In the Russian Empire, illegitimate children were sometimes given artificial surnames, rather than the surnames of their parents. In some cases an illegitimate child of a Russian aristocrat was given a surname derived from the surname of the father by truncation of the first syllable. For example, Trubetskoy was trimmed to Betskoy (also Eugene Pchelov (Евгений Пчелов), "Ещё раз о типологии фамилий внебрачных потомков русского дворянства", Известия Русского Генеалогического общества. Вып. 34. СПб., 2018. С. 203–210.). There were some other ways to hint at the parent's surname, while in still other cases new surnames had no direct relation to that of parent's.Boris Unbegaun, Russian surnames, — Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972; Russian version: Русские фамилии, 1989, Chapter IX: "Artificial surnames" НЕСТАНДАРТНЫЕ РУССКИЕ ФАМИЛИИ, citing Суслова А.В., Суперанская А.В., О русских именах, Л.: Лениздат, 1991И. М. Ганжина (I. M. Ganzhina). "Словарь современных русских фамилий" (Dictionary of Modern Russian Last Names). Moscow, 2001.
Other truncated surnames include: Yelagin to Agin, Repnin to Pnin, Golitsyn to Litsyn or , Vorontsov to Rantsov, Rumyantsev to Umyantsev, and Potemkin to Temkina.
In a number of cases illegitimate children received the surname of the adopting parent, as was in the case, e.g., prominent Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky.
See also
:Category:Illegitimate children of Russian monarchs Surnames of illegitimate children References
Further reading , Генеалогические сведения о русских дворянских родах, происшедших от внебрачных союзов. Publication and commentary by Р. Г. Красюков, with expansion. — СПб., 2003. Сахаров И.В., "Российские фамилии, в которых запечатлено внебрачное происхождение лиц, их получивших", Известия Русского Генеалогического общества. Вып. 31. СПб., 2017. С. 19–74. Губастов К.А. Генеалогические сведения о русских дворянских родах, происшедших от внебрачных союзов (written in 1908) Публ. и коммент. Р.Г. Красюкова. СПб., 2003.