Personal Names
Prussian Lithuanian surnames often consist of a patronymic with suffixes "-eit" and "-at". It has the same role as the English suffix "-son" in the surnames Abrahamson and Johnson. Examples include: Abromeit, Grigoleit, Jakeit, Wowereit, Kukulat, Szameitat.
Another type of Prussian Lithuanian surname use the suffixes "-ies" or "-us": Kairies, Resgies, Baltßus, Karallus.
A difference existed between female and male surnames in everyday speech. For example, while officially the wife of Kurschat (Prussian Lithuanian Kurßaitis or Kurßatis) was also called Kurschat, in the Prussian Lithuanian language special forms were used in speech: the form of a wife's surname was Kurßaitê / Kurßatė and the form of an unmarried woman was Kurßaitikê / Kurßaitukê.
Read more about this topic: Prussian Lithuanians
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or names:
“The child realizes to every man his own earliest remembrance, and so supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over the unconscious history with a sympathy so tender as to be almost personal experience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Watt’s need of semantic succour was at times so great that he would set to trying names on things, and on himself, almost as a woman hats.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)