The Name Tudorъ in Pre-Mongol Rus’: Christian or Scandinavian?

Abstract

The personal name Tudorъ is attested for the first time in Old Russian sources in the treaty between Rus’ and Byzantium of 944 and it occurs later in chronicles, birchbark letters, and other written sources up to the end of the 12th century. It is traditionally interpreted as a variant of the Christian name Θεóδωρος/Fe(o)dorъ, although no Christian names are found among the roughly seventy personal names of the participants listed in the preamble to the treaty; the overwhelming majority of the names are Scandinavian. The name Tudorъ is much more satisfactorily derived from a popular Scandinavian anthroponym Þjóðarr. In the 11th‒12th centuries, it was widely used both by Old Russian nobility (not of Rurikid origin) and by ordinary inhabitants of the Novgorodian land. This name, however, began to be confused with the phonetically close Christian name Fedorъ/Feodorъ already in the 12th century: in a graffito in St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, the week dedicated to St. Theodor of Tyron (the first week of Great Lent) is called ‘Tudor’s week.’ In the 13th century the name Tudorъ fell out of usage because it was replaced by the Christian name Fedorъ/Feodorъ.