Two years ago I started this thread:

http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=39323

I'd like to know what, if anything, my last name ("Mykytiuk") means, and what the proper Cyrillic spelling would be. I got a few suggestions at the time, but this is something I'd like to be really sure about, so the more responses I can get, the better. Thanks.

On the matter of transliteration, Мукутїк would be my first guess, either replacing у with Ю, І or Є, and as for the last dipthong, that could be any combination of things. Ukrainian has a number of vowels we don't distinguish in English, and I can't imagine the immigration officer back in the day would really care about transliterating your ancestor's name correctly. He either tried to transliterate it by seeing what the Cyrillic letters looked like in Latin, or by copying down the name by how it sounded. The latter seems somewhat unlikely to me, as English speakers would generally assume another vowel over y.

It doesn't help that I'm not sure how it's pronounced.

That's pretty much the root of the problem. My family has always pronounced it "micky-chuke" or "mick-ah-chuke", but I have no way of knowing if either of those are actually proper (they probably aren't).

Ok, so how about Pysanczyn?

[Puh-san-shun]

The name Mykytiuk derives from the name of the churchman Niketas (meaning victor or winner), a very popular metropolitan of Kiev in the 1100s. Many people chose to take the surname meaning "little Niketas" by adding the diminutive ending -iuk (-Юk). The resulting name was Nikitiuk or Mikitiuk, because the nasals n and m were interchangeable. The first two i's are transliterated as the letter y to represent a short i sound, as opposed to the long i's "ee" sound. Even today, there are people who have the family name Nykytiuk and Mykytiuk.
Here is the breakdown of the name as it stands. Nike means victory. In Greek, the ending -tas means the one who has it, i.e., the victor or winner. The -iuk makes it "little winner."

Wow, that's the most information I've seen in my searches so far.
So are you saying the original form would be "Mikitюk"? The transliteration tables I've looked at seem to show that the i's should be backwards N's, yielding "Микитюк", but just reading off a table isn't the best way of knowing what sound is intended.

Would you happen to have any sources for the etymology? I'd love to get more into it.

Thanks!

edit: Searching "Mykytiuk" + "Микитюк" (in google) seems to yield lots of results showing that the is the typical transliteration. Searching "Mykytiuk" + "Mikitюk" only seems to show results with Микитюк.

СТЭВЭН WAS HERE

Deus ex machina!

He must be posting from a hit he found on Google.

Conversation with a Ukrainian friend:

Bobbert: http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=50208
Bobbert: Any idea?
Friend: yeah, Mykyta is an old ukrainian name
Friend: it just means son of mykyta
Bobbert: any idea on the cyrillic?
Friend: Микитюк
Friend: when being transliterated, the "y" is pronounced like an "i" like in the word middle or window
Friend: im sure its derived from something way back when, but it really doesnt mean anything

Sorry, "son of mykyta" isn't quite as exciting as "dragon-lord bone slayer" or something along those lines. Maybe the "way back when" part is about dragons, though.

Heh, that's funny, looks like I was closer when I started (with "son of Mykytyn" in the other thread). Anyway, thanks very much. Between all my searching and a few personal accounts, I can say with reasonable confidence that it's "Микитюк". The meaning is more of a secondary curiosity, not as important as getting the spelling correct.

Thanks again, all!

edit:
Something interesting I found:
http://www.behindthename.com/name/mykyta

http://www.behindthename.com/name/anicetus


Good enough for me

The funny thing about Cyrillic is that they have multiple letters to represent the same vowel sounds, a trait they got from the Greeks, since it was a Greek (Saint Cyril) who developed the Glagolytic script which Cyrillic was based from.

Nobody loves me

I do.

IIRC the short i is a backwards n with a with some little u shaped thing above it so i'd say Мйкйтюк would be more correct

I wonder what the meaning of happydud's last name, "Kanakpriya," means.

Hmm, it's possible. It'd really be helpful if I knew how the name was supposed to be pronounced. I think as a final confirmation before I get the tattoo I'm going to go to this Ukrainian church in town and see if I can get someone to verify some stuff for me.

I'd somehow managed to forget that a friend of mine is Ukrainian, despite how often we joke she's a Chernobyl baby. I'll ask her sometime if I can remember the name. No promises though, her Ukrainian has gotten rusty compared to her Russian.

Name tattoo? Thats pretty lame.

It's in case he gets lost and someone finds him. He should get chipped and possibly spayed while he's at it

The й (Yot) makes a "j" sound.