English Equivalents of Foreign Given Names Compiled by: Paul M. Kankula NN8NN (non-copyrighted)

Suzanne Phillips, Project-Help Notes:

• If an "American" name was found to be typically used in the place of a foreign name, that name is indicated in italics, i.e. Albert for Voytech

Foreign Naming Customs:

First of all, most every country in Europe has their own naming customs.  However, there are a few customs that I have run into, that might be of help to you.

1.) Saints and their Feast Days were very important to European people.  So in many cases, parents would consult their pastor/priest for children's names. 

     Feast Day Example: St. Therese of Lisieux - child was named Therese.
 

2.) Male Names:

     1st son was normally named after the father's father
     2nd son after mother's father
     3rd son after father

     4th son after mother’s father-father

     5th son after mother’s father-father
 

3.) Female Names:

     1st daughter was normally named after the mother's mother
     2nd daughter after father's mother
     3rd daughter after mother

     4th daughter after father’s father’s-mother

     5th daughter after mother’s father’s-mother

3.) If the child was given a secular (two) name, the first was normally that of a Saint or Feast Day.  The second is what the child was actually called by. 

     Example: Johann Georg Ristow - the child was called George. 

4.) Some parents would also name their child after one of the godparents.

GERMAN:

The German language (Deutsch, [dɔʏ̯tʃ] (help·info)) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. German is closely related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers, and Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities, and Goethe Institutes worldwide.

The German people (German: Deutsche) are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German ancestry (Deutschstämmige). Historically, in the context of the German Empire (1871-1918), German citizens (Imperial Germans, Reichsdeutsche) were distinguished from ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).

Out of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry (mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, France and Canada) who are not native speakers of German.

Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 75 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.). In the U.S., 43 Million or 15.2% of citizens identify as German American according to the United States Census of 2000. Although the percentage has declined, it is still more than any other group. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, approximately 51 Million citizens identify themselves as having German ancestry.

 HUNGARIAN:

Hungarian (magyar nyelv listen (help·info)) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in seven neighbouring countries. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar (IPA: [ˈmɒɟɒr̪]).

Hungarian has long been of great interest to linguists as one of the small number of modern European languages that do not belong to the Indo-European language family. Due to the Uralic heritage, Hungarian often sounds completely foreign to speakers of Indo-European languages. It is commonly considered to be one of the most difficult languages for speakers of English (or other Indo-European languages) to learn well.

There are about 14.5 million native speakers, of whom 9.5-10 million live in modern-day Hungary. A further two million speakers live outside Hungary in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon. Of these, the largest group lives in Romania, where there are approximately 1.4 million Hungarians (see Hungarian minority in Romania). Hungarian-speaking people are also to be found in Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, as well as about a million people scattered in other parts of the world (see Geographic distribution). As with many European languages, there are a few hundred thousand speakers of Hungarian in the United States as well.

The origin of the Hungarians is partly disputed. The most widely-accepted Finno-Ugric theory of origin from the late nineteenth century is based primarily on linguistic and ethnographical arguments. Contesting these, the theory is criticized as relying too much on August Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie of historical linguistics, and some cite that Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples have a wide range of cultural, ethnic and genetic variation. It should also be noted that though old and modern-day Hungarians have a predominantly European genetic makeup, one research states that about 13% of the population have retained their Uralic genes, while another sees no genetic continuity. There are also other theories stating that the Magyars are descendants of Scythians, Huns and/or Avars. These other theories tend to be based upon unsound critical methodology, especially in regard to existing linguistic evidence, so most scholars dismiss them as speculation.

Hungarians (Hungarian: magyarok) or Magyars are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 9.97 million Magyars in Hungary (as of 2001). Magyars were the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium. After the Treaty of Trianon Magyars became minority inhabitants in the territory of present-day Romania (1,440,000; see: Hungarian minority in Romania), Slovakia (520,500), Serbia (293,000; largely in Vojvodina), Ukraine and Russia (170,000), Austria (40,583), Croatia (16,500), the Czech Republic (14,600) and Slovenia (10,000). Significant groups of people with Magyar ancestry live in various other parts of the world (e.g. 1,400,000 in the United States), but unlike the Magyars living within the former Kingdom of Hungary, only some of these largely preserve the Hungarian language and traditions. The Hungarians can be classified in several sub-groups according to local linguistic and cultural characteristics. Hungarian ethnic subgroups that have a distinct identity are the Székelys, Csángós, Jassic people and Palócs.

POLISH:

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. It is the West Slavic language having the greatest number of speakers. Polish is spoken in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and has a regular orthography. The language developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation and grammar. Although the Polish language was suppressed by occupying powers during some historical periods, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in English and other languages.

The Polish people, or Poles, (Polish: Polacy pɔˈlat​͡sɨ ) are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic. The Poles can also be referred to as the inhabitants of the Republic of Poland and Polish emigrants irrespective of their ethnicity. A wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas and Australia.

There is no commonly accepted definition of the Polish people. According to the preamble of the Constitution of Poland, the Polish Nation consists of all citizens of Poland. However, like in most European countries, many people limit the group to native speakers of the Polish language, people that share certain traditions, or people who share a common ethnic background originating from Poland. As to its origins, the name of the nation comes from a western Slavic ethnic group of Polans primarily associated with Poland and the Polish language. Poles belong to the Lechitic subgroup of these ethnic people. The Polans of Giecz, Gniezno, and Poznań were one of the most influential tribes of Greater Poland and managed to unite many other West Slavic tribes in the area under the rule of what became the Piast dynasty, thus giving birth to a new state. The Polish word for a Polish person is Polak (male) and Polka (female), however, when this common noun is used verbatim in the English language (usually spelled as Polack) it is always offensive.

RUSSIAN:

Russians, predecessors were the medieval East Slavic nation Rus’, who were also the predecessors of Belarusians and Ukrainians.

Most of the tribes that took part in the formation of the Russian people were of East Slavic origin. Among those tribes were Krivich, Ilmen Slavs, Radimichs and Severians. A genetic study showed that even though most of the Russian blood is Slavic, they also have some Finno-Ugric blood in them. That shows that some of the Finno-Ugric peoples that lived among the Slavs in east Europe eventually assimilated in them. Among those peoples were Merya and Muromian

Very little is known about the Russians and East Slavs in general prior to approximately 859 AD, the date from which the account in the Primary Chronicle (a history of the Ancient Rus from around 850 to 1110 originally compiled in Kiev about 1113) starts.

By 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. The East Slavs flooded Eastern Europe in two streams. One group of tribes settled along the Dnieper river in what is now Ukraine; they then spread northward to the northern Volga valley, east of modern-day Moscow and westward to the basins of the northern Dniester and the Southern Buh rivers in present-day Moldova and southern Ukraine.

Another group of East Slavs moved from Pomerania to the northeast, where they encountered the Varangians of the Rus' Khaganate and established an important regional centre of Novgorod. The same Slavic population also settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. Having reached the lands of the Merya near Rostov, they linked up with the Dnieper group of Slavic migrants.

The Russian people (Russian: Русские—Russkie ) are an East Slavic ethnic group, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries.

The English term Russians is also used to refer to citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity (see demographics of Russia for information on other ethnic groups inhabiting Russia); in Russian, this meaning is covered by term Rossiyanin (Россиянин, plural Rossiyane). According to 2002 census, ethnic Russians make up about 80% of the population of Russia^.

RUSYN:

Rusyns (also referred to as Русины, Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusnaks) are a Slavic ethnic group that speaks the Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the ethnonym Ukrainian to describe their ethnic identity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because many Ruthenians within Ukraine itself have adopted a Ukrainian ethnic identity, most contemporary Rusyns live outside Ukraine. Of the approximately 2 million people claimed by Rusyn organizations as being Rusyns, only 55,000 declare themselves as having this ethnicity. The ethnic identity of Rusyns is controversial, with some researchers claiming a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, while others consider Rusyns to be a subgroup of the Ukrainian people.

Prior to the middle of the 19th century, Ukrainians were referred to and known as Rusyns. The ethnonym Ukrainian came into widespread use only in modern times, replacing the ethnonym Rusyn initially on the banks of the Dnieper and later in western Ukraine, where it was still used into the 1930s. Today only a minority group uses this ethnonym for self-identification, primarily people living in the mountainous Transcarpathian region of western Ukraine and adjacent areas in Slovakia. Having eschewed the ethnonym Ukrainian, Rusyns across the old heartland of the Kyivan Rus state continue to use the ethnonym Rusyn, asserting a local and separate Rusyn ethnic identity.

Rusyns are an ethnic group that never attained independent statehood, except for the ephemeral Lemko-Rusyn Republic and Komancza Republic after World War I. The Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine - which famously existed for only one day on March 15th, 1939 before it was occupied by Hungarian troops - is sometimes erroneously understood to have been a briefly self-determining Rusyn State. But although it was located in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn homeland, the Republic was a project overseen by Ukrainian nationalists, assisted by the Third Reich. The Republic's president, Avhustyn Voloshyn, was an advocate of writing in the Rusyn vernacular but was a Ukrainophile nevertheless.

The Rusyns' fate has always rested in the hands of larger neighbouring powers, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia. In contrast to the modern Ukrainian national movement that united Western Ukrainians with those from the rest of Ukraine, the Rusyn national movement takes two forms: one considers Rusyns as a separate East Slavic nation, while the other is based on the concept of fraternal unity with Russians.

Rusyn (also referred to as the Ruthenian language) is similar to the Ukrainian language; Ukrainian scholars consider Rusyn a dialect of Ukrainian, to the resentment of some Rusyns. In the extreme west of Carpathian Ruthenia, the language is more similar to Slovak.

RUTHENIAN:

The term Ruthenians (Ukrainian: Русини, Rusyny) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially it was the ethnonym used for the Ukrainian people. With the emergence of Ukrainian self-awareness in the mid 19th century, the term initially went out of use first in eastern Ukraine, then central Ukraine and later in western Ukraine. In western Ukraine and in Ukrainian ethnic territories outside of Ukraine it is often still used.

Originally the term Rusyn was a ethnonym applied to eastern Slavic-speaking ethnic groups, who inhabit or inhabited the cultural and ethnic region of Rus' (Русь) often written through its Latin variant Ruthenia.

Then, the terms "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes" were the Latin terms referring to Slavic Orthodox people who lived in Grand Duchy of Lithuania (inhabiting the area that is now Belarus and Ukraine. They spoke the Ruthenian language). It was also the ethnonym used by the Ukrainian kozaks to describe themselves.

After the area of White Russia (Belarus) became part of the Russian Empire, the people of the area were seen as a sub-group of Russians, and they were named White Russians as the name of the region of White Russia (Belorusians in Ruthenian and Russian means White Russians). The Belorusian language in the area evolved from the Ruthenian language.

Later "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes" were used as a generic term for Greek Catholic inhabitants of Galicia and adjoining territories up until the early 20th century who spoke Western dialects of the Ukrainian language and called themselves "Русины" (Rusyny). The other English name for the same ethnic group was "Little Russians" (see Little Russia).

The language these "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes" spoke was also called the "Ruthenian language", the name "Ukrajins’ka mova" (Ukrainian language) became accepted by much of the Ukrainian literary class only in the early twentieth century in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918 the term "Ukrainian" was usually applied to all Ukrainian-speaking inhabitants of Galicia.

However, descendants of emigrants from Galicia residing in the United States, and minorities in western Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia, still call themselves "Русины". These are treated under the Wikipedia article on Rusyns.

SLOVAK:

The Slovak language (slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with slovenščina), sometimes referred to as "Slovakian", is an Indo-European language belonging to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Silesian, Kashubian and Sorbian). Slovak is mutually intelligible with Czech.

Kingdom of Hungary:

Slovakia came under Hungarian rule gradually from 907 to the early 14th century (major part by 1100) and remained a part of the Kingdom of Hungary (see also Upper Hungary or Uhorsko) until the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Politically, Slovakia formed (again) the separate entity called Nitra Frontier Duchy, this time within the Kingdom of Hungary. This duchy was abolished in 1107. The territory inhabited by the Slovaks in present-day Hungary was gradually reduced, but in the 14th century, there were still many Slovak settlements in northern eastern present-day Hungary.

When present-day Hungary was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1541, Slovakia became the core of the "reduced" kingdom, officially called Royal Hungary. Many Magyars (Hungarians) fleeing from present-day Hungary to the north settled in large parts of present-day southern Slovakia, thereby creating the considerable Magyar minority in southern Slovakia today. Some Croats settled around and in present-day Bratislava for similar reasons. Also, many Germans settled in Slovakia, especially in the towns, as work-seeking colonists and mining experts from the 13th to the 15th century. German settlers outnumbered the native populace in almost all towns in the Kingdom of Hungary, but their numbers began to stagnate in the 16th century and to decrease later. Jews and Gypsies also formed significant populations within the territory.

After the Ottoman Empire was forced to retreat from present-day Hungary around 1700, thousands of Slovaks were gradually settled in depopulated parts of the restored Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia) under Maria Theresia, and that is how present-day Slovak enclaves (like Slovaks in Vojvodina) in these countries arose.

Slovakia was the most advanced part of the Kingdom of Hungary for centuries (the most urbanized part, intense mining of gold and silver), but in the 19th century, when Buda/Pest became the new capital of the kingdom, the importance of Slovakia as well as other parts within the Kingdom fell, and many Slovaks were relegated to the indigence. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Slovaks emigrated to North America, especially in the late 19th century and early 20th century (between cca. 1880–1910), and a total of at least 1.5 million (~2/3 of them were part of some minority).

Slovakia exhibits a very rich folk culture. A part of Slovak customs and social convention are common with those of other nations of the former Habsburg monarchy (the Kingdom of Hungary was in personal union with the Habsburg monarchy from 1526 to 1918).

CZECHOSLOVAKIAN:

People of Slovakia spent most part of the 20th century within the framework of Czechoslovakia, a new state formed after World War I. Significant reforms and post-World War II industrialization took place during this time. The Slovak language has been strongly influenced by the Czech language during this period.

FRENCH:

French (français, French pronunciation: is a Romance language globally spoken by about 110 million people as a first language (mother tongue), by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant numbers of speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada (particularly Quebec, and to a lesser extent Ontario and New Brunswick), Belgium, (particularly Wallonia and Brussels), Switzerland, French-speaking Africa (31 countries, including Cameroon, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire), Luxembourg, Monaco, and certain parts of the U.S. states of Louisiana and Maine. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the Francophone country with the largest population.

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian and minority languages ranging from Catalan to Neapolitan and many more. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 28 countries, most of which form what is called, in French, La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million (26% of the 499,673,300) people in 27 member states speak French, of which 65 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it either as a second language or as a foreign language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English (2nd rank) and German (1st rank). In addition, prior to the mid 20th century, French served as the pre-eminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe.

As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, and the Caribbean.

ITALIAN:

Italian (italiano (help·info), or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by another 10 million Italian descendants in the world, making it spoken by a total of 70 million native speakers.^[It is also spoken by an additional 125 million people as a foreign language. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages, spoken mainly in the Swiss cantons of Grigioni and Ticino. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the city of Florence) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman invaders.

Italian derives diachronically from Latin, and is the closest national language to Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance and 77% with Romanian.

YIDDISH:

Yiddish (ייִדיש yidish or אידיש idish, literally "Jewish") is a High German language of Ashkenazi origin, spoken throughout the world. Yiddish is conventionally written in the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to central and eastern Europe and eventually to other continents. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashkenaz = "language of Ashkenaz") and טײַטש (taytsh, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German; compare the modern New High German Deutsch). In common usage, the language is called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, literally "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which are collectively termed לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh, "holy tongue"). The term "Yiddish" did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century.

For a significant portion of its history, Yiddish was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews and once spanned a broad dialect continuum from Western Yiddish to three major groups within Eastern Yiddish, namely Litvish, Poylish and Ukrainish. Eastern and Western Yiddish are most markedly distinguished by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin in the Eastern dialects. While Western Yiddish has few remaining speakers, Eastern dialects remain in wide use.

Yiddish is written and spoken in Orthodox Jewish communities around the world. It is a home language in most Hasidic communities, where it is the first language learned in childhood, used in schools, and in many social settings.

HEBREW:

Hebrew (עִבְרִית, Ivrit, Hebrew pronunciation (help·info)) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over two thousand years. It is one of the official languages of Israel, along with Arabic. Ancient Hebrew is also the liturgical tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Palestinian Arabic is their vernacular, though today about 700 Samaritans remain. As a foreign language it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, by theologians, and in Christian seminaries.

The core of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) is written in Classical Hebrew, and much of its present form is specifically the dialect of Biblical Hebrew that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian exile. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon HaKodesh (לשון הקודש), "The Holy Tongue", since ancient times.

JEWISH:

Judaism (from the Latin Iudaismus, derived from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, and ultimately from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah"; in Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, Yahadut) is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and explored and explained in later texts such as the Talmud. Jews consider Judaism to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel—originally a group of around a dozen tribes claiming descent from the Biblical patriarch Jacob and later the Jewish people. According to most branches, God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. However, Karaite Judaism maintains that only the Written Torah was revealed and liberal movements such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic.

From: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia