A guide to some Lithuanian naming patterns.

A guide to some Lithuanian naming patterns.

Compiled by ffrw ffride wlffsdotter, January 2022.

  1. Introduction.
  2. Double given names.
  3. Masculine Patronymics.
  4. Feminine Patronymics.
  5. Marital Bynames used by Women.
  6. Descriptive bynames used by men.
  7. Occupational Bynames used by Men.
  8. Locative, and affiliative bynames..
  9. References.
  10. Endnotes.

1. Introduction.

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was a multilingual and multicultural society that at its greatest extent encompassed the present-day territories of Lithuania, Belarus, and western Ukraine. The GDL also jointly administered vassal states with the Kingdom of Poland. From the 16th century these vassal states included the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, and the Duchy of Livonia (incorporating parts of the present-day Republics of Latvia and Estonia) (Blūzma 2020).

Frequently described as the "last pagan state" in Europe, the GDL (but not necessarily all of its inhabitants) converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1387, during the reign of Grand Duke Jogaila (Baronas 2014:51). This is also the period when Lithuanian speakers (living in the approximate area of the present-day Republic of Lithuania) in the west of the Grand Duchy, started to create written records alongside their well-established oral history traditions (Baronas and Rowell 2015:66; Dziarnovič 2012-3). These written records generally did not use the Lithuanian language, but instead utilised Latin, Polish, and Ruthenian. Their choice of language depended on the reason for creating the record, its intended audience, and its context (Baronas and Rowell 2015:66-7). Despite the dearth of Lithuanian-language writings that mention people by name, onomatists and linguists have identified people with Lithuanian-language names in pre-1650 sources written in Polish, Ruthenian and Latin (eg. Maciejauskienė 1981; Čirūnaitė 2010; Ragauskaitė 2021).

Most of the patterns discussed below were accepted for inclusion in SENA Appendix A on the March 2021 Letter of Acceptances and Returns of the Society for Creative Anachronism's College of Arms, as relatively common naming patterns seen before 1650. They therefore do not require additional documentation to use in your name submission. The individual name elements in the submission will still need to be documented.

1.1 About the names of Lithuanians, limitations of the data, and limitations of this article.

It seems that Lithuanians were originally mononymous, and Girvilas (1978) says that in some places, people continued to be known by a single given name as late as the 18th century. But for much of the region, this trend had started to change from the 14th century onwards.

With the Christianisation of Lithuania under Jogaila, these mononymic names were followed by polynymic names comprised of two given names. At first, the newly converted nobility and rulers of Lithuania were recorded with names that often combined a Christian baptismal name and an indigenous Lithuanian name. Although these names came from the elite stratum of Lithuanian-speaking society, Petrauskas (2019:92) notes that there is no evidence for these bynames being considered to be dynastic or regnal names, nor for there to be any prohibitions against Lithuanians sharing the names of royalty: "There are no data that lead us to think that the sharing of a name by certain persons, which we encounter on occasion, reflected any close personal kinship: for example Manvydas, a son of Grand Duke Gediminas, had no connection with the nobleman Albertus Moniwid (Albertas Manvydas), who was active at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, nor was an early fifteenth-century Giedroyć duke named Jogaila related to the man who ruled Poland and Lithuania at that time. As later material shows, representatives of different social classes might have the same name."

In the decades after Christianisation, when people were born into the new faith, Zinkevičius (1977) states that Lithuanian people were increasingly recorded with some sort of byname following their given name, rather than an indigenous given name. The most common byname was a patronymic (a byname that indicates who your father is, like English "Johnson," or Russian "Stepanova") that could use a variety of suffixes. There are also examples of locative bynames, occupational bynames, descriptive bynames, and women with marital bynames (a byname that uses the name of their husband).

The patterns discussed below are also heavily skewed by the relative accessibility of research focusing on records from the 16th and 17th centuries that has been published online. Hence much of the evidence for Lithuanian naming patterns that are discussed here comes from a relatively late time period of interest in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The records that are often referred to below are also predominantly focused on the the activities of men, and hence examples include more masculine personal names (and patterns) than feminine. This over-representation of men is seen from the earliest records naming Lithuanian nobility, to the end of our time period of interest. For instance, unlike male nobles in the 14th century, we do not know for certain what Lithuanian noblewomen's "pagan" names were; generally they are solely referred to by their new Christian names in contemporary records, and their alleged original names only are mentioned decades or centuries afterwards (Petrauskas 2019:94). Furthermore, women in the 16th and early 17th centuries were only rarely named directly in records, and were instead defined solely in terms of their relationship to a man, to the extent that they were frequently not recorded with a given name at all (Čirūnaitė 2009c; Endzelytė 2021).

However if you have a masculine byname in Polish or Ruthenian, you can use it to form a feminine byname, as well as construct other masculine bynames. This is because Lithuanian masculine and feminine bynames are distinguished by their suffixes.

For example, if you have the masculine name Ian or Янъ [Ian"] (modern Lithuanian: Jonas), then you could form the following patronymic bynames:

This summary does not aim to give a comprehensive discussion of the different ways that Lithuanian-speaking people were named before 1650, but gives a brief overview of naming patterns mentioned in the literature. This summary is also focused upon the names that have been identified by academics, either through the language of the personal names used, suffixes, or both, that were used by Lithuanian speakers rather than the larger pool of names, used by the many different people, within the Lithuanian-speaking regions of the GDL.

If you are looking for names such as those borne by Ruthenians, Tatars, Jewish people, Poles, or Latvians, the freely available articles written by Jūratė Čirūnaitė are an excellent place to start your research (eg. Čirūnaitė 2001, 2009a,b, 2011, 2012).

To-date I have not found any examples of bynames that are gender neutral, nor examples using something like the "neutral" feminine suffix -ė (that doesn't reveal a woman's marital status) that was introduced into Lithuanian law in 2003 (van Langendonck 2011; 187).

1.2 Romanisation of Ruthenian and special characters in Polish.

Pre-1650 Lithuanian names can appear quite different from their present-day forms used in the Republic of Lithuania, and in overseas Lithuanian-speaking communities. This is because they were written down phonetically, as there was no standardised Lithuanian alphabet. For instance the 16th century author known today as Martynas Mažvydas, wrote his name in a Latin acrostic as Martjnvs Masvjdjvs (Sakalauskas 1998). In contemporary Latin records he was also referred to as Martinus Moswid, Moswidius, and in Old Lithuanian with his patronymic, M. Moſſuids Waytkunas (Senn 1945:129-30; Mažvydas 1549).

Since we are all modern-day people reading this webpage, who do not necessarily know Old Lithuanian, I have tried to provide the modern Lithuanian forms as a gloss. These modern forms are not necessarily registerable as a name by the College of Heralds in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Along with names where I have provided the nominative form of manuscript spellings, these names are marked with an asterisk to show that they have been modified from the spelling found in the referred source.
All Ruthenian-language names have been Romanised using the Library of Congress (2012) system for Belarusian. These Romanised forms are in square brackets.

Names recorded using Polish orthography often have letters that are not used in the present-day language. This includes «ʒ», «ƶ», «ſ» and «ÿ». Although focused on printed texts, Bunčić (2012: 222) notes that Polish printers were trying to record "44 phonemes of Polish, [while] 16th-century spellers did not even have the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet we take for granted today: both «j» and «y» were just variants of «i»... «s» and «z» often represented the same sound.... Therefore, the Latin alphabet as such provided only for about a third of the Polish phonemes."

Given the ambiguities in spelling in the 16th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it is currently unclear if, or how, these letters in Polish examples may be substituted when name elements are registered by the SCA College of Arms.

2. Double given names.

Lithuanian nobility in the second half of the 14th century indicated that they had converted to Christianity (either to Roman Catholicism, or to Orthodox Catholicism) by taking a baptismal name (Schmalstieg 1982). Their "new" name became the first element in this style of name, with their "old" name in the second position. Selart (2016:6) notes that "for the Lithuanian nobility... receiving a new name at baptism can be considered a rule." They then go on to explain that "the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila (c. 1350/1360–1434) bore the name of Władysław as a Polish King after his baptism; Duke Švitrigaila (1360s–1452) was baptized to Bolesław. Kęstutis’ son Tautvilas (d. 1390) was baptized in 1383 to Konrad, which refers to Konrad Zöllner von Rotenstein, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (1382–1390). Kęstutis’ daughter Danutė note 1 (1358–1448) was christened to Anna." Lithuanian noblity who had converted to Orthodox Catholic (Eastern Orthodox) Christianity could also be baptised with the names of Slavic saints, such as the sons of Grand Duke Gediminas; "Narimantas (d. 1348) became Gleb.... Karijotas (d. c. 1360) recieved the new name Mikhail; Liubartas (d. 1383/1385) became Dmitri, and Jaunutis note 2 (d. after 1366) came to be called Ioann" (Selart 2016:7).

Baronas and Rowell (2015:296) note that this new trend in naming practices was a reflection of contemporary societal norms, as well as the message(s) the bearer wished to convey. While King Jogaila took the name Władysław at his baptism in 1386, and only his newer Christian name was used "in all charters issued by the Polish chancery," other nobles used double names. This has been interpreted as reflecting "more faithfully the process of acculturation," to a new religion "within which experimentation with the new and its pragmatic use was on the order of the day" (ibid.).

Medieval Latin-language charters from Lithuania include examples of men's names using the patterns:

In Latin, Polish, and Ruthenian-language sources, there are also examples of names that appear to use two given names, but are in fact a given name and unmarked family name. This is described in greater detail below in section 3.1, as:

Finally, there are a handful of examples that appear to use two Christian names:

2.1 «Christian given name» alias «Lithuanian given name» in Latin.

Examples of the pattern «Christian given name» alias «Lithuanian given name» were used by men, and include:

2.2 «Christian given name» dictus «Lithuanian given name» in Latin.

Examples of the pattern «Christian given name» dictus «Lithuanian given name» include the following examples used by men:

2.3 «Christian given name» dictus «Lithuanian given name» de «Location» in Latin.

There are also examples of boiars (ie. nobles with landholdings) who were recorded with a dictus or alias double name and a locative byname:

and using alias:

2.4 «Christian given name» alias «Christian given name» in Latin.

Baronas and Rowell suggest that Lithuanians not only converted from their indigenous faith to Christianity, but also between Christian faiths. They give the example of "honestus Stanislaus de Wilna nuncupatus Iwan" [honourable Stanislaus of Vilnius having been called by the name Iwan] from the early 1500s (Rowell 2014:41, footnote 29). They argue that "this man was once Orthodox" as he was recorded with the second name Ivan, not Johannes, and was the namesake of the Polish-born saint Stanislaus the Martyr, who is only venerated in the Catholic church (Baronas and Rowell 2015:447-8, footnote 40).

Although focused on examples of doubled given names from 15th century Galicia, outside of the territory of Lithuania, Zazuliak argues that, in the absence of other information, it is often difficult to know if these names truly indicate conversion, or if they were conveying something else about the bearer. Where individuals with two Christian names are mentioned multiple times in the surviving Galician records, often their second name is only occasionally mentioned, or they are recorded under different names at different times (Зазуляк 2007: 288-9).

Like Stanislaus-Iwan, and the examples mentioned by Zazuliak (2007), there are examples from the GDL of people bearing two Christian names. Curiously, some of them appear to simply be diminutives of the first name, like Basilius-Waschko note 3, and Zophia-Sonyka note 4:

3. Masculine Patronymics.

A patronymic is a byname derived from the name of a father or other male ancestor. These names started to appear in records in Lithuania from the early 15th century (Petrauskas 2019:96). As Petrauskas (2019:96) explains: "patronymics also create a personal identity and complement a [given] name with a reference to an important father, while forming a memory to that forebear. Thus a name which forms part of a patronymic fulfils a double role — as a sign of continuity of power and a form of memory preservation."

Masculine patronyms, based on the father's name, could utilise the suffixes -(i)unas, -(i)unos, -(i)uns, -(i)un, -aitis, -uitis or -(i)ulis. Patronymics could also be derived from the father's occupational byname, using these same suffixes.

3.1 Unmarked Patronymics using an ancestor's Lithuanian name in Latin, Polish, and Ruthenian.

Although these names look like they are two given names, without the Latinised particles used in the examples covered in section 2, this is not necessarily the case. This style of name has been interpreted as using an unmarked, inherited byname. Petrauskas (2019:100) gives the example of Albertus alias Moniwid, a Lithuanian nobleman who had converted to Christianity and subsequently obtained new heraldry in 1413. His son, called Jan, had a son also called Albertus, who was recorded in 1475 as Albertus Moniwid, apparently referring back to his grandfather. Albertus lived almost a century after the Christianisation of Lithuania, and after multiple generations of men had been bestowed Christian given names. From examples like this, Petrauskas concludes that these "names from the pre-Christian period were resurrected for a second, this time long life as the (sur)names of families who were descended from them."
Examples of the pattern «Christian given name» «Lithuanian ancestor's name» are used by men in Latin-language sources, including:

Ragauskaitė (2018a:59-60) illustrates that in early 17th century Kėdainiai that this pattern of inherited "pre-Christian" personal names, used as bynames, continued to be appear in Polish-language sources:

This is also reflected in Ruthenian-language sources. The examples below are Romanised using the Library of Congress system for Belarusian:

3.2 Patronymics suffixed with -(i)unas, -(i)unos, -(i)uns, -(i)un, or -(і)онисъ.

3.2a Personal names suffixed with -(i)unas, -(i)unos, -(i)uns, or -(i)un in Polish- and Latin-language documents, used as a patronymic.

Maciejauskienė (2008) examined the wedding records of Lankeliškiai‎ parish, in the modern-day county of Marijampolė, between 1617 and 1692. From the photograph of a page in her article, the register was written in Latin with Polonicised bynames. For example example, individuals in 1630 were recorded as Petrum Bludʒiunas, Stephanum Dauƶiunas (with their names in the Latin accusative case). In the body of the article, however, Maciejauskienė simply lists the byname and the year it was recorded. Modern surname forms are taken from the Institute of the Lithuanian Language's Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames (2012-2021). Ragauskaitė (2018b: 105) notes, that because of the interaction between written Polish and spoken Lithuanian, sound substitutions such as switching a and o are recorded. This can be seen in the examples of 17th century Maciunos and Petraſзiunos below, when compared to their modern equivalents, Mačiūnas and Petrašiūnas:

This pattern is not unique to Marijampolė county, with further Polish-language examples found in Kėdainiai, in Kaunas County:

Ragauskaitė (2021:15-16) examined a Latin-language baptismal register from Joniškis parish, Šiauliai county, in northern Lithuania. The article gave some examples of masculine bynames where the final vowel was not recorded, leaving patronymics that end in -(i)uns:

Ragauskaitė (2018b:108) also lists examples of Polish-language patronymics from Kėdainiai, that were not recorded with their final syllable at all, but simply ended with -(i)un:

3.2b Personal names suffixed with -(і)онисъ in Ruthenian-language documents.

In Ruthenian-language sources, the Cyrillic spelling of this suffix appears to be -(і)онисъ [-(i)onīs"].

3.2c Occupational bynames suffixed with -(i)unas, or -(i)unos in Polish.

Maciejauskienė (2008) also included the following examples of patronymics derived from occupational bynames:

3.2d Descriptive bynames suffixed with -(i)unas, -(i)uns, or -(i)un in Polish.

Descriptive bynames were also combined with these patronymic suffixes. Examples include:

3.3 Patronymics suffixed with -aitis, -aitys, -uitis, -айтисъ and -ойтисъ.

Maciejauskienė (2004) treats -aitis and -uitis as different patronymic suffixes. She argues that -aitis was a much more common patronymic suffix, and that in Samogitia (Žemaitija, in the Lithuanian lowlands) in particular -uitis was used for the patronymics of young, unmarried boys. The suffix -uitis also appears in records from Joniškis parish (in Aukštaitija, the Lithuanian highlands), and the city of Kaunas (in Suvalkija). But Ragauskaitė (2005, 2021) considers them to be a patronymic suffix, and does not comment on the possibility that they are a byname suffix that indicates a man's marital status.

3.3a Personal names suffixed with -aitis or -uitis in Polish-language documents.

Ragauskaitė provides examples of very late 16th, and early 17th century patronymics, using the father's personal name and the suffix -uitis, from Joniškis parish (Ragauskaitė 2021:17) and Kaunas (Ragauskaitė 2005: 66). Note that Ragauskaitė does not include the full names of the men from Joniškis parish, only their patronymics:

In Ragauskaitė's (2021) examination of names from Joniškis parish, masculine bynames derived from personal names ending in -aitis are also discussed. These records were in Latinised Polish:

Because spelling was not standardised, there are also examples from Polish-language sources with the patronymic suffix spelled -aitys, -aytis and -aytys:

3.3b Personal names suffixed with -айтисъ or -ойтисъ in Ruthenian-language documents.

This style of patronymic is also recorded in Ruthenian-language patronymics, using -айтисъ [-aĭtis"]:

This type of patronymic also used -ойтисъ [-oĭtis"]:

3.3c Descriptive bynames suffixed with -aitis, or -uitis in Polish-language documents.

There were also examples of patronymics derived from occupational or descriptive bynames:

and with -uitis:

3.4 Patronymics suffixed with -(i)ulis, or -елис(ъ).

The suffix -(i)ulis, unlike the other patronymic markers discussed, is interpreted by academics as being a suffix that functions as a diminutive (Klimas 1969; Maciejauskienė 2010:3; Ragauskaitė 2021:19). It does appear that this diminutive was also used for given names (eg. Baniulis Andrieiuns in 1599, Matulis Łaucuns, and Matulis Wiluns in 1600 (Ragauskaitė 2021:4,5)).

Interestingly, in Ruthenian-language contexts, this diminutive is spelled -юлис [-iulīs]. Like in Polish-language sources, this diminutive was also used for given names in the 16th century, such as Казюлис чоботар [Kaziulīs chobotar] a shoemaker, Ендрюлис ужъкур [Endriulīs uzh"kur] and Станюлис Ушъкурисъ [Staniulīs Ush"kurīs"], both men were užkurys, someone who had married a widow (Maciejauskienė 1981:156,157,158).

Although this suffix could be used with a personal masculine name, in this section I have only included examples that have been identified as bynames.

3.4a Personal names suffixed with -(i)ulis in Polish.

Masculine patronymics from a diminutive of the father's personal name include the following examples using -(i)ulis in a Polish-language context:

3.4b Descriptive bynames suffixed with -елис(ъ) in Ruthenian.

In Maciejauskienė (1981), Ruthenian-language records spelled this suffix as -елис(ъ) [-elīs(")]. However, only examples of patronymics derived from a father's byname were mentioned:

3.5 Patronymics suffixed with -utis or -утис(ъ).

Like the patronymics that use the diminutive suffix -(i)ulis, Maciejauskienė (1981) gives some examples of another diminutive used as a patronymic: -utis. Note that this pattern is presently not included in SENA's Appendix A.

One Polish-language example uses -utis:

While Ruthenian-language examples use -утис(ъ):

3.6 Patronymics suffixed with -owicz, or -ович(ъ).

This style of patronymic ending in -owicz, or -ович(ъ) [-ovīch"] (modern Lithuanian: -avičius) is, by far, the most common sort recorded in records from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Unless the name uses recognisably Lithuanian elements, these names are indistinguishable from Polish or Ruthenian-language names.

3.6a Descriptive bynames suffixed with -owicz in Polish and Latin.

Polonicised spellings are also used in Latin-language contexts such as:

3.6b Descriptive bynames suffixed with -ович(ъ) in Ruthenian.

4. Feminine Patronymics.

Ragauskaitė (2005, 2014, 2015) gives examples of patronymic suffixes used by women, that literally identify her as being related to her father. They either use his given name, or his descriptive or occupational byname. Ragauskaitė says that in records from 16th century Kaunas women were recorded with suffies like -aczia, -iczia, or -uczia. These are equivalent to the present-day suffixes used in the Aukštaitian (Highland) dialect area: -aičia, -yčia, and -ūčia (Garšva 2008:27, 30). In Lithuania today, the suffixes -ytė and -aitė are most frequently used in this type of byname. Fortunately for our purposes, they do appear in early 17th century Joniškis, northern Lithuania, in Polish and Ruthenian-language records (Ragauskaitė 2015).

4.1a Personal names suffixed with -aic(z)ia in Polish.

Patronymics derived from a father's personal names, ending in -aic(z)ia and variations:

4.1b Descriptive bynames suffixed with -aic(z)ia in Polish.

Patronymics derived from a father's descriptive bynames, ending in variations of -aic(z)ia include:

4.2a Personal names suffixed with -ayte, and -aite in Polish.

Patronymic bynames derived from a father's personal name, ending in -aitė, have been recorded in an early 17th century Latin-language parish register from Joniškis. In these documents it was spelled -ayte or -aite:

4.2b Descriptive bynames suffixed with -ayte in Polish.

And in examples of patronymics that were derived from descriptive bynames:

4.2c Personal and descriptive bynames suffixed with -йтя [-ĭtia] in Ruthenian.

The Ruthenian equivalent for bynames ending in -ayte and -aite appears to have been recorded as -йтя [-ĭtia]. Due to the smaller number of these names mentioned by Ragauskaitė (2014), I have grouped bynames derived from personal names, and descriptive bynames, together below:

5. Marital Bynames used by women.

Although Maciejauskienė (2004) has suggested that masculine bynames ending in -uitis could have been used by young, unmarried boys, it is women (in the past, as well as today) who are frequently identified with bynames that indicate their marital status (Jurėnienė 2010: 5). Specifically, a type of bynme that indicates who is a given woman's husband.

In Polish-language examples found in the 16th century, these bynames took the form -(ow)ien(i)e, equivalent in present-day Lithuanian as -(uv)ienė. These bynames can be used with a husband's given name, their byname, or their full name.

5.1 Marital bynames, derived from a personal name ending with -owiene and -uw(i)ene, in Polish.

5.2 Marital bynames derived from a personal name, ending with -ien(i)e, in Polish.

5.3 Marital bynames derived from a byname, ending with -(i)en(i)e, in Polish.

5.4 Marital bynames derived from a husband's full name, ending with -(i)enie, in Polish.

There are also examples of women who are recorded in Polish, with the full name of their husbands:

6. Descriptive Bynames.

Descriptive bynames are a name element that can refer to the mental or physical characteristics of an individual. Descriptive bynames using Lithuanian-language terms are recorded in Polish and Ruthenian, but they were primarily used by men.

No examples of women bearing Lithuanian-language bynames have been found, although there are some examples of women with Ruthenian-language bynames (see Čirūnaitė 2009c). It was much more common women were recorded with modified forms of the bynames used by their husband or father. Please see sections 5.3 marital bynames derived from a byname, and 4.2c personal and descriptive bynames suffixed with -йтя for more about these bynames used by women.

The following examples of descriptive bynames in a Polish context, used by men, were identified by Ragauskaitė (2021):

The following examples of descriptive bynames from Ruthenian-language contexts, used by men, were identified by Maciejauskienė (1981):

7. Occupational Bynames used by men.

These occupational bynames describe an individual in terms of their occupation. Occupational bynames using Lithuanian-language terms are recorded in Polish and Ruthenian-language documents, but they were only used by men.

Women do not appear to have been identified with an occupational byname that described their work, instead they were recorded with bynames that indicated the occupation of a man, such as their husband or father. Please see sections 5.3 marital bynames derived from a byname, and 4.2c personal and descriptive bynames suffixed with -йтя for more about these bynames used by women.

7.1 Occupational bynames used by men, in Polish.

The following examples of occupational bynames were identified by Maciejauskienė (1981):

7.2 Occupational bynames used by men, in Ruthenian.

7.3 Locative byname used by men, with an occupational byname, in Polish.

There is another naming pattern used by men in 16th century Kaunas, described by Ragauskaitė (2006), that includes a locative byname and an occupational byname. Please note that in these examples the occupational byname is Polish, however SENA Appendix A implies that a Lithuanian-language byname could also be used. Locative bynames are discussed in greater detail below.

8. Locative, and affiliative bynames.

Bynames indicating a place, or a person that an individual is affiliated with, are also attested in Lithuanian. They use the ending -iska with feminine names, and -iskis, or -(i)etis with masculine names. In modern Lithuanian, these suffixes, presently spelled -ietis, -iškis, and -iškė, are often used with a proper noun that indicates someone's place or origin or their place of habitation (like the English nouns Salzburgian, or Melburnian). They can also be used to indicate someone's affiliation, as in the examples indicating a man or woman's relationship to a significant man in their life. The suffix -(i)etis is also used to indicate a man's origin or their place of residence (Miliūnaitė 2021).

8.1 Masculine locative bynames.

8.1a Masculine locative bynames ending in -ишкис, in Ruthenian.

Examples using Ruthenian -ишкис [-īshkīs] include:

8.1b Masculine locative bynames ending in -iskis, -isskis, -iskisz and -yskys, in Polish.

The Polish form of these locative bynames uses forms such as -iskis, -isskis, -iskisz and -yskys.
With the suffix spelled -iskis:

With the suffix -isskis:

With the suffix -iskisz:

With the suffix -yskys:

8.1c Masculine locative bynames ending in -(i)etis, in Polish, and -етис in Ruthenian.

With the suffix -(i)etis:

8.2 Feminine affiliative bynames ending in -iska, in Polish.

Ragauskaitė's examples of women bearing this type of byname were recorded in Polish. She notes, in contrast to the masculine names discussed above, that "women’s names with the suffix -iškė were seen in a few places in the documents, but they have not been fully investigated" (Ragauskaitė 2006:94). However Ragauskaitė was still able to draw some conclusions about these names. She says that these bynames are actually derived from their husband's byname (Ragauskaitė 2006: 90). However, these bynames ending in -iska are using a suffix that, like in the masculine examples above, could also be used to contruct a name that for all intents and purposes looks like a locative byname.

8.3 Masculine affiliative bynames ending in -iskis and -ишкис(ъ), in Polish and Ruthenian.

Like in the feminine examples above, the -iskis suffix was also used in bynames, indicating that the man was affiliated with, or belonged to the family of, another man. Maciejauskienė (1981) gives examples of men in Polish- and Ruthenian-language documents, whose non-locative bynames ended in -iskis and -ишкис(ъ) [-īshkīs(")].

8.3a Affiliative descriptive bynames ending in -ишкис(ъ), in Ruthenian.

8.3b Affiliative patronymic bynames ending in -iskis, in Polish and -ишкис(ъ), in Ruthenian.

Maciejauskienė (1981) also lists examples of bynames derived from a father's personal name in Polish-language sources:

8.4 Patronymic byname with a Polish or Lithuanian suffix, with a locative byname in Lithuanian.

Finally, there is some evidence for combining multiple name elements, such as the examples below where men are recorded with a patronymic and a locative byname:

9. Thanks.

Thanks must go to Markéta z Prahy, for their marathon effort in reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this guide. All errors in the transcribing and interpretation of the above information are entirely my own.

10. References.

All links checked 23 January 2021.

11. Endnotes

  1. Princess Danutė of Lithuania is only recorded with the name Anna alias Danuta circa 1455-1480, decades after her probable death (Taszycki 1965:458). Go back to the "Double Given Names" section.
  2. The name Jaunutis shouldn't be confused with Janutis, as the former is derived from the Lithuanian adjective jaunutis "very young," and the latter is a diminutive of the Christian name Jan, or Jonas (ie. English "John"). Go back to the "Double Given Names" section.
  3. According to Cieślikowa et al. (1995:20) Polish names like Waszko are a diminutive of Bazyli or Wasyl. In Lithuanian the name is Vasilijus. Go back to the "Double Given Names" section.
  4. According to Magda-Czekaj (2019:57) Sonyka is a diminutive of the feminine name Zofia. Go back to the "Double Given Names" section.
  5. Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas [Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames] says that Grigas is a diminutive of Gregorius (Lietuvių kalbos institutas 2012-2021 sv. Grigas). Go back to the "Double Given Names" section.
  6. A laumė is a supernatural being variously described as a deity, a water spirit or fairy. They are often associated with, and live within, fresh waters. For more about the laumės, see Būgienė (2015). Go back to the "Marital Bynames" section.