Origin of Armenian Surnames

[seruven]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

May I ask what is wrong with the name Terkunyan?
Kanada, I don't think we have such a word like Tercun in Turkish.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

It is indeed ridiculous… My guess is 'Terkunyan' is actually the terkhun in Armenian ("tarkhun" in Farsi) which is the name of a vegetable as you know. It seems that the "kh" (խ) has been transformed into "k" (ք) to facilitate the pronunciation in English. So it should have been Terkhun+yan (ian).

Or Terchunyan(bird in armenian).... became Tercunyan(turkish) then Terkunyan(english)...

[Lucin]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

I think ya'll have something going here. We can somehow understand where certain last names mentioned in this thread stemmed from at the moment but can you please tell me where last names like Terkunyan came from, lol? I'm sorry, I just can't seem to digest this. I can't believe how any Armenian would willingly live with this.

It is indeed ridiculous… My guess is 'Terkunyan' is actually the terkhun in Armenian ("tarkhun" in Farsi) which is the name of a vegetable as you know. It seems that the "kh" (խ) has been transformed into "k" (ք) to facilitate the pronunciation in English. So it should have been Terkhun+yan (ian).

[Sako]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

I think ya'll have something going here. We can somehow understand where certain last names mentioned in this thread stemmed from at the moment but can you please tell me where last names like Terkunyan came from, lol? I'm sorry, I just can't seem to digest this. I can't believe how any Armenian would willingly live with this.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

The real question is which came first... the hav or the havgit?

[Lucin]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

Apparently, the English adopted the name "duck" for this animal as a derivative of the Old English verb "ducan" (to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive). This replaced the old word for duck: "æned".

Scroll down to etymology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck

Learn something new every day :P

We simply cannot be too hasty in looking for genetic relations between words without checking their etymologies/history. For instance, when we try to compare the words "picture" and Arm. "Patker", they look similar on the surface, but "pict-" in picture comes from a Middle English word meaning "to paint" (which also explains the verb, "to depict"), while "Pat" in Armenian means "wall" and "ker" must have something to do with writing. So English "Picture" roughly means Paint-thing, while Armenian "Patker" roughly means Wall-writing...

Are you sure "ker" would be equal to 'writing'? To write is actually "grel" or "krel" (in western Armenian) so I'm guessing it is closer to "nkar" meaning photo in Armenian, and "nkarel" which means to paint or to take a picture depending on the context... With that said it would be something like Wall-painting in Armenian and Paint-thing in English... if the latter is true, then they would be actually related etymologically.

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

Does anyone see a relation between 'duck' and 'ordek'?

Apparently, the English adopted the name "duck" for this animal as a derivative of the Old English verb "ducan" (to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive). This replaced the old word for duck: "æned".

Scroll down to etymology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck

Learn something new every day :P

We simply cannot be too hasty in looking for genetic relations between words without checking their etymologies/history. For instance, when we try to compare the words "picture" and Arm. "Patker", they look similar on the surface, but "pict-" in picture comes from a Middle English word meaning "to paint" (which also explains the verb, "to depict"), while "Pat" in Armenian means "wall" and "ker" must have something to do with writing. So English "Picture" roughly means Paint-thing, while Armenian "Patker" roughly means Wall-writing. Totally unrelated etymologically = totally unrelated genetically. Today the words Picture and Patker both can describe a common thing, a photograph. But we must see through these modern day surface commonalities and survey the history of evolution for each word, scanning for imbedded words/stems within them that used to be more obvious, but today require greater effort and scrutiny to notice as our languages have evolved considerably since words like "Patker" and "Picture" were first coined.

[Gavur]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

Thats near Bilecik where my Grandma was from.

[Gavur]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

so someone like a shoe polisher or window cleaner? how exciting

Do you know anything about Kralian?

Or like a second hand clothes merchant, Also if the spelling is Güde.That is a name of a village in Turkey (see map) belonging to Pazaryeri county, which means a place for market (bazar)

http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCde,_Pazaryeri

[Lucin]

Re: Origin of Armenian Surnames

I like the way you guys analyze these things, very informative.



To Lucin:
Balle, shoma dorost migin.

Morghabe is a duck………….after I posted my message and thought about it I realized my mistake, forgot the name of the goose though.
I sure have forgoten alot now that I think about it. Terrible. I guess I should stop telling my best friend "rhak too sar tow chete, mage Irani nisti. chetoor mitoone yadet berre." hahaha

Khaily moteshakeram Khanoom.

lol, khahesh mikonam.

ducks come in many colors

In English that is... in Farsi, for instance the colourful ones have a different name. It is just a characteristic of the languages, there are some African tribes with languages in which they have only four or five terms representing all the colours while we seem to have a term for each colour...

Does anyone see a relation between 'duck' and 'ordek'?