Some Estonian names centuries older than expected
While some Estonian families got surnames only a century ago, others trace back over 500 years — long before serfdom ended, writes researcher Fred Puss.
It's a common misconception that Estonians lacked family names before serfdom was abolished two centuries ago. This idea was popularized by history textbooks in the 1920s and 1930s by Hans Kruus and Jüri Parijõgi.
According to their narrative, peasants were given poor names because they stood outside the manor, hat in hand and unable to answer when asked by the landlord what name they wanted.
Such cases did occur, mainly in Northern Estonia, but they were far from the norm. Before legally mandated surnames, peasants used bynames (lisanimed) — often treated as surnames in other cultures.
Around one in four surnames were based on preexisting bynames. These typically came before a person's first name, or given name, and were in the genitive case, such as Koka Jaan, Mardi Jaani Juhan or Uuetoa Mari.
Bynames could derive from farm names, family names, occupations or nicknames.
As a side note, in historical terms, a surname (perenimi) is not the same as a family name (perekonnanimi), though today the two are treated as equivalent. Bynames were diverse and sometimes inconsistent, yet they functioned de facto just like legally assigned surnames.
Unlike modern surnames, however, historical surnames were sometimes fluid. People could retain their byame when moving, or adopt the permanent name of a new farm when settling there. Patterns varied even within villages.
Isolated farms outside villages also usually had stable names that stuck regardless of who lived there, while village farms often only developed more permanent names in the early 19th century. Without specific maps, it's often impossible to tell which monikers endured — family names or farm names.
Most continuous genealogical records in Estonia date from the early 18th century. These records allow researchers to identify when a byname was in use in a given family.
Yet not everything was written down — some names disappear from records for centuries but remain historically old.
The first written lists of most landowners in what is now modern-day Estonia appear in the 16th century.
Comparing these bynames with early 19th century surnames reveals that roughly two percent of today's surnames stem from names already recorded in the 1500s. Examples include Koikson (1542, Kockeste), Muttika (1591, Muddike), Pahapill (1592, Pilli) and Talts (1585, Thalzi).
Although these were not formal family names in the 16th century, and no records confirm a direct line of descent, their roots stretch back nearly 500 years.
For a deeper dive, see the study "From Kockeste to Koikson: 16th century bynames in Estonian family names."
