RÄPINA PEREKONNANIMED JA LISANIMED
RÄPINA FAMILY NAMES AND BYNAMES

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the creation of family names on the example of Räpina parish. Family names were derived from authentic bynames by the pastor J. F. Heller, who had previously collected vocabulary items for a dictionary and shown interest in the bynames of peasants. In his register of parishioners, begun in 1816, he collected different families’ formal and spoken bynames and nicknames. Heller used German, South Estonian and Russian name suffixes, which he combined with German vocabulary elements. Many name suffixes were already in existence in longer local bynames. Some repeating name suffixes had not been consciously chosen, they emerged by chance and later began to be used as independent name suffixes.

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