On the Origin of the Russian Surnames Bagryzlov, Badryzlov

Abstract

The study explores the origin of the surnames Bagryzlov, Badryzlov currently owned by several hundred Russians. At present, these are mostly spread in the south of the Tyumen region and in adjacent territories which is where the surname Badryzlov first appears in historical documents in the first half of the 18th century. According to these sources, the surname indicates a relation to Cossacks. The geographical and linguistic analysis of the variants of the surname undertaken by the author with consideration of close evidence from Russian dialectal appellative vocabulary and onomastics (including those territories that were historically associated with the Cossacks) confirmed the “Cossack” origin of these surnames. According to the author’s hypothesis, they go back to the South Russian Cossack nickname from the appellative *badryzglo which meant either a reveler who likes to drink heavily or, conversely, a weak, sick, old person. In the first case, the surnames can be traced back immediately to the verb dryzgat’ ‘to drink alcoholic beverages immoderately,’ whilst in the second case, the surnames must be considered in relation to the verb’s derivatives meaning ‘something broken, crumbling, worthless.’ The research is at the junction of onomastics and dialect lexicology: apart from the surnames Bagryzlov, Badryzlov, it covers the etymology of a number of close common dialectal words (bagryza, bagryzlo, bagryzya) and reconstructed forms (*badryzlo, *badryzya). Looking into the etymology of the Ural and Siberian surnames, the author specifies two main ways of how South Russian Cossack vocabulary could penetrate the dialects of the Urals and Trans-Urals. Firstly, there is documentary evidence that Cossack daughters were often married to local peasants and citizens, secondly, the decossackizations periodically carried out in the Russian Empire led to the fact that many Cossacks finally stopped participating in military activities and became peasants or citizens.