How to find out what nationality you are. Tests for nationality and race. From Empire to Federation

To figure out what nationality a particular surname belongs to, you need to pay attention to suffixes and endings.

So, the most common suffix

Ukrainian surnames

- “-enko” (Bondarenko, Petrenko, Timoshenko, Ostapenko). Another group of suffixes is “-eiko”, “-ko”, “-ochka” (Belebeyko, Bobreiko, Grishko). The third suffix is ​​“-ovsky” (Berezovsky, Mogilevsky). Often among Ukrainian surnames you can find those that come from the names of professions (Koval, Gonchar), as well as from combinations of two words (Sinegub, Belogor).

Russian surnames

The following suffixes are common: “-an”, “-yn”, -“in”, “-skikh”, “-ov”, “-ev”, “-skoy”, “-tskoy”, “-ikh”, “ -s.” It is easy to guess that the following can be considered examples of such surnames: Smirnov, Nikolaev, Donskoy, Sedykh.

Polish surnames

most often they have the suffixes “-sk” and “-tsk”, as well as the endings “-iy”, “-aya” (Sushitsky, Kovalskaya, Vishnevsky). You can often find Poles with surnames with an unchangeable form (Sienkiewicz, Wozniak, Mickiewicz).

English surnames

often come from the name of the area where a person lives (Scott, Wales), from the names of professions (Smith - blacksmith), from characteristics (Armstrong - strong, Sweet - sweet).

In front of many

French surnames

there is an insertion “Le”, “Mon” or “De” (Le Germain, Le Pen).

German surnames

most often formed from names (Peters, Jacobi, Wernet), from characteristics (Klein - small), from the type of activity (Schmidt - blacksmith, Müller - miller).

Tatar

surnames come from Tatar words and such suffixes: “-ov”, “-ev”, “-in” (Yuldashin, Safin).

Italian surnames are formed using the following suffixes: “-ini”, “-ino”, “-ello”, “-illo”, “-etti”, “-etto”, “-ito” (Moretti, Benedetto).

Majority

Spanish and Portuguese surnames

come from characteristics (Alegre - joyful, Bravo - brave). Among the endings, the most common are: “-ez”, “-es”, “-az” (Gomez, Lopez).

Norwegian surnames

are formed using the suffix “en” (Larsen, Hansen). Surnames without a suffix at all are also popular (Per, Morgen). Surnames are often formed from the given name natural phenomena or animals (Blizzard - blizzard, Svane - swan).

Swedish surnames

most often end in “-sson”, “-berg”, “-stead”, “-strom” (Forsberg, Bosstrom).

Estonians

by the last name you cannot understand whether it is male or feminine in humans (Simson, Nahk).

For Jewish surnames

There are two common roots - Levi and Cohen. Most surnames are formed from male names (Solomon, Samuel). There are also surnames that are formed using suffixes (Abramson, Jacobson).

Belarusian surnames

end in “-ich”, “-chik”, “-ka”, “-ko”, “-onak”, “-yonak”, “-uk”, “-ik”, “-ski” (Radkevich, Kuharchik ).

Turkish surnames

have the ending “-oglu”, “-ji”, “-zade” (Mustafaoglu, Ekinci).

Almost all

Bulgarian surnames

formed from names using the suffixes “-ov”, “-ev” (Konstantinov, Georgiev).

Latvian surnames

end with “-s”, “-is”, and female ones end with “-e”, “-a” (Shurins - Shurin).

And men's

Lithuanian surnames

end in “-onis”, “-unas”, “-utis”, “-aytis”, “-ena” (Norvidaitis). Women's endings in “-en”, “-yuven”, “-uven” (Grinyuvene). The surnames of unmarried girls contain a part of the father’s surname and the suffixes “-ut”, “-polut”, “-ayt”, as well as the ending “-e” (Orbakas - Orbakaite).

Majority

Armenian surnames

end with the suffix “-yan”, “-yants”, “-uni” (Hakopyan, Galustyan).

Georgian surnames

end in “-shvili”, “-dze”, “-uri”, “-ava”, “-a”, “-ua”, “-ia”, “-ni” (Mikadze, Gvishiane).

Greek surnames

The endings “-idis”, “-kos”, -“poulos” are inherent (Angelopoulos, Nikolaidis).

Chinese and Korean surnames

consist of one, sometimes two syllables (Tang Liu, Qiao, Mao).

Japanese surnames

are formed using one or two words (Kitamura - north and village).

Feature of women's

Czech surnames

is the obligatory ending “-ova” (Valdrova, Andersonova). (via)

It's amazing how many differences there are between last names. different nationalities and peoples!

IN modern world The question is quite acute: “Nationality is a political, social or biological concept"Before talking about nationality, you should become familiar with the related terms.

People. Ethnos. Nation

The people - a “new race”, a “born race” of people united by one common territory - is a fundamental concept in our topic. From the definition it is clear that this is an exclusively biological term - people who are closely related.

An ethnos is a people, that is, over time, a group of people formed from close peoples who have the same language (belong to the same common origin, roots, but not geographically connected.

A nation is a people with its own general history development, culture, customs. If one people creates its own, it will be called a nation. So it's already more aggressive, political concept. A nation may include several closely related national groups.

Nationality is...

Nationality refers to a nation based on biological characteristics. It has no connection with a country or specific territory. For example, Germans, Kazakhs or Englishmen who live permanently in Russia - their nationality remains the same with a change of place of residence or state. Without nationality (a characteristic of kinship between people), there will be no development of the people, they will not become a nation.

Now almost all states are multinational, although there are still separate national republics.

It is important not to confuse citizenship and nationality. The first concept is social, meaning which society the individual belongs to. The second, as can be seen from the definition, is biological and shows who a person is by birth and origin.

Although in some countries the word “nationality” is still a definition of an individual’s nationality.

People's nationality

The people are the smallest unit in today's discussion; you can literally take this word as a clan, a family. In the course of their development, families (tribes) grew, separated, and united with neighbors. But since they had common roots, and life passed in interaction with each other, in territorial proximity, common, similar features gradually formed, so strong genetically that they were passed on to descendants regardless of time and distance - the nationality of peoples or folk nationality.

So, if you look at the Germans, for example: non-Saxon Germans, Franconians, Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians - that’s how many subethnic groups (peoples) belong to one nationality of people.

Russians have about thirty throughout Russia and beyond. And there are only two dialects - Northern Russian (okaya) and South Russian (akay).

How to determine nationality

It would seem that nothing could be simpler. He lives in Germany, his father is German, his mother is German, he is also German! But the path of humanity on Earth is already quite long. Everything is mixed up - peoples, ethnic groups, nations... It is very difficult to determine whether a person belongs to a specific nationality. Especially when dad’s family is Poles and Jews, and mom’s is Spaniards and Finns, and everyone lives in Australia.

There are still several ways:

1. The child takes on his nationality from his father. Father from his father, and thus a fairly clear family (national) line is built. This happens almost all over the world, except for a few nations. Among Jews, for example, the child takes on the mother’s nationality.
2. Some folk groups there are very bright, similar external signs. Body structure or character traits. Based on these characteristics, a person is classified as one or another nationality.
3. People who do not have the opportunity to find out the nationality of their ancestors (orphans, for example), take on or accept in the process of upbringing, growing up, traits of that national group, with which they interact the most ( adoptive parents or orphanage workers).
4. The most basic method has two interrelated determination processes - subjective and objective. The first is what nationality a person considers himself to be: what traditions he observes, what features of appearance and character he has, what language he is a native speaker of. The second is how his relatives perceive him. That is, do people of the selected national group identify this person with themselves. Thus, nationality is personal consciousness and surrounding agreement that a person belongs (is related) to some group of people (peoples, ethnic groups).

Last name is the family name that a person receives by inheritance. Many people for a long time live and don’t even think about what their last name means. Thanks to the surname, you can not only determine who your great-grandfathers were, but also determine the nationality of its owner. In this article we will try to figure out what nationality this or that surname belongs to.

You can find out the origin of your surname in several ways, which are described in the article, among them you can identify the determination of origin by the endings of surnames.

Last name endings

Using certain endings, you can find out what nationality a surname belongs to:

• The British. It is very difficult to identify specific endings that indicate the English. Mostly surnames are derived from English words, indicating the place of residence: Wales, Scott, or the person’s profession: Smith - blacksmith, Cook - cook.
• Armenians. Most of Armenian surnames ends in - yang: Aleksanyan, Burinyan, Galustyan.
• Belarusians. Belarusian surnames end in -ich, -chik, -ka, -ko: Tyshkevich, Fedorovich, Glushko, Vasilka, Gornachenok.
• Georgians. It is very easy to identify a person of Georgian nationality; their surnames end in - shvili, - dze, - a, - ua, - ni, - li, - si: Gergedava, Geriteli, Dzhugashvili.
• Jews. If the surname contains the root Levi or Cohen, then its owner belongs to Jewish nationality: Levitan, Koganovich. But you can also find surnames with endings - ich, - man, -er: Kogenman, Kaganer.
• The Spaniards and Portuguese have surnames with the endings - ez, - iz, - az, - iz, oz: Gonzalez, Gomez, Torres. There are also surnames that indicate a person’s character: Alegre - joyful, Malo - bad.
• Italians. If we talk about Italians, their surnames end in - ini, - ino, - illo, - etti, - etto, - ito: Puccini, Brocchi, Marchetti. The prefix di and da can indicate that the genus belongs to a certain territory: da Vinci.
• Germans. German surnames Mostly they end in - man, - er and they indicate the type of human activity (Becker - baker, Lehmann - landowner, Koch - cook) or contain some characteristic (Klein - small).
• Poles. Surnames ending in - sk; - tsk; -y indicate that a person (or his ancestors) belongs to the Polish nationality: Godlewski, Ksieszynski, Kalnitski, and their roots go back to the time of the creation of the Polish nobility (gentry).
• Russians. Surnames ending in -ov, -ev, -in, -skoy, -tskoy: Ignatov, Mikhailov, Eremin. Russian surnames in structure are patronymics, which are formed from the names: Ivan - Ivanov, Grigory - Grigoriev; but among the examples you can find surnames derived from the name of the family’s locality: White Lake- Belozersky.
• Ukrainians. To the endings that indicate that a person belongs to Ukrainian nationality, include: - ko, - uk/yuk, - un, -niy/ny, - tea, - ar, - a: Tereshchenko, Karpyuk, Tokar, Gonchar, Mirny. Surnames mainly indicate the family's affiliation with a particular craft.

Onomastics

It is worth noting that the science that studies proper names and their origin is called onomastics. Its section - anthroponymy - studies the origin of human names and their forms, one of which is the surname. It touches on the history of their origin and transformation as a result of long-term use in the source language.

How to determine nationality by last name? Find out nationality?

I would answer this quite difficult question about nationality by last name.

In some cases, of course, you can to some extent try to determine nationality by last name, if you know the ending of this last name.

For example, the ending of a surname is: shvili or dze - among Georgians, with: yan - among Armenians, with: ko - among Ukrainians, with: ku - among Moldovans, with: ii - among Poles. However, this is all quite relative, of course. You can also find out nationality by some surnames, for example: Tsoi is Korean.

In general, determining nationality by last name can be very difficult, since many last names are similar. There are many similar surnames, for example, Jews and Germans, Jews and Poles, etc.

Nationality cannot always be determined by last name. In the modern world, everything is too mixed up. A person may have Belarusian surname, but only 5% of Belarusian blood. Such a person was born and raised in Kazakhstan, his native language- Kazakh. His appearance is clearly not Slavic, he doesn’t know a word of Belarusian, he’s never been to Belarus itself and has no idea where this country is... Will such a person be considered one of their own in Belarus?))

What if a person with a Caucasian appearance comes up to you and begins to prove with foam at the mouth that he is Russian? With a strong Caucasian accent? Will you believe him?)) But his passport has a Russian surname, and his birth certificate says Russian.

And here’s another question: Is Dmitry Pozharsky a Western Ukrainian or a Pole by nationality?))

Did you know that Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov is a Scot?)) What is there really to think about? His family is of Scottish origin

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin is not Russian, but Tatar!))

Can assume the nationality or ethnic origin of a person by last name, but cannot be determined in any way. A surname can be inherited from a very distant ancestor, from adoptive parents, it can be modified during the preparation of documents. There are similar surnames that are found among people of completely different nationalities. For example, surnames ending in SKY, SKAYA are found among Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews.

It is possible to determine nationality by surname with a high probability, but it should be borne in mind that that other person could change his surname. Or he could have been replaced by the person’s parents or grandparents. And as for general outline then pay attention to the ending, each country and its citizens have special endings on their surnames, so if in Russia the endings -ov- and -ev- are most often used, then in other countries they are their own.

Yes it is possible. Ukrainian surnames have the following endings: -ko, yuk, nik. Examples: Nikitenko, Klimenko, Artmenko, Korotchenko, Linnik, Vinnik, Gnatyuk. There are others Ukrainian surnames. Russian surnames end in -ov, -ev, -iy, -in. Examples: Volkov, Gromov, Popov, Somov, Nikolaev, Grigoriev, Ushansky, Bakin. There are other Russian surnames. The surname Partskhaladze or Pavliashvili indicates that such a person is Georgian. Other Asian surnames are difficult for a Russian person to pronounce. You need to pay attention to famous people from a certain country in order to determine what nationality a person bears. But you can reliably determine nationality from your passport. Although you can ask your interlocutor about this.

This question can be interpreted in two ways:

1. "How to choose which nationality to write down in your official document?"

Article 26 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states: “Everyone has the right to determine and indicate his nationality. No one can be forced to determine and indicate his nationality.”

In case you yourself want to indicate your nationality or an official believes that Article 26 does not apply to his department, there is an “Alphabetical List possible options responses of the population for coding the answer to question 7 of the census form L of the All-Russian Population Census of 2010", approved by Rosstat order No. 74 of January 27, 2010. It contains 1840 nationalities, including "man of the earth", "man of the world", “Americans”, “Orthodox Estonians”, “hooligans”, “cosmopolitans”, “Bukhara Jews”, “Great Russians”, “crossbreeds”, “Brest residents”, “inhabitants of the universe”, “Bulbash” and “Khokhols”. Citizens of the Russian Federation are not are obliged to choose the nationality of one of their parents and not change it until the grave. We can only hope that the local authorities in your locality aware of these "innovations".

2. "How to determine your nationality for yourself?"

Perhaps you are not ready to identify yourself with one word, mom or dad. If so, then it's okay. Self-identification is a deeply personal matter, and the concept of nationality in its Russian version was invented by the Russian state bureaucracy more than a hundred years ago for its own benefit. Therefore, it is better to free your consciousness and not confuse these things - after all, this is exactly what Leviathan wants from you.

Any state is a machine of subordination and coercion. The concept of nationality is one of the tools this machine uses to control the population of Russia. There have been few cases in the history of the USSR and Russia when people or ethnic groups received prizes for “good” nationality. In 99% of cases, nationality does not affect a person’s life. But in the 1% of cases when it plays a role, this role is almost always negative:
a person is deported because he is Latvian or Korean;
he is made a vassal of Kadyrov because he is a Chechen;
he is not given security clearance because he is Jewish;
he is arrested on charges of extremism because he is Russian and has spoken about it publicly too many times;
they call him names at school because he is Tajik;
he is suspected of treason because he is Ukrainian.

Even if you have a real sense of community with people of a certain ethnic group, remember that the state will never allow this group to really defend their interests. After all, this is a zero-sum game: if an ethnic group has more rights and opportunities, then the official has lost them. The maximum that they will give you is an official from your ethnic group, so that he robs you with an understanding of local specifics and in national costume.

Therefore, my advice is: define yourself as who you feel you are. If who you feel like is not on the list of 1840 nationalities and this sense of self does not fit into 2-3 words, it doesn’t matter. I, for example, define myself as a “Russian American, non-religious half-breed Jew from Latvia,” and am not worried that there are not enough people with such self-identification to lead round dances or fill a cattle car.