This page shows the story about our surname. What is its origin, how many people
there are with the same name in the Czech Republic and so on.
Man’s -> woman’s surname
The Slavic languages have different surname for man and his woman. The
general rule is to add “ová” after the man’s surname. This has nearly the same
meaning as adding “‘s” after the man’s surname in English. It just shows that the woman
belongs to him.
In some cases you cannot easily create the woman’s name, especially when the
man’s name ends with vowel or the pronunciation is too difficult. Even today
the woman’s name created can vary in different regions.
For example name Hrabě, in English Count. The surname of his wife is not Hraběnka, in
English Countess, but it
will be either Hraběová – what sounds and looks strange or Hrabětová that
sounds good but is incorrect from my point of view. I would use Hraběnka
but this will look like the person is aristocrat. If you will later create man’s
name from Hrabětová you will get Hraběta and not Hrabě.
The frequencies are in this case Hrabě – 463, Hraběta – 90,
Hraběová – 37, Hrabětová – 560. The only explanation for name Hraběta is that it was created
from Hrabětová.
In the Brablc or Vrabec family the same happened with names: Vrablec,
Brablec. They were created from the woman’s form of different man’s surname
because someone was trying to find the proper man’s name using another known scheme.
Using this we can get from Vrablc to Vrablcová and using analogy
Vrabcová -> Vrabec we will get back to a different name Vrablec.
But we do not stop here, now we create woman’s name to Vrablec, this could be
either Vrablcová or Vrablecová.
This is most visible in case of Vrabl surname. Please check Vrabl and Vrabel
in the next table and you will find that the frequencies of man’s and woman’s name does not match at all.
Although in case of Brabec everyone knows that his wife will be Vrabcová
and
the form Brabecová does not exist, in case of Vrabel there is 50% chance that
it will be one of Vrablová, Vrabelová. The reason for this is probably the frequency.
If the frequency is very low then the registry office does not know what to use.
Frequency of the surnames with the similar origin
| Man’s Surname | Count | Woman’s Surname | Count | From | My explanation of the surname origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vrabec | 1062 | Vrabcová | 1098 | – | Lat. “Passer”, eng. “Sparrow” – the correct name of a small bird in Czech language. |
| Vrablc | 10 | Vrablcová | 16 | Vrabec | Confusion from ‘e’ to ‘l’ when handwritten with lower letters, probably only one source of this mistake. |
| Vrablec | 11 | Vrablecová | 15 | Vrablcová | Man’s name created from the Vrablcová using the Vrabcová -> Vrabec scheme. |
| Vrabl | 5 | Vrablová | 59 | Vrablc | Hard to guess. May be shortened name because someone could not believe to ‘c’ after ‘l’ or there is no relation. |
| Vrabel | 98 | Vrabelová | 57 | Vrabl Vrablová |
Two possible sources of mutation. |
| Brabec | 3160 | Brabcová | 3364 | Vrabec | Either there were so many mutations from Vrabec or this name was used even before Vrabec. |
| Brablc | 106 | Brablcová | 110 | Brabec | Confusion from ‘e’ to ‘l’ when handwritten with lower letters.
According to the Slovník jazyka Valašského |
| Brabetz | 6 | ? | 0 | Brabec | Phonetic transcription to German. Probably mistake during the World War II. I think the progeny use Brabec name again. |
| Brablec | 200 | Brablecová | 198 | Brablcová | Man’s name created from the Brablcová using the Brabcová -> Brabec scheme. |
Ministerstvo vnitra CR, 1999
Transformation from ‘e’ to ‘l’
As you can find from the table above the name Brablc has probably its origin in
name Brabec. If you wonder how it came that the ‘e‘ has been changed to ‘l‘
then listen to our sorry.
One day small son was born to family of Mr. Brabec. It was duty of the registrant
on the parish registry to put new record. But he was little bit
drunken. When he was writing letter ‘e‘ in lower letters he made a hiccup
and the letter ‘e‘ became ‘l‘.
You do not have to believe this but I was told this story long time ago.
I like this story and I believe that this was the way how our surname has
been created (but I do not think there had to be alcohol in the play).
On the following animation you can see that it is easy to
change ‘e‘ to ‘l‘:
Pronunciation
In German it is easy – Brabltz. In English it should be something like Bruhblts where ‘u‘ should be pronounced as in word mum and the ts should be read as the second ts in the tsetse fly as I can hear my lexicon.
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