For the full name of citizens in Russia are three words: surname, name and patronymic. The first is transmitted through the male line and can exist among many generations of the family. You can also understand who the ancestors of the family were, what they did and where they lived.
Assignment Terms
Surnames began to be assigned to people only after the Decree of Peter I. This was done so that citizens could pay taxes. Surnames were formed on behalf of the father or nickname of the person. By the 17th century, all the upper layers of society, as well as merchants, merchants, already had surnames. They were also received by some state peasants. By the 18–19th century, all citizens already received surnames. But there were also peasants who, even by the 19th century, did not have it.
The origin of surnames is a whole science
There is a special science that studies the origin of surnames - etymology. Its experts have identified several classifications based on origin. The main classifications by which the origin of the surname is determined:
1. Names at baptism and their forms. As you know, at baptism everyone is given a name from the church calendar, and since there were few of them, many had the same name. Surnames were formed on the name given at baptism: Ivanov, Petrov, etc.
2. Derived from nicknames. Some people received surnames formed from nicknames (as they were called by others). There were parents who, in order to protect their children from evil spirits, gave them surnames with a negative meaning: Gryaznov, Neudachin and others. The education of some of them was influenced by the features of the child's appearance or the attitude of the parents to his appearance.
3. Surnames formed from the type of activity. By these names you can find out who your distant ancestors were. The origin of such surnames as Kolesnikov, Plotnikov, Goncharov, Kuznetsov and many others owes to this principle.
4. Surnames at the place of origin. It was assigned to a person at the place of his birth or residence: Khovansky, Litvinov, Kiev and others. If you have such a surname, you can definitely know where your ancestors lived. Usually, representatives of noble families received surnames by this principle.
5. Artificial. These were most often among people associated with the church. Before the revolution, everyone who came to study with the clergy was given new surnames. They came from the names of the saints, from the place of origin of the disciple of the clergy, from holidays, stones, plants and other things. The same group includes the surnames that gave illegitimate babies.
Each surname is unique. Even with namesakes, its meaning can vary.
Origin of Kolesnikov surname
Let's deal with this particular case. There are several options for the history of the origin of the surname Kolesnikov. It can be a primordially Russian surname, formed from the nickname Kolesnik, to which the suffixes were added: "-ov", "-nik", "-nikov". Usually such suffixes were added to those surnames that came from professions. Therefore, it is easy to determine that this is most likely a wheeled master, akin to the names: Myasnikov, Konyukhov, Reshetnikov, Shaposhnikov. The man was a wheeled master.
The second version of the origin of the surname Kolesnik is Ukrainian. It is believed that it was Russified later, but first appeared in Ukraine.
The word "wheel" has several meanings:
- master on the manufacture of carts and driving wheels;
- a person who wears a pince-nez or glasses (playful nickname);
- a man floating in the clouds (carrying nonsense).
Kolesnikovs in history
Among the Russian surnames there are many Kolesnikovs - this surname is one of the hundred most common. However, it is distributed not only in the territory of modern Russia, the Kolesnikovs can be found in Belarus and Ukraine. A vivid example of the prevalence is the city of Voronezh, in which only in 2003 about 2500 Kolesnikovs were registered.
Naturally, all modern Kolesnikovs are not descendants of one person. Given the large share of the probability of its receipt by people involved in the manufacture of wheels, it is easy to explain its prevalence, since many peasants were involved in this craft on the territory of the Moscow state, and later the Russian Empire. The first mention of people with such a surname can be found at the beginning of the XVII century.
First Kolesnikovs
Historians managed to find the first mention of the origin of the name Kolesnikov. They are dated 1610 year. Kondrashko Kolesnikov is the first to be officially recorded. Sagittarius from Smolensk was awarded such an honor thanks to his extraordinary courage. Then other references began to appear. Record of Ivan Kolesnikov - in 1624.
The first Kolesnikovs include the famous explorer of the Baikal region Kolesnikov Vasily Ivanovich, records of which date back to 1632.
After that, the surname Kolesnikov became more and more popular, and references to it began to appear more and more often in all corners of the Russian Empire. Therefore, scientists and historians give an unambiguous conclusion that the Kolesnikovs are namesakes and not the ancestors of one person.