Georgian surnames: rules of construction and declination, examples

Among others, recognizing Georgian surnames is easy enough. They are distinguished by characteristic structuring and, of course, famous endings. Surnames form a method of merging two parts: the root and the end (suffix). For example, a person who is well versed in this topic will be able to easily determine in which area certain Georgian surnames are distributed.

Origin

The history of the country is several thousand years old. At the time of antiquity it had no name, and Georgia divided into 2 regions: Colchis (western) and Iberia (eastern). The latter interacted more with neighbors - Iran and Syria - and practically did not contact Greece. If in the fifth century Georgia adopted Christianity, then by the thirteenth century it was spoken of as a powerful country with reliable connections with the European continent and the East.

The history of the country is permeated with the struggle for sovereignty, but, despite the difficulties, the people were able to create their own culture and customs.

It is considered that the real Georgian surnames must end in "-dze", and they come from the parent case. But a person with a surname ending in "-shvili" (in translation from Georgian - "son"), was credited to the list of those who do not have Kartvelian roots.

If the interlocutor had a family name ending in "-an", people knew that before them was a representative of a noble family. By the way, Armenians have names with a similar suffix, only it sounds like "-uni".

Georgian surnames (male), ending with "-aa" and "-aa," have Mingrelian roots. There are many such kinds of suffixes, but now they are rarely used.

List of popular names by region

Whatever one may say, in Georgia the most common are the names ending in "-chwili" and "-dze." And the last suffix is the most common. Often people with a surname ending in "-dze" can be found in Imereti, Guria and Adjara. But in the eastern region there are practically none.

At the moment, the names on the "-dz" are attributed to the old bloodlines, respectively, "-chwili" - to modern or young. The latter (the suffix is also translated as "born") is widespread in Kakheti and Kartli (eastern regions of the country).

The meaning of some names

A special group of generic names are those that have the following endings:

• -ets;
• -Ati;
• -and for them;
• -Is.

For example, Rustaveli, Tsereteli. Also in the list of the most common surnames in Georgia are Hvarbety, Chinati and Dzimiti.

The other group consists of surnames ending in "-anis": Dadiani, Chikovani, Ahvelidiani. It is believed that their roots belong to the famous Migrel rulers.

Surnames that end in:

• -holes;
• -our;
• -and I;
• -aava;
• -and I;
• -yah.

By the way, there are a lot of famous, star stars among them: Okudzhava, Danelia, etc.

A rare example is the suffix "-nti" with Chan or Svan origin. For example, Glonti. To them it is possible to carry the surnames containing the involved prefix "me-" and the name of the profession.

In translation from the Persian nodivan - "advice", and Mdivani means "scribe", Mebuke - "bugler", and Menabde - "making busts." The most interesting is the surname of Amilahvari. Having a Persian origin, it is a lack of education.

Building

Georgian surnames are built according to certain rules. During the baptism of a newborn child, he is usually given a name. Most of the names begin with it, and then the suffix is added to it. For example, Nikoladze, Tamaridze, Matiashvili or Davitashvili. Such examples can be given a considerable amount.

But there are also surnames formed from Muslim (more often Persian) words. For example, we will study the roots of the name Japaridze. It came from the widespread Muslim name Jafar. In translation from the Persian dzapar - "postman".

Quite often Georgian surnames are tied to a certain locality. After all, often the first of their carriers became the origin of the princely family. It is in their number includes Tsereteli. This name comes from the name of the village and the same name of the fortress of Cereti, located in the northern region of Zemo.

Russification of some Georgian families

Despite the length and unusual combination of letters and sounds, Georgian surnames penetrated into Russian linguistics (in particular, onomastics) were not distorted. But, as practice shows, sometimes, albeit very rarely, there are cases when Russification happened: Muskhelishvili turned into Muskhely.

Some names appeared uncharacteristic for Georgia suffixes: -ev, -ov and -v. For example, Panulidzev or Sulakadze.

Also, with the Russification of some names on the "shvili", very often there is a reduction. Thus, Avalishvili turns into Avalov, Baratov - Baratashvili, Sumbatashvili - Sumbatov, etc. There are many other options that we are accustomed to accept for the Russians.

Declination of Georgian names

Declension or indecision depends on how it is borrowed. For example, the surname ending in -i is declined, and on -aa-no.

But today there is no rigid framework for declining the names . Although we can distinguish 3 rules, according to which declination is impossible:

1. The male form is similar to the female form.
2. The name ends in unstressed vowels (-a, -y).
3. Has the suffixes -ua, -ia.

Only in these three cases, neither male nor female surname is subject to decline. Examples: Garcia, Heredia.

Also it should be noted that it is undesirable to incline the surname with the ending -y. Suppose there is a person Georgy Gurtskaya, who received a document, which says: "issued to citizen George Gurtsky." Thus, it turns out, the surname of the person is Gurtskaya, which is not quite typical for Georgia, and the name loses its color.

Thus, linguists do not advise to incline Georgian surnames and recommend correctly writing endings. It is not uncommon for cases when the letters were changed at the end of the completion of documents. For example, instead of Gulia, Gulia wrote, and this name has nothing to do with Georgia.

The popularity of the names in figures

Below is a table showing the most common endings of Georgian surnames. Let us examine them in more detail and find out in which regions they occur most often.

The endings are shvili and -dze in surnames (Georgian)

Currently, linguists distinguish 13 main suffixes. In many areas, the s-dze family has become very popular, which means "son". For example, Kebadze, Gogitidze, Shevardnadze. According to statistics, for 1997 the name with such an end was 1 649 222 inhabitants of Georgia.

The second place is occupied by the Sufi suffix (Kululashvili, Peikrishvili, Elerdashvili), which translates as "child", "child" or "descendant". As of 1997, there were approximately 1,303,723 surnames with this ending. They were most prevalent in the regions of Kartli and Kakheti.