Annotated Bibliography of Lithuanian & Latvian Name books

by Aryanhwy merch Catmael (Sara L. Friedemann)

© 2002 Sara L. Friedemann; all rights reserved

These are the books in the UW-Madison Memorial Library holdings. It is not an complete list of all books available on these subjects, only the books that I had easily available to me. CAVEAT: I speak neither Lithuanian nor Latvian to any degree. This bibliography is nothing more than an English-speaker's appraisal of the books for their use in documenting names for SCA heraldic submissions. Even if I cannot tell if these books are appropriate for such a use, it could be the case that they are, to someone that can read them. It is also quite possible that they are appropriate for many other purposes. My grateful thanks to Talan Gwynek for supplying a translation of the German titles, and taking a stab at translating the other ones.

Lithuanian

Kuzavanis, Kazys & Bronys Savukynas. Lietuviu vardu kilmes zodynas = Etimologicheskii slovar´ litovskikh lichnykh imën = Etymologisches Wörterbuch der litauischen Vornamen, (Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopediju leidykla, 1994).

Etymological Dictionary of Lithuanian Forenames. The names in this book are arranged in alphabetical order, giving language of origin, and cross-referencing variants. Masculine and feminine names are listed together. There are no dates.

Maciejauskiene, Vitalija. Lietuviu pavardziu susidarymas : XIII-XVIII a. = Die Entstehung der Litauischen Familiennamen : 13.-18. Jh. = Formirovanie litovskikh familii : XIII-XVIII v.v. (Vilnius: Mokslas, 1991.)

The Formation of Lithuanian Family Names: 13th - 18th Centuries. This book is divided into a number of sections. Beyond that, I cannot determine anything more than that there are dated citations scattered throughout the book. There does appears to be an index of sorts in the back.

Vanagas, A., ed. Lietuviu pavardziu zodynas, (Vilnius: "Mokslas," 1985-15989), 2 volumes

Dictionary of Lithuanian Family Names. This two volume set (A-K, L-Z) is an extensive list, in alphabetical order, of what I think are surnames. There are many different forms, and lots of cross-references, but unfortunately, nothing appears to be dated.

Zinkevicius, Zigmas. Lietuviu antroponimika: Vilniaus lietuviu asmenvardziai XVII a. pradzioje, (Vilnius: Mokslas, 1977.)

After a substantial introduction (100+ pages), the names are listed in alphabetical order. I cannot tell if the masculine and feminine names are mixed or separate; I do not recognize most of the entries, and half-suspect that this is a list of surnames, and not given names. There appear to be specific forms cited under each head word, but without any dates; however it might be possible to determine the dates of the names based on the dates of the sources cited. There is an index.
Talan says of this one: This one is a little iffy, but I think that it works out to Lithuanian Anthroponymy: 17th Century Lithuanian Personal Names of Vilnius. (It appears from the heading Intuityvistine ir emotyvistine morales filosofijos XX a. pradzioje on a web page of the department of moral philosophy of a Lithuanian university that XVII a. pradzioje in its entirety is '17th century', for instance.)

Latvian

Feyerabend, Liselotte. Die Rigaer und Revaler Familiennamen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Herkunft der Bürger , (Köln: Böhlau, 1985.).

Family Names of Riga and Reval in the 14th and 15th Centuries: with Special Attention to the Places of Origin of the Citizens. This book is written in German. It appears to not be a list of Latvian names in general, but the history of family names in general. It is therefore not arranged like a usual name index or dictionary, but has names scattered throughout the work. Many of them include dates.

Latkovskis, Leonards. Latgalu uzv¯ordi, palames un dzymtas II, ([München]: Latgalu izdevn¯iceiba, 1971.)

If I am right, this appears to be a Latvian-language book that has also been published as Latgalische Personennamen, Spitznamen und Sippen II in German and Latgalian Last Names, Nicknames, and Clans in English. I'm going to try to get my hands on a copy of the English edition. This copy has name lists and textual discussion intermixed, but there do not appear to be any dates.

Silins, Kl¯avs. Latviesu personv¯ardu v¯ardn¯ica, (R¯iga: Zin¯atne, 1990).

This book looks fairly useful; the names are arranged in alphabetical order, with masculine and feminine names interspersed. Each entry lists the linguistic origin of the name, and then it appears to go on and list specific forms that were found, and give citations for those forms. 4 digit numbers follow after a number of those names, but I cannot tell definitely if they are dates. IF they are, then the majority of the names have dates in the 1800's and 1900's, but there do appear to be a few earlier entries, such as Antons 1613, s.n. Ants. If nothing else, this book is good for referencing a Latvian form of a name to a more recognizable to western Europeaners form. For example, Dz^ovana is listed as being a variant form of Johanna, and Dz^uljeta of Julia. (Here, z^ represents a z with an upside down caret over it.)

Last updated 16Jan02