Where did some people get their funny surnames?

There are a huge number of people in the world withstrange and even funny names. If you enter “funny surnames” in the search box, the system will return dozens of photographs with proof that there are really a lot of them. Most often, these oddities become the cause of bullying, but sometimes a funny name clearly helps to climb the career ladder. For example, there is a photo on the Internet with a sign “Chief Accountant - Honest Evgenia Nikolaevna”. Probably, an unusual surname often helped a woman out. Bearers of unusual names and surnames are usually well aware of their origin, but such knowledge is not available to other people. As part of this article, I propose to figure out why some people are called so strange and whether there is any sense in this.

Do you know where people got strange surnames from?

Ancient beliefs

The surname is transmitted to each person from ancestors,usually on the paternal side. Having met a person with a strange surname, some may wonder - why did his ancestors choose this one? After all, even a few centuries ago, they could cause laughter. In historical documents, you can find references to people with the names Fools, Paskudin, Drishch, Sloth, and so on. The descendants of some of them still remain faithful to their ancestry and do not change strange surnames for more harmonious ones. And all because these names were chosen by their ancestors for a reason.

Someone changed the name of Drishch to Platonov

Funny surnames were invented at the timepaganism. Then people had two surnames. The first was real, was known only to close relatives and was used during religious rituals. And the second was known to all people and was considered a talisman - a word that should bring happiness and protect from grief. People believed that knowing a person's real surname, enemies could harm him even from a distance. Therefore, they seemed to hide behind fake names, which, moreover, sounded funny. People believed that no one would send curses on people with the names Fools or Krivorylov.

Strange names were invented during pagan times

There was also a second reason why peoplethey took dissonant surnames. It was believed that if a person bears the name Fools, then on the contrary, he will be smart. If people wanted the representatives of their family to have hard work, they were given the surname Laziness. The aforementioned beliefs were very common and almost all people had strange and funny surnames. They believed in signs even in the 19th century, when a decree was issued in the Russian Empire, which obliged people to take official names. Even in more advanced times, people chose dissonant surnames for themselves, because they were afraid of evil forces.

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Funny surnames

That funny a few centuries agosurnames were very common, historical documents indicate. There is information that in 1825 a royal decree was signed, referred to as "On the replacement of obscene names in lower ranks." He obliged all soldiers with surnames like Fools, Drishch and Bzdyulev to change their surnames to more euphonic ones. This decree did not apply to ordinary people - they had every right to continue living with strange names.

It was believed that funny names can protect against curses.

But as time went on, people stopped believing in suchsigns and began to massively change their names. In the photo below you can see a scan of the document, judging by which the Bzdnikin family changes their last name to Lensky. And there are thousands of such documents in the archives. Some people, even in the 20th century, decided to remain faithful to their ancestors. That is why, even today, you can meet many people with strange names. And in fact, there is nothing funny about them. Unlike the usual ones, there is a long story behind these names.

Change of surname Bzdnikin to Lensk

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However, in ancient times, strange were notonly surnames. Medicine was poorly developed, but there were a lot of popular beliefs. There were no doctors then, and diseases were considered the acts of evil spirits. Therefore, people had to seek help from healers who supposedly had magical abilities. With the help of various potions, they could cure almost any disease. And the ingredients in the drugs were very unpleasant: earwax, baby urine, and so on. You can read about all these oddities that happened hundreds of years ago in this article.