1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the October 1991 meeting of the Midwest Russian History Colloquium. I am grateful for the participants’ helpful criticisms and for the generous comments of Professor Ladisiav Zgusta, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Special thanks are due to the wonderful staff at the Russkii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv (RGIA, formerly TsGIA) in St. Petersburg, without whose extraordinary professionalism and personal kindness this project could not have been carried out.

2. The standard Soviet text on Russian onomastics is V.A. Nikonov, Imia i obshchestvo (Moscow: Nauka, 1974).

3. By examining every fifth petition for a change of surname in the archive of the Chancellery, I compiled a sample of 502 petitions; these happen to span the period 1889 to 1917. While the first fifteen years account for a mere 3.8% of the total sample, numbers increased dramatically in 1905, with 11 for the year and 69 for the entire quinquennium. For 1910–1914 the sample numbers 113, for 1915–1917 a staggering 309, i.e., 61.6% of the total. The entire war period accounts for 357 petitions or 71 % of all the petitions sampled.

4. Ladislav, Zgusta, “Names,” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed., 1989), 24: 730.Google Scholar

5. RGIA f. 1412, op. 252, Registratsionno-spravochnyi apparat.

6. The processing of the requests for name changes sheds light on the workings of the tsarist bureaucracy. Even during World War I, hundreds of bureaucrats, both in the capital and throughout the empire, were enlisted in gathering information on the petitioners. And Nicholas went on confirming his bureaucrats’ recommendations right until the bitter end, the last documented case dated 22 February 1917. The documents also expose an astonishing continuity in the handling of these petitions, as the same agency and officials continued to process the requests long after the February revolution and indeed for several months after the October revolution. The latest case 1 chanced upon was approved by the Provisional Government on 20 October 1917; the same Chancellery for the Reception of Petitions did not convey this decision until 31 January 1918 (RGIA f. 1412, op. 7, d. 166 [10 February 1917]).

As all the archival citations refer to f. 1412, the fond of the petitions chancellery, the abbreviation of the archive and the number of \\\e fimd will not be repeated. 1 provide no page numbers, for most of the petitions I saw had never been paginated or even used before. Square brackets indicate date of receipt as opposed to date of writing.

7. These account for almost one sixth of my sample. The wording of some petitions defies neat and consistent categorization, however. Since many petitioners listed more than one reason, much depends on which explanations are accorded first priority. Primary and secondary justifications may be interchangeable, effects could become causes. A petitioner would blame bureaucratic malfeasance for saddling him with the wrong name, yet the deleterious consequences for his business or profession might have been his real reason for seeking redress. Fortunately, such borderline cases were the exception rather than the norm. Even allowing for a few questionable decisions on my part, given the size of the sample I am confident that the proportional weight of the various categories would not have been appreciably altered.

8. Excluding those cases without soslovie identification—one fourth of this paticular group—the peasants’ share came to 55% and that of meshchane (members of the meshchanstvo, the legal estate of townspeople, composed originally of urban or nonpeasant poll-tax payers, such as artisans, shopkeepers, tradesmen) 35%, i.e., together they accounted for nine of every ten petitions in this category.

9. Op. 3, d. 204; see, too, op. 18, d. 515 (8 October 1907); and op. 4, d. 396 (14 April 1917).

10. Op. 1, d. 300.

11. Svolchev/Svoichev, op. 17, d. 292 (25 October 1889); Bulvan/Bul'man, op. 2, d. 1443 (8 July 1907); Pludo/Pludov, op. 15, d. 683 (20 October 1907); Lagzdin/Lagodin, op. 1 1, d. 156 (23 October 1908); lobs/labs, op. 9, d. 304 (12 December 1913); Gokhman/ Gofman, op. 4, d. 1709 (25 April 1917).

12. Kozhemiakov/Kozhemiakin, op. 10, d. 1004 (10 April 1904); Ursul'/Ursov, op. 19, d. 92 (31 January 1914); Ivanov/lvanovskii, op. 9, d. 60 (17 April 1917).

13. Gramatskii/Gromadskii, op. 4, d. 1550 (19January 1916).

14. Op. 12, d. 425 (25 July 1905); see also the cases of Grigorii Mikitenko-Maslik, op. 12, d. 760 (31 January 1913) and Iosif Slesar'-Sliusarenko, op. 17, d. 762 (30 May 1916).

15. E.g. Brazhdziunts, op. 2, d. 1238 (23 October 1913) and Astvatsaturian, op. 1, d. 589 (20 June 1915).

16. Op. 10, d. 123 (4 May 1916).

17. E.g. Berezin/Golubev, op. 2, d. 615 (20 June 1908); Auman/Apfelbaum, op. 1, d. 612 ([19] January 1914); Samotiuk/Panebrat/Bondarchuk, op. 2, d. 1081 (15 October 1914); Aptov/Ishmetev, op. 1, d. 200 (16January 1916); Zakharov/Maksimov, op. 8, d. 217 (2 June 1917).

18. Op. 21, d. 229 (24 November 1889).

19. Op. 12, d. 1005 (16 June 1910).

20. Op. 2, d. 1269a ([30] September 1917).

21. Op. 4, d. 87 (3 June 1910). Similar filial devotion must have inspired a retired State Bank official who sought to add his mother's maiden name, Zhiro (Giraud), to his own, Gerts (Hertz) (op. 4, d. 561 [9 August 1917]).

22. Op. 6, d. 214 ([26] February 1915).

23. Op. 3, d. 413 (19 May 1906); op. 21, d. 87 (2 September 1906); and a recent gymnasium graduate asked for his stepfather's name (op. 4, d. 1254 [8 June 1917]).

24. Op. 9, d. 183 ([27] April 1890).

25. Op. 3, d. 795 ([11] August 1900).

26. Op. 17, d. 412 (26 December 1908).

27. Op. 17, d. 608 (19 December 1907).

28. Op. 1, d. 412 (5 December 1916); the petitions of Mikhail Kurilenkov (op. 10, d. 1987 [7 October 1907]) and Andrei Volodkin (op. 3, d. 771 [30 June 1917]) voiced similar grievances.

29. Op. 2, d. 512 (18 February 1908).

30. Op. 2, d. 893 (24 March 1910).

31. Totaling some 150 petitions, this category of'ill-sounding” names is the second largest in my sample. Of those who identified themselves by soslovie, almost four fifths—all but three—were peasants, meshchane and cossacks; only one was an honorary citizen of clerical parentage; and two were merchants (none were identified as noble). As with missing or disputed surnames, peasants were responsible for seven of every ten requests and meshchane for another two of ten.

32. Op. 16, d. 854 (4 August 1917).

33. Op. 14, d. 323 (16June 1914).

34. Op. 24, d. 639 (9 March 1917).

35. Op. 15, d. 1342 (3 September 1906).

36. Op. 16, d. 695 (10 May 1908).

37. Op. 12, d. 1369 (17 October 1908).

38. Op. 24, d. 764 (22 July 1889).

39. Op. 17, d. 807 (1 June 1911).

40. Op. 4, d. 862 (6 October 1914).

41. Op. 6, d. 160 (16 March 1916).

42. Op. 9, d. 136 (26 June 1917).

43. Op. 17, d. 918.

44. Op. 17, d. 934 (18 July 1916).

45. Op. 2, d. 1059 (17 October 1891).

46. Op. 8, d. 197 (15 July 1913).

47. Op. 12, d. 1441 (20 May 1915).

48. Op. 15, d. 1168 (before 12 July 1917) and addressed to the Voronezh Provincial Soviet of Soldiers', Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

49. More specifically, my sample lists five petitions in 1903, six in 1905, twelve in 1907, fourteen in 1908, fifteen in 1909–1911, thirteen in 1912–1913, sixteen in 1914–1915, nineteen in 1916 and 45 in 1917.

50. Op. 17, d. 1085 (20 August 1910).

51. Op. 17, d. 934 (18 July 1916).

52. Op. 5, d. 596 (9 May 1911).

53. Op. 12, d. 741 (10 March 1905).

54. Op. 10, d. 2034 (13 November 1903).

55. Op. 10, d. 860 ([13 May 1914J).

56. Op. 2, d. 764 (24 February 1907).

57. Op. 5, d. 692a (8 August 1915).

58. Op. 1, d. 471. Of the eighteen people in my sample who sought such permission, eleven were themselves converts and two more acknowledged at least distant Jewish roots.

59. Op. 1, d. 471 (5 February 1904).

60. Op. 1, d. 208 (23 June 1905).

61. Op. 26, d. 163 (4 December 1907).

62. Op. 10, d. 2085 (14 August 1904).

63. Op. 11, d. 286 (11 July 1905).

64. Op. 2, d. 1162 ([3] September 1915).

65. Op. 1, d. 32, 33, 37; op. 4, d. 632; op. 9, d. 164; op. 11, d. 154, 329.

66. Op. 11, d. 94 (6 April 1917).

67. Op. 2, d. 1569 ([14] July 1907).

68. Op. 1, d. 203 ([27] November 1914); op. 1, d. 206 (8 December 1916 and 3 April 1917).

69. Op. 2, d. 1251.

70. Of the 193 German-named petitioners, all but one waited until the onset of war to Russify their surnames. Petitions with German surnames, which make up 38.4% of the overall sample, account for a mere .7% of the pre-war petitions but they comprise fully 54% of the war-time petitions.

Of the 18 Jewish prewar petitions in my sample, 10 could easily have been deemed German, yet none claimed to be; in fact, at least 1 petitioner requested a German replacement. Once the war started, however, of the 24 petitions indicating some sort of Jewish connection, real or feared, 9 emphasized the “Germanness” of their names.

71. Op. 4, d. 302; op. 13, d. 79; op. 16, d. 464, 487.

72. E.g. Iosif Davidov Katsenelenbogen, a Petrograd meshchanin (op. 10, d. 451 [24 August 1915]); Grigorii Vasil'evich Dorfman, a Moscow meshchanin (op. 5, d. 552 [27 September 1914]); Grigorii Efremovich Rotenberg, a military doctor (op. 16, d. 1600 [30 November 1914]).

73. Russian subjects, of course, were not the only ones to want to rid themselves of their German names; the same happened with Americans of German origin and in other countries opposing the Central Powers.

74. Op. 4, d. 269 ([10 September 1914]).

75. Op. 10, d. 353 (16 September 1914).

76. Op. 10, d. 583 (23 June 1915).

77. Op. 8, d. 115 (21 October 1914).

78. Op. 4, d. 1380 ([?] October 1916).

79. Op. 2, d. 690 (27 August 1914 and 12 February 1915).

80. At least 38 nobles in my sample sought non-German names; another 10 identified themselves as honorary citizens. Whereas the comparable figures for other categories hover between one fifth and one fourth, more than half (108 of 193) of all the petitions with German names fail to identify the writer's social background or soslovie. Considering that nobles and honorary citizens were far more likely to petition to change a German name than the members of other social groups—38 of 42 nobles, 10 of 11 honorary citizens, 3 of 7 kuptsy, 23 of 85 meshchane, 14 of 144 peasants—and that people of German origin as a whole tended to be more prominent, there is reason to assume that a considerable part of those socially unidentified belonged to those two privileged groups.

Whereas German-named petitioners represented a heavy concentration of nobles and honorary citizens, not surprisingly, those with Jewish names came from less privileged backgrounds: excluding petitioners who failed to indicate their social origin, fully three fourths were meshchane but only one was a noble. Among ethnic names other than German or Jewish, again ignoring a substantial group without information on soslovie, there were no nobles or honorary citizens and twice as many peasants as meshchane. Jewish and other ethnic petitioners were more likely than German ones to have private occupations, although their number still paled in comparison with the large public sector, which included everything from education and medicine to transportation, administration and the military. As for differences in public employment, virtually all the applicants with Jewish or non-German ethnic names were civilians; by contrast, the German-named group had a large representation of military men, testimony to the preferential treatment of Germans and the systematic discrimination encountered by Jews and non-German ethnic minorities in the military.

81. Certainly the most prominent of all the petitioners was Vladimir Sabler, member of the State Council, State Secretary and former procurator-general of the Holy Synod; while other petitions took months to process, his was approved in the record time of six days (op. 17, d. 7 [14 November 1915]).

82. Op. 17, d. 1112 (13 June 1916).

83. Op. 2, d. 48b (3 October 1914). For all his Great Russian sympathies, the petitioner's three children all bore Latvian first names.

84. Op. 4, d. 165 (7 October 1915).

85. Op. 8, d. 115 (21 October 1914).

86. Op. 5, cl. 724 (6 July 1915).

87. Op. 12, d. 671 (4 June 1915).

88. Op. 18, d. 291 (30 November 1915).

89. Op. 4. d. 1413 (3 October 1915).

90. Op. 18, d. 476 (1 August 1915).

91. Op. 1, d. 140 (11 August 1914 and 10 October 1915).

92. Op. 16, d. 76 (5 June 1915).

93. Op. 12, d. 654 (6 June 1915).

94. Op. 1, d. 140 (11 August 1914). Cf. also the petition of four Bretshneider brothers from Warsaw who wanted to be called Godinskii (op. 2, d. 1282 [7 |une 1915j).

95. Op. 10, d. 529 (30 August 1914).

96. Thus Berg became Gorskii or Gorin; Gammer, Molotov; Blium, Tsvetaev; Berman, Medvedev; Rotenberg, Krasnogorov; Apfel, Iablokov; Klein, Mal'skii or Malyshev; Zwieback, Sukharev; Taube, Golubev; Schwartz, Chernov; Schmidt, Kuznetsov; Eiche, Dubov; Adler, Arlov [sic]; Trei, Vernov; Brunst, Pozharov. Pozharskii was disallowed because of historic precedent. Other translations were less literal: Gutman became Dobroliubov, for example (op. 4, d. 1262).

Occasionally there were some odd requests, such as the eccentric army officer who wanted to be called Prince Eristov, or the railroad engineer Ketler who wanted to hyphenate his name by adding the name of any of the provinces where he had constructed bridges (op. 2, d. 711 [2 August 1915]; op. 10, d. 596 [9 August 1915]).

97. Op. 10, d. 413 (16 December 1916).

98. Op. 13, d. 182 (17 April 1917). He requested Chekhov instead as a reminder of his origins, then asked for his mother's maiden name, Svoboda, in her honor and that of the revolution.

99. E.g. the two sailor brothers Gudziuk (op. 4, d. 1334 [26 April 1917]), or the teacher from Ekaterinoslav province who hoped to change Leperda to Ukrainskii (op. 11, d. 422 [22 January 1916]).

100. Op. 22, d. 117 (22 May 1917).

101. Op. 5, d. 699a (18 January 1905). Ironically, other petitioners rejected “Voronov” because of its “ill-sounding” properties.

102. Op. 15, d. 19 (7 December 1907). Her petition was denied, perhaps sparing her the embarrassment of having to alter her new German name when the war broke out.

103. Op. 1, d. 505 (23 August 1913).

104. Op. 21, d. 5 (5 May 1913).

105. Although his name was in fact Greek, he called it Turkish (op. 1, d. 684 [3 June 1912]).

106. Op. 5, d. 775 (5 July 1912).

107. Op. 10, d. 80 (14 May 1916).

108. Op. 1, d. 410 (13 May 1917).

109. Op. 4, d. 1621 (26 March 1916). Ordinarily such a demand would have been rejected on the spot. Although it is never mentioned in the petition itself, the German-Jewish ring of the petitioner's name may have led to approval.

110. Op. 2, d. 997 (11 June 1917).

111. Op. 19, d. 22 (23 August 1917).

112. Op. 13, d. 59 (26 May 1917).

113. Such requests comprise 4% of all petitions. Soslovie information is sparse. Twelve of the eighteen cases fall into the revolutionary period after February 1917.

114. Op. 17, d. 356 (19 December 1911); op. 4, d. 816 ([8 February] 1913 and 15 December 1916).

115. Op. 17, d. 258 (26 July 1906).

116. Op. 12, d. 886 (15 September 1917).

117. Op. 4, d. 249. Upon the speedy rejection of his first petition, Gaponchuk sent a second that focused instead on the uncultured sound and Ukrainian roots of his name—to no avail.

118. Op. 4, d. 1190 (26 June 1915); op. 12, d. 1340 ([?] April 1917).

119. Op. 16, d. 539 (20 April 1917). Another soldier was bothered by the surname Tsar'kov “which recalls the Tsar” (op. 22, d. 131 [24 April 1917]).

120. Op. 16, d. 534 (10 May 1917). The Provisional Government, however, rejected this and a large number of similar requests “since the petitioners do not have any blood relations with the former ruling house whatsoever; in fact, their very name is derived from the given name ‘Roman’ and is extremely widespread” (op. 16, d. 529).

121. Op. 16, d. 102 ([30 June 1917]).

122. Op. 12, d. 1340 ([?] April 1917); op. 16, d. I l i a (31 May 1917); op. 16, d. 108 (19 August 1917).

123. Op. 2, d. 245 (28 July 1917); capitalization and emphasis in original.

124. Op. 13, d. 103 ([27 April 1917]).

125. Op. 2, d. 887 ([23] August 1917); op. 3, d. 295 (9 September 1917).

126. Op. 21, d. 187 (30 March 1917).