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Magyarization of Serbian and Other Ethnic Surnames in Hungary

May 19, 2012 by yugaya

MAGYARIZATION OF SURNAMES

Magyarization (also Magyarisation, Hungarization, Hungarisation, Hungarianization, Hungarianisation) is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Hungarian elements came to adopt Hungarian (also called “Magyar”) culture and language due to social pressure (often, though not exclusively, in the form of a coercive policy).

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

(Great Migration of Serbs 1690. to Hungary, painting “Seoba Srba” by Paja Jovanović)

The Great Migration of Serbs under the patriarch Arsenije III Čarnojević lead the Serbs to settle in Northern Hungary, all the way to its deserted and by Ottoman invasions devastated cities.

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

Budim ( Buda) had between 1706-1708. 484 Serbian taxpayers. Since the year 1695. they were organized in trade and manufacturing unions that represented 20 trades and 88 tradeshops and merchant stores.

TABAN

According to the data from the year 1715. TABAN, one of the central settlements on the slopes of the Buda hills, had 1538 households : 769 were South Slavic,mostly Serbian, 701 were German , and 68 were Hungarian. Serbian Orthodox Church temple dedicated to St. Dimitrije in Buda was destroyed by the authorities to make way for a boulevard in XX century. Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Taban that existed between 1796 and 1916 was closed and the remains were in 1930. moved to a crypt in the central Buda cemetery.

( centre: Serbian Orthodox Temple of Saint Dimitrije, Buda, built in 1751. torn down in 1949.)

The process of state-enforced *Magyarization* of surnames and names of other ethnicities in Hungary that happened during the XIX century is well documented. If you suspect a name-change occured in your family then you should consult the archives, because records of official change of surnames do exist. All ethnicities were subjected to this process, but the Serbs suffered even officiall legislation that banned their original ethnic surnames ending in – IĆ.

You can read more on that here:

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

http://www.genealogy.ro/cont/13.htm

Surnames were trunckated, translated or replaced altogether.

In this book you will find documented only a tiny fraction of the surnames that were magyarized between 1800-1893. :

http://mek.oszk.hu/07400/07431/07431.pdf

Most famous example of the magyarization of the Slavic surnames is the Hungarian poet Petőfi Sándor. His parents were father Stevan Petrović, Serbian, and mother Maria Hruzova, Slovakian .

Stevan Petrović and Maria Hruzova. Their magyarized names are Petrovics István and Hrúz Mária. Their son was written into baptism records under the name ALEXANDER PETROVICS.

His Serbian contemporaries in Budapest testified to the fact that he went as far to forbid anyone mentioning or addressing him by his birth name. He is considered to be one of greatest national poets of Hungary, whose role in the 1848. revolution and patriotic poetry are important part of national history .

MAGYARIZATION OF SERBIAN SURNAMES

“An -ics,-vics is not Hungarian”

“A Chapter from the History of the Magyarization of Names”

academic paper by Farkas Tamás

With the rise of nationalism, besides their identifying function, family names have become a kind of ethnic symbol, a possible means of expressing the collective identity of their bearers.

During the earlier stages of spontaneous contacts between peoples and languages, foreign sounding family names had started to change so as to sound Hungarian, while during the 19th century this gave place to a process of conscious, official change of family names, in our case to the Magyarization of family names. This paper sums up the thinking in the background, the examples and forms of realization of the process (change of name, conscious change of name, pseudonym) in the case of
typical family names of Serbian origin ending in -ics (-ovics, -evics) in Hungary.

The author presents the typical ways these names were changed and also the role that the name endings had in this change; he also refers shortly to the reverse process, that is, the Slavification or conscious Slavification of Hungarian family names.

Keywords: language contacts, assimilation, ethnic symbol, family name, language change, Magyarization of one’s surname, surnames ending in -ics (-ovics, -evics).

The paper is available in Hungarian language here:

http://adattar.vmmi.org/cikkek/1791/letunk_2009.02_06_farkas_tamas.pdf

surnames ( partial index) :

Vojnits, Davidovics, Herskovits, Petrovics, Simoncsits, Zsalakovics , Zsalakó, Sinkovics ,Sinkó, Bajnovics , Bajna, Radovics , Radó, Kovácsics , Kovács, Gasparovics ,Gáspár, Markovics ,Markó , Márk, Jankovics , Jankó , Janka,Gerevich, Gerei, Sztankovics, Tánkó, Grkinić , Szerbi, Radics,Jankovics, Markovics, Keszeits ; Keszei, Mándics; Mándi Szenteleky, . Petőfi….

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

Also an academic paper , this one is in Croatian language:

MAGYARIZATION OF CROATIAN SURNAMES

The anthroponymy and toponymy of the Dalmatian Croats in Northern Hungary by Živko Mandić
Summary:
In the introduction of this article the author presents a short overview of the history and dialect of the Croatian (Dalmatian) community in the northern part of Hungary, in the city of Szentendre. On the basis of rich archival material and information provided by the oldest local residents, the article analyses the following: personal names (specifically national names, saints’names, the correct forms of male and female names, and the nicknames derived from them), surnames, personal and family nicknames, and microtoponyms. At the end of the text are a list of informants, a bibliography, and questionnaires.

http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/35057
Ključne riječi: osobna imena, prezimena, nadimci, mikrotoponimi
Key words: proper names, surnames, nicknames, place names

surnames ( partial index) : Abrahamov Ačkov Adamov Aksapetić Aksapetin Àlāč Ambrović Andić Andimirović Andrić Andriković Anikić Antalović Antonović Antunović Arnaut Augustinović Babica Bȁbić Babin Bàcako Badić Bakić Balašović Balić Barbir Barčakov Barić Bartalović Beban Bebanović Belaković Bȇlović Benkov Bénković Berkić…..

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