Ivan Fyodorov (printer) - Name

Name

In those times Russians still did not have hereditary surnames, but used patronymics or nicknames, which were also not stable. In his first book "Apostolos" (printed in Moscow in 1564) he called himself in typical Russian style Ivan Fedorov that is "Ivan, son of Fedor". In his other famous book "Ostrog Bible" (1581) he called himself in both Church Slavonic and Greek as "Ivan, son of Feоdor (Феодоров сын, Θεοδώρου υἱός), a printer from Moscow". In the Greek version there was "from Great Russia" instead of "from Moscow". But when he was living for a long time in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he adopted a Polish style "patronymic surname" and also added a nickname indicating his origin. In his Latin documents he signed Johannes Theodori Moscus (that is "a Muscovite"), or Ioannes Fedorowicz Moschus, typograghus Græcus et Sclavonicus. As a result of the dialectical replacement of consonant /f/ with /x~xw/ in East Slavic the first letter F was sometimes changed, so the patronymic became Chwedorowicz or Chodorowicz. In his later Slavonic books (printed in PLC) he signed "Ioann (Ivan) Fe(o)dorovich" (with some orthographic differences), and added a nickname "a Muscovite printer" or just simply "a Muscovite".