We can say that all people are interested in their roots, the origin of the family and its history. In connection with the global cataclysms that followed the October Revolution, many documents were lost. And now its origins can often be found only “philologically” - by the composition of the clan name, that is, by the name of which nation belongs to.
Suffixes in last names
The most “speaking” part of the word is, without a doubt, the suffix. So, this morpheme, which sounds like “ko”, “yuko”, “yenko”, speaks of the Ukrainian roots of the surname, and “ovsk” or “yevsk” with equal probability may indicate origin from both Ukraine and Poland. With such a suffix, it will be necessary to find out which surname belongs to which nation with the help of additional signs. These include the root of the family name, which often indicates which language was used to create this particular derivative.
Number of words forming the last name
What nation a surname belongs to can be fairly accurately recognized by the number of words of which it consists. For example, the bearers of the proud surname Chernobyl are explicit Slavs, such complex patrimonial names are characteristic of Poles, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians.
The roots of “cohen”, “levy” and the suffixes “dream”, “bein”, “strain” also leave no doubt which surname belongs to which nation, they undoubtedly indicate the Jewish origin of the ancestors, in any case in the post-Soviet space (in the case of particles "sleep").
Difficulties in determining the origin of the surname
However, do not trust too much linguistic research. On the territory of Russia there was a confusion of too many peoples, from which some echoes remained in the generic names. It is impossible to determine exactly which surname belongs to which nation, except in very obvious cases - for example, with the ending in "dze". Although you can make a mistake here: you can say with confidence that you are a descendant of Georgians, but it may well turn out that you were a Japanese ancestor, who also have such a particle in their names.
Yes, and in the recording of surnames in the old days, often illiterate people or scribes with unreadable handwriting often took part. So it is quite possible that the bearer of the surname Levinsky had Lovitsky's great-grandfather, who was simply spelled incorrectly.
What nation is the family name, the most difficult to determine if the suffixes "ov" or "in" are present in it. There is a general consensus that such generic names are, by definition, Russian. Moreover, if the root of the word has no relation to the Russian language, then the family is most likely Tatar or Bashkir.
With obviously foreign surnames it is often much simpler. The surviving prefix "de" or "le" speaks of the French origin of the genus, German or English roots are also easily recognizable.
Poles were marked in the pedigrees with the suffix “chik” or “ck”, Armenians - “yang” and “nts”, although the surname that ends with “uni” is also most likely Armenian.
Search for your roots
In particularly difficult cases, those who want to establish their origin will have to painstakingly dig into foreign dictionaries to find out which language the basis (root) of their surname belongs to. At the same time, one should not forget about the diversity of nationalities on the territory of modern, and even more so, pre-revolutionary Russia. Migration of people and a mixture of nationalities and nationalities can significantly confuse the search and puzzle it with the results.