On the Variability of the Family Names of Czech Migrants’ Descendants in the Northern Caucasus and Western Siberia

This paper deals with the systems of family names characteristic for the communities of Czech migrants living in Russia in several villages near Novorossiysk and Anapa in the Northern Caucasus and in the Middle Irtysh area in Omsk Region which emerged in the 1860s and in the early 20th century respectively, as a result of migration of two different groups of Czech peasants. The article also takes into account, though selectively, family names of the Polish dialect speakers living in the Republic of Khakassia in Russia. The author points out that both Czech groups preserve unofficial local family names typical of the community’s initial Czech dialectal zones, southwestern in the first case and northeastern in the second. These unofficial names seem to be opposed to Russified official family names which are used in communication with the world outside the community. The semantic base of local, “internal” family names coming, in general, from possessive adjectives, is built on the expression of belonging to a family or to a house, these meanings being particularly important in female family names which display some notable parallels between the observed groups of Czech and Polish migrants in Russia