Bright personalities - the bearers of this surname are the ingenious hockey coach Viktor Vasilyevich Tikhonov and People's Artist of the USSR Vyacheslav Vasilyevich Tikhonov. The first of them led the USSR national team eight times to the title of world champion, three times to the title of Olympic champion.
Guided by a trainer, CSKA club became the champion of the USSR a dozen times. Vyacheslav Tikhonov, in turn, thanks to the role of Isaev - Shtirlitsa was perhaps the most popular actor in the Soviet Union. As a tribute to the memory of these wonderful people, we will conduct our research on where the name Tikhonov came from.
Ancient Greek etymology
It is believed that historically the name Tikhon came from the goddess Tiche. Most people are more familiar with its Roman equivalent, Fortune. The goddess Tyche was originally worshiped by farmers. They deified a favorable set of circumstances for agricultural crops.
Note that, worshiping Tycha, the ancient Greeks honored her as a deity of chance, lot, fleeting. The history of the name of Tikhonov should therefore, in our opinion, contain a reference to the essence of this ancient dialectic of luck. The cult of the goddess Tiche implied active and constant support by his adherents of all the best in life, for everything - both good and bad - is transient.
It was assumed that a person who has good, but does not care about its maintenance, becomes unworthy of such a gift and will certainly lose it. You should be vigilant so as not to miss good luck, as well as sensitivity to opposing influences.
Canonical name
It is noteworthy that the Greek name adjective “happy” (eutychon) came from the name of the aforementioned Hellenic deity. The Christian church canonized this name. Many great and worthy pastors of Orthodoxy bore the name Tikhon.
The 18th-century Orthodox saint Tikhon Zadonsky, who was elected bishop and headed the Voronezh episcopal department, is widely known. His ministry is respected. The bishop lived in a meager and modest setting, monthly passing his salary (400 rubles) to charity. Perhaps because of his sincere austerities by the will of God, Tikhon Zadonsky was marked as a gift. He could read thoughts, possessed insight. The holy foretold emperor Alexander I the war with Napoleon and the victory over him. The lamp of his life found such a response in the hearts of the flock that many families began to call their sons Tikhons. Exploring the origin of the name Tikhon, you just can not help but mention this shepherd.
However, this was the name of another spiritual person. A key figure in the recent history of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Tikhon was famous for the feat of his difficult ministry - the ideological opposition to the ideology of aggressive atheism prevailing in society. It was a difficult and thorny path. It is not surprising that subsequently the grateful flock warmly supported the idea of its canonization. It is noteworthy that the latter passed back in the years of the stagnation of the USSR.
We conclude: the origin of the surname Tikhonov, thus, can be traced as a derivative of the corresponding canonical name. However, how this happened, we consider further.
Surname mention in documents
The first Tikhonovs appeared among the nobility and the clergy. The earliest known documents about them date back to the 15th century. They, in particular, mention the Novgorod clerk Zayats Tikhonov (1556), the Posadsky from Yeniseisk Oleshka Tikhonov (1658), the Ryazan landowner Miron Tikhonov (1697).
From Tikhonov to Tikhonov
If from the 15th century in Russia the nobility was endowed with surnames, then after the abolition of serfdom, the process of their appropriation covered the rest of the population. In 1888, the Senate issued a special decree ordering citizens: "Not only the right, but also the obligation of every full person, is the name of a certain surname, and the name of the surname on some documents is required by law." At that time, the largest share among the population of Russia were peasants freed from serfdom. It is impossible to describe the origin of the surname Tikhonov, missing this massive endowment of the population by them. If earlier the status of the peasants was completely and solely determined by the landowner, then now they themselves could move to other classes and make property transactions. In addition, the peasant used the allotment - rented land belonging to the master.
A greater degree of freedom of the peasant implied a clearer documentary examination of the newly made "rural inhabitants." The mechanism for assigning surnames to peasant families was extremely simple. In particular, the origin of the surname Tikhonov at this historical stage is obvious: the spouse and children of the head of the family with the corresponding name endowed it. In this case, the ancestor is called Tikhon Tikhonov.
Modern distribution of a surname
This surname in Russia is quite common. In the ranking of the most common, she takes 106th place. In particular, in the telephone directory of Moscow, there are more than 1,500 Tikhonov subscribers.
Obviously, this is not the final number of representatives of the surname in the 11 millionth megalopolis. After all, the telephone is only one member of the family.
Conclusion
The origin of the surname Tikhonov, in addition to the Orthodox Church, has another version, Russian and purely linguistic. According to her, Tikhonov could become a person who has a calm, non-conflict character, getting along with others. That is, one who, without showing off and observing tact, behaves quietly in the team. However, the version, from the point of view of etymologists, is not the main one.
Like many others, this surname gained the greatest distribution after the abolition of serfdom. We also note that in our century it is difficult to find a certain Tikhonov in a large city, even using the current database. It is advisable to additionally know the identification code or date of birth.