Nastasychy and Mariichi: Is it possible to take the maths instead of the middle name
Dmitry Kurkin
Formula "surname, name, patronymic" became so familiar that we almost never think about the appointment of the third term. The patronymic Russians carry with them all their lives, it is impossible not to enter it in the birth certificate (even if it has to be invented), and it is much more difficult to change it, unlike the name and surname. And yet: why patronymic, not machestvo? Has it always been so in history and are there peoples where the maternal line is considered more important than the male? Is it possible to change the patronymic to the name or just refuse the first one? Let's try to figure it out.
Surnames - new patronymic
It is no secret that so many surnames are nothing but yesterday's patronymic names (patronyms) and mathematics (matronyms). And those, and others had quite a clear application function - to indicate the right of inheritance. In matrilineal societies (that is, those where property is inherited not on the paternal side, but on the maternal line), children, along with the names, receive the mathematics. This tradition has been preserved among some nationalities of India and Bangladesh.
In most countries, the patriarchy took its toll, but traces of the maths can be found in the languages of the most diverse peoples of the world: Romanesque, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Semitic, Arabic (the prophet identified with Christ bears the name of Islam ibn Maryam in Islam, i.e. Mary's son "), and the languages of Southeast Asia. Somewhere they are more pronounced: the mathematics is still used in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam — the newborn gets the mother's maiden name as the middle name. In other cultures, preserved as surnames derived from female names. There are plenty of such in the Russian language: Katina, Marinin and Tatianin.
In traditionally patriarchal Russia, the matronyms most often gave princely bastards, thus belittling their right to the throne.
In medieval England, matronyms were often received by children of unmarried mothers and children whose fathers did not live to see their birth. However, giving matchev, parents could pursue more practical goals: for example, to avoid the patronymic, formed from a foreign surname, if it hurt hearing or was difficult to pronounce. In Spain, the maternal inheritance took shape in the tradition of compound surnames: the first - from the father, the second - from the mother (current legislation allows you to change their places).
In Iceland, where surnames as such are used very rarely, and the child, as a rule, gets a second name from the parent with the addition of the suffix "sleep" (for boys) or "dot-gr" (for girls), matronyms are still used along with patronyms, and sometimes even combined (as in the case of the mayor of Reykjavik Dagyur Bergtoyuruson Eggertsson). A similar system was once in Finland, but with a clear gender division: girls inherit the name of the mother, boys inherit the name of the father.
Games of succession
The formation of patronyms and matronyms in the Middle Ages is easiest to follow in the biographies of royal families, both because the chronicles have preserved their names better, and because they really did matter for the nobility and patronymic. For blue-blooded people, they became a genealogical brand, marking the place of a person in a dynastic tree, which directly determined his status and level of pretensions to power and state: being second or third in the line of heirs is not the same as being twentieth.
King Sven II, the founder of the Estridsen dynasty, received the mathematics, since his father, Earl Ulf, though he was the de facto ruler of Denmark in the absence of Knud the Great, was in the pyramid of the nobility was below his wife, Princess Estrid. Very exotic origin in the mathematics of Henry II Plantagenet, who at one time was known as Heinrich Fitzampress - that is, literally “the Son of the Empress” (Matilda of England).
In traditionally patriarchal Russia, matronyms often gave princely bastards, thus belittling their right to the throne. So, the youngest son of Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl, Oleg, received from his contemporaries the semi-official mathematics of Nastasiich, after the name of mother Anastasia. Galician nobility never forgot about his origin, which affected his career prospects. Despite the fact that his father reigned bequeathed to him, his half elder brother Vladimir Yaroslavich, with the support of the boyars, almost immediately overthrew him and expelled him from Galich. There are other examples like Vasily, the son of Mary (Maritsa) - the daughter of Vladimir Monomakh, whom he managed to pass off as a claimant to the Byzantine throne of Ljediogen II: Basil was born after the death of his father, brought up by his mother and, apparently, is why Marichesch, Marichesch and Marinich.
How are you on mother?
Matronyms in pre-revolutionary Russia were by no means uncommon, especially in remote villages, where the clerks were less concerned about the misinterpretation of the rulers. "Stronger was the habit of calling people according to the main thing in the family. And who is the main person in the family? Those who were constantly with children, those who were engaged in life-style," explains Andrei Vlasov, head of the department of folklore of the Institute of Russian Literature. He also points out that the mathematics helped to avoid social stigma or were simply more comfortable: "Maybe the mother has several children, and all from different [fathers] ... Then [the children] were called precisely by the female name. There is Andrew - but Andreev in There is a lot of village. So whose is Andrei? Yes, Palakhin or Palashin. " In Soviet times, the workflow became tougher and this habit died out. At the same time, the national traditions of the formation of the names of Turkmen, Tajiks and Mongols turned out to be banned, giving way to an extremely formalized troika, now known as F. I. O.
The middle names in modern Russia have, in fact, two functions. The first one is official: the middle name, along with other passport data, allows you to uniquely identify a person. The second refers to the traditional etiquette: treatment by name and patronymic is considered more respectful. Neither one nor the other seems to interfere with taking the maths instead of the patronymic, but can a citizen of the Russian Federation do this by law?
All this, however, did not prevent a resident of the Sverdlovsk region from changing his patronymic name, not even to a matchestvo, but to a composite matropatronym - Vero-Viktorovich
The unequivocal answer "yes, it can," as often happens, breaks into bureaucratic practice. In any application for the change of name, the reason for the decision of the citizen to take such a responsible step should be explained. If the registry office employees consider the reason insufficient, they can refuse the applicant, for example, referring to the "inconsistency" of the name (this concept is generally very vague and gives a taste). In the overwhelming majority of cases, even an oral refusal is enough, although it must be written and reasoned. Any refusal may be appealed, but the process may take years, and not many have enough patience for paperwork.
All this, however, did not prevent Sergey Mukhlyinin, a resident of the Sverdlovsk region, in 2012, after four years of altercations with the registry office, to change his patronymic name, not even by his name, but by the composite matropatronym - Vero-Viktorovich. Thus, he, by his own admission, paid tribute to the memory of the deceased mother: “Double magnification reflects the contribution to the development of man and mother and father. After all, we are mostly called for father, and sent by mother.” Hopefully, this tradition will disappear ". (He was skeptical about the idea of a pure matronym, calling it a "feminist twisting into a peak of the patronymic.")
Without father and middle name
It is formally easier to change the patronymic at a mature age than to give a newborn child a mathhood - the registry office has a very contradictory attitude to this practice. On the one hand, they are going towards lonely mothers, just to not put a dash in the "middle name" box in the case where biological paternity is not established. On the other hand, they retain a rigid prejudice against mats, which have not and cannot have similar patronymic names. It’s possible to become Valentinovna or Aleksandrovich by mother, state officials will almost certainly refuse to register Oksanovich or Marinovna, arguing that “they laugh at school” and “they shouldn’t deprive a child of his father’s right”. Even if neither biological nor adoptive father is visible on the horizon, let alone more complex issues of gender and upbringing.
In March 2018, a resident of Rezha, Almira Davletkhanova, gave a half-year-old daughter, Mira Almirovna Mir, explaining her decision not to want to give any patronymic name: "I understood that [the biological father] would not participate in our future life." Employees of the registry office did not interfere with Davletkhanova, referring to the fact that there is a male name Almir in Tatar and Bashkir, and therefore the similar mathematics in their eyes looked nothing out of the ordinary. Similarly, a Muscovite Yulia Danilova recorded in the birth certificate of her daughter a matronim: Iskra Yul'evna.
The Family Code does not allow to completely abandon the middle name, but even here there are exceptions. In 2012, the government of Buryatia issued a decree allowing it to give full names in accordance with the Buryat national traditions - forming the name of the child from the name of the father or mother. Thus, citizens of the republic can ignore russified patronymic names, although in practice this option is still used by few. The Soviet tradition of F. I. O. turned out to be tenacious.
Photo: clsdesign - stock.adobe.com, shintartanya - stock.adobe.com, Etsy