually Low Germanized the names and bynames of the members, and most of the members recorded do not have any Latvian or Liv sounding bynames," despite his guild having a significant membership of indigenous peoples.

The names discussed below are therefore only identifiable by researchers to be Livonian, when the bearer's name used Finnic name elements, or if an individual was identified as a Liv in the document (Tarvel 1995:59; Strenga 2021:64). It is hoped that this page will be useful for heralds in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and submitters, who may come across names using these patterns, and are looking for more context. The information below is quite limited, as researchers such as Saarikivi (2017:29) have noted that Livonian names in Latvia are presently "poorly investigated and understood."

Finally, this page is intended to summarise the most frequently encountered naming patterns in the literature discussing pre-1600 Livonian names. It provides examples of these patterns, and the sources used, but it is not a comprehensive overview.
The majority of the patterns discussed below were accepted for inclusion in SENA Appendix A on the October 2021 Letter of Acceptances and Returns, however the individual elements will still need to be documented.

Note: Where normalised forms are given, the modern Livonian literary language is used. It is taken from the Līvõkīel-ēstikīel-lețkīel sõnārōntõz (2012-2013), and is derived from Kurzeme Livonian, rather than Salaca Livonian (Blumberga 2016: 225).

2. Masculine Patronymics.

Marked Patronymics using -poy(e) and -dels.

Patronymic bynames describe a person as their father's son, or father's daughter. To date, only a handful of examples have been found. Tarvel (1995), Kallasmaa (1996), Balodis (2009), Joalaid (2009), and other researchers, have identified masculine patronymics that were borne by Livonian men. Either, the father bore a Finnic name with a Latvian patronymic marker -dels (standard Latvian dēls). Or their names were recorded with the Livonian patronymic suffix -poy(e) (standard Livonian: pūoga) (Tarvel 1995:59).

Examples of patronymic bynames, where the father had a Finnic name, include:

More frequently mentioned in the literature, are personal names of Finnic and non-Finnic origin combined with the Livonian patronymic suffix -poy(e). :

Unmarked Patronymics.

Alongside the marked patronymic bynames that literally state that someone was a person's son, there are also bynames that do not use -poy(e) or -dels. Instead, these are considered to be unmarked patronymics.

Unmarked patronymics borne by male peasants in southern Estonia appear to be similar to the patronymics also recorded for Livonian men. Saar has summarised how these names have been interpreted by Estonian researchers:
"In the 16th century, when Low German had replaced Latin as the written language in use in Livonia, peasants’ names were written with a byname preceding the forename... for example Hento Jurgi ‘Hento’s Jurgi’....I consider the forename to be Jurgi... that is, the person’s baptismal name. However, it is not always clear which name is the baptismal name" (Saar 2017:242-3).

It has been assumed that these Livonian names can be interpreted in a similar way. Examples of Livonian unmarked patronymics include:

3. Descriptive and Occupational Bynames.

Individuals could also be recorded with bynames that described them in some way. This could include mental or physical characteristics, or an occupation that they held. Descriptive bynames, identified as being Livonian by Tarvel (1995: 59, 60), include the following masculine examples:

And the following feminine examples of descriptive bynames are found in Kiparsky (1938) and Blese (1929):

Tarvel, and Blese also have some examples of occupational bynames paired with masculine personal names:

4. Feminine Relationship Bynames Ending in -sche.

Feminine names with Livonian name elements appear to be constructed similarly to feminine names incorporating Estonian and Latvian elements from this time period, in that they use the Low German suffix -sche.

Kaplinski (1975) has interpreted this type of byname as indicating that the woman is married. Werth (2015:54,57) takes a broader interpretation, and says that that the Low German feminine suffix -sche was added to a family name to indicate a woman's affiliation with her husband or father. These names appear to follow the German-language name order, with the given name in front, and a byname following.

It appears that this suffix could be appended to any unchanged masculine byname to create a feminine byname, including locative, descriptive, and occupational bynames. The examples below are derived from descriptive bynames:

5. Bynames meaning "Livonian."

According to Strenga (2021:64), "only in handful of cases does a byname indicates the possible ethnic origin of a person; usually such bynames were given to ethnic minorities, like Livs – Libete, Libes, and Libeth...." Without ethnonymic bynames, the examples below would have been indistinguishable from the wider population of southern Livonia.

The following examples are taken from Blese, showing instances where an individual had the Latvian byname lībietis meaning "Liv, Livonian man."

Unmarked bynames for women, which could be interpreted as Latvian lībiete "Liv, Livonian woman" were also found:

Feminine examples could also end in -sche:

6. Patterns in Livonian names.

Very broadly, the patterns that have have been documented are:

These names are similar to the names seen in northern Livonia, in the present-day territory of Estonia. In general, where marked patroynymics are used, the byname is the second element of the name. Unmarked patronymics, occupational bynames, and descriptive bynames were recorded as the first or second element of the name. Given the lack of research into Livonian names before 1600, it is difficult to provide a detailed summary.

7. Acknowledgements

Thanks must go to The National Library of Latvia for hosting so many searchable texts on the Latvijas Nacionālā digitālā bibliotēka platform. I also am grateful for the time that Hróðný Rognvaldsdóttir, and Ursula Georges took in reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this guide. All errors in interpretation of the above data are entirely my own.

8. References

All website addresses were checked 13th December 2021.