Eastern European surnames: I and Y

[maxd]

I'm wondering if anyone out there can tell me why Eastern Europeans will often spell their names more than one way. For instance I have a PAB person from Hungary who sometimes spells her name as Kaprovari, with an 'i', and sometimes as Kaprovary, with a 'y'.

[That's not her real name by the way, just using it as an example]

So why the i/y difference? Just curious.

[spiderlegz]

In case of Hungarian (latin alphabet) this might be an explanation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_acute_accent

I had always tought that only those who use the Cyrillic alphabet used either i, y or sometimes j (so I got curious too).
Like Jevgeni/Yevgeny

[maxd]

Hmm, interesting, but unfortunately I don't see how it applies in this case. On her Hungarian passport her name ends as "VARI" with an acute accent on the 'A':


So I guess I'm saying (a) not sure that the accent on the 'A' would affect the 'I', and (b) I still don't understand how the Hungarian 'I' becomes both 'I' and 'Y' in English.

Thanks for the link though, did learn a thing or four from it.

[spiderlegz]

Yes, Im a bit puzzled too. Pronounced as an y? shouldnt matter tough. Any Hungarians in the forum? Please, we need to know

[maxd]

GM sent me this via PM (reprinted with permission):

The suffix -i in Hungarian forms an adjective meaning "from a certain place", and there are many surnames of this kind. Before Hungarian spelling was regulated and standardized, both -i and -y were used, and this survives in surnames, otherwise the letter y only occurs in the combinations gy, ly and ty and in foreign loanwords. It is just about possible that someone might have documents showing his surname with two different spellings.

I thought that was a useful contribution to the subject.

[RobWin]

I'm wondering if anyone out there can tell me why Eastern Europeans will often spell their names more than one way.

Why does other people's spelling & grammar even matter eh? Playground stuff.

Reference:

[Casinomeister]

This isn't playground stuff.

This is important since we'll get PABs where the person is spelling his/her name differently. We need to know why

There are some casinos who are unfamiliar with this and may peg the player as trying to commit player fraud. That's all.

[zuga]

Hungary is not in the Eastern Europe

[maxd]

Hungary is not in the Eastern Europe

Yes, I've just been told that. I'm from Canada so ... understandable mistake I think. To us anything East of Germany is Eastern Europe. Live and learn.

Also, I've had more info on this spelling thing. A helpful reader said:

For instance my surname is pronounced something like ----esi, where s not the English noun s like "sun", but rather the German sch like schön.

When I pronounce my name, and somebody wants to write it down, there is room for mis-spelling in writing due to heritage variants, the following are all possible and pronounced almost identically: ----esi, ----esy, ----essi, ----essy. The same applies for surnames ending --asi (--asy, --assi, --assy) and a lot of other endings.

If a name ends like "vary", then if somebody else writes your name, then it is also possible to write it as "vari". The vari is the common one (means that somebody is from a location where there's a castle, "var" is castle, "vari" is something like a "Berliner" in German, if Berlin would also mean castle ), the "vary" is a bit archaic.

[Casinomeister]

Hungary is not in the Eastern Europe

Hmm..open to debate:

UN

The United Nations Statistics Division considers Eastern Europe to consist of the following ten countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations

CIA

The CIA World Factbookdescribes the following countries as located in:

* Central Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
* Eastern Europe: Belarus, Estonia[16], Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine
* Southeastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo (Semi-recognised as a country), Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
* Russia is defined as a transcontinental country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe