Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 113

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 113

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/113

This is one of the Academy's earliest reports. We are not confident that these early reports are accurate. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on the name "Tatiana."

Gypsies speak a language called Romany, which is more closely related to Indian languages than other European ones. The evidence we have shows that Gypsies (or Rom, their own name) who moved into other cultures generally adopted names from those other cultures.

"Tatiana" is derived from S. Tatiana, a 3rd-century Greek martyr. Her name was adopted in Russia, where it is also found in the variant form Tat'iana (it shows a slight difference in pronunciation: the "i" is pronounced distinctly in Tatiana, and becomes very short--like "y" in "you"--in Tat'iana). The earliest reference we found for it was 1356, although S. Tatiana appears in Russian Orthodox calendars in the 1200's. It is also found in the diminuitive forms "Tania" and "Tan'ia," which we dated to approximately 1400. (1)

Surnames and heraldry are both late developments in Russian. Heraldry did not come into general use in Russia until the 19th heraldry. Similarly, during your period people generally did not have surnames in Russia (or in many other cultures). Russian usage most often identified people with the name of their father. There are several different ways to form patronymics in Russian; the exact form would depend on the parental name you wish to use. If you like, we could send you some information on Russian names so that you would have an idea of possible names.

We hope this has been helpful.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel

(1) Goldschmidt, Paul. A Dictionary of Period Russian Names