embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4595 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek
| Message 17 of 31 13 July 2013 at 2:24pm | IP Logged |
In this BBC article the Canadian-
American writer, Adam Gopnik writes about how his surname is an "an almost obscenely
derogatory expression" in Russian.
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Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4354 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans
| Message 18 of 31 14 July 2013 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
I met someone with the last name of Pfannkuchen at one point.
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Oleg Stepanov Newbie Russian Federation rusmagic.blogspot.ruRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4146 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: English
| Message 19 of 31 19 July 2013 at 8:57am | IP Logged |
embici wrote:
In this BBC article the Canadian-American writer, Adam Gopnik .... |
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Super!!!! :-)))
Famous Ukrainian writer Grigory Skovoroda (griddle).
Elena Solovey (nightingale) famous Russian actrеss.
P.S. My teacher on chess was Petrovich.
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Dragon27 Diglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 4226 days ago 41 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Russian*, English
| Message 20 of 31 19 July 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged |
There is a man with a surname "Чмырь" in our city's phone book. It's a pejorative word today, and this surname sounds very hilarious to natives.
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Jarel Diglot Groupie Turkey Joined 4311 days ago 57 posts - 77 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Italian, German
| Message 21 of 31 21 August 2013 at 2:35pm | IP Logged |
My surname is "Dolar". It's the Turkish pronunciation of currency "dollar" as in US Dollar. As long as i know, my family took this surname in 1939 because they thought naming themselves after American currency would bring them luck and fortune.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4994 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 22 of 31 21 August 2013 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
Yes, some names are funny in combination with some jobs. We had a prime minister Nečas (bad weather) while the slovaks had Slota at the same time (horrible weather).
Recently I heard someone mentioning visit at some kind of ecology office with people named Kořínek (small root) and another one like that.
Great was our hockey representation on World Championship in 2011 (had to google to be precise) including Tenkrát, Mojžíš, Nakládal, Koukal and a few normal ones. Sounds like a story. Tenkrát: back than, Mojžíš-Moses, Nakládal-loaded, Koukal-watched.
And the Russians once had a team that sounded like a farm.
By the way N'guyen got on the list of most common czech surnames. I wonder what does it originally mean. :-)
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zografialep Hexaglot Groupie GreeceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4124 days ago 41 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Ancient Greek, Greek*, EnglishC2, GermanB2, Spanish, Latin Studies: Russian
| Message 23 of 31 02 September 2013 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
Like someone previously posted, all greek surnames have a meaning.
Among others I had a friend named
''Paputsaki'' = little shoe
''Luludaki'' = little flower
''Papadimitriu''= priest Dimitrius (really. there are many with priest-)
'' Panigiraki'' = the one who makes big fiests
there are countless others :P
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nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4311 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German
| Message 24 of 31 02 September 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged |
One day, I met a guy whose last name is Dellacasagrande, "From the big house" in Italian.
Also, I work with a woman whose family name is Incógnito, "Unknown" in Spanish.
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