Nationality as a Surname only in Czech or Slovak?

[alko]

Yeah baby, its Summer.

What i noticed is this little curiosity. Only in Czech or Slovakia you have players, that have nationality as a surname. For Example:

Simon Nemec aka Simon German
Pavel Francouz aka Pavel French
Tomas Slovak
Petr Cech aka Petr Czech

Why dont we have John Canada? Or Mike American?

Is this common in Sweden, Finland?

Click to read more...

 

[Hoochi Papa]

Does Puma Swede count?

 

[Letsdothis]

Reijo Ruotsalainen means Reijo Swedish/swede.

Suomalainen (Finnish/a finn) is also a surname in Finland.

 

[Prsut18]

Fun fact: Here in Czech you also have surnames based on the cities... for example "Pražák" means From Prague... or here nearby there is a small village with like 800 people called Hnátnice and you have a surname "Hnátnický" (from Hnátnice) too...

 

[Derailed75]

French and German are also used in English as last names.

 

[MadArcand]

Fun fact: Here in Czech you also have surnames based on the cities... for example "Pražák" means From Prague... or here nearby there is a small village with like 800 people called Hnátnice and you have a surname "Hnátnický" (from Hnátnice) too...

This is fairly common everywhere. However, you Czechs do have one unique type of surnames I've yet to see anywhere else - ones in past tense, i.e. "he <x>", where x is anything from "caught" (Chytil) to "slept through" (Prospal). Rozsival (sown), Musil (must), Latal (patched), Plihal (crept), Zboril (demolished), Radil (advised), Otevrel (opened), Nakladal (loaded up), Smejkal (slid), Svozil (gathered)...

Czech surnames also love diminutives (all those Voraceks and Jiriceks), but that's not that rare.

 

[Montreal Shadow]

Happens in Canada too. Some people have the family name L’Italien which you know what it means. I even knew a kid whose last name was Marocain (Moroccan).

 

[Staniowski]

Surnames already existed (for rhe most part) when Canada and the US were founded, so that's why there is no reference to these nationalities....but the European (and other) names (Deutsch, Scott, etc) of course exist in North America just as they do overseas.

 

[mattihp]

Swedish has lots of these, Romare (Roman), Dansk, Svensk, Fransman (Frenchman), Tysk (German), Holländare (Dutchman) etc

Edit: only Dansk is a player of some kind of quality

 

[Kahvi]

Some random examples of finnish players
Finland: Eemeli Suomi - Stats, Contract, Salary & More
Estonia: Eemil Viro - Stats, Contract, Salary & More
Russian Sami Venäläinen - Stats, Contract, Salary & More
Sweden Jesse Ruotsi - Stats, Contract, Salary & More
Germany Aapo Saksa - Stats, Contract, Salary & More
Norway Mika Norja - Stats, Contract, Salary & More

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Yeah baby, its Summer.

What i noticed is this little curiosity. Only in Czech or Slovakia you have players, that have nationality as a surname. For Example:

Simon Nemec aka Simon German
Pavel Francouz aka Pavel French
Tomas Slovak
Petr Cech aka Petr Czech

Why dont we have John Canada? Or Mike American?

Is this common in Sweden, Finland?

For one thing, “Canadian” and “American” are relatively new demonyms. I’m guessing that most surnames currently in use in those two countries were established many generations before Canada or the US became independent political entities.

 

[Number 57]

It happens a lot in French too, both as a first name or last name.

For exemple, there are a lot of women in Quebec named France. Also, the popular name François derives from Français (French).

There are people with last names such as L'anglais (The Englishman) or L'Italien (The Italian), etc. This is just off the top of my head

Though the best last name I ever heard in French was Longuepee (Long Sword)

 

[Panteras]

In Spanish you can have someone named Armando Elano. Which literally translates to “building the anus”.

 

[LightningStrikes]

I think family names referencing countries or cities is common in most languages. For example Oettingen is a small town in Germany, hence the name Oettinger. Etc.

 

[ViD]

I don’t know if it’s the same in Czech, but it always cracked me up that Petr Cech literally means Petr the Czech in Russian

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Yeah baby, its Summer.

What i noticed is this little curiosity. Only in Czech or Slovakia you have players, that have nationality as a surname. For Example:

Simon Nemec aka Simon German
Pavel Francouz aka Pavel French
Tomas Slovak
Petr Cech aka Petr Czech

Why dont we have John Canada? Or Mike American?

Is this common in Sweden, Finland?

Not true. Tedesco is a surname in Italian and it means German

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Swedish has lots of these, Romare (Roman), Dansk, Svensk, Fransman (Frenchman), Tysk (German), Holländare (Dutchman) etc

Edit: only Dansk is a player of some kind of quality

Oscar Dansk is a very bad player.

 

[kugelbahn]

Look no further than Great One: Gretzky = Greek

 

[ForsbergForever]

For what it's worth, there's a football player named Tom Canada who used to play in the Canadian Football League.

 

[Coffey]

Don't forget Roman Polak.

 

[Mrb1p]

Fun fact: Here in Czech you also have surnames based on the cities... for example "Pražák" means From Prague... or here nearby there is a small village with like 800 people called Hnátnice and you have a surname "Hnátnický" (from Hnátnice) too...

The same exists in pretty much every language, sometimes either because the name comes from a place of the place comes from the name.

 

[sansabri]

are you saying Martin St.Louis isn't St.Lousian

 

[Reality Czech]

For the record, Roman Turek (Turk) and Roman Polak (Pole). I've also heard of a Mr. Austrian but not a hockey player.

 

[Coffey]

For the record, Roman Turek (Turk) and Roman Polak (Pole). I've also heard of a Mr. Austrian but not a hockey player.

Being polish and my grandpas name being Roman, I was sure Roman Polak was a countryman... Then I found out he was a brother instead lol

 

[tarheelhockey]

“English” is a common surname in English.

English (surname) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

To a lesser extent so is “German”.

German (surname) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The most common is “Scott”, which in the US and Canada is top-30 among names of English origin.
Scott (surname) - Wikipedia

And then there are place-based surnames: Tom Holland, Kathy Ireland, Ken Spain, Bill France, etc.


I’d imagine this is common in all languages, as it’s a common-sense way for a surname to develop. Hey, remember Bill? No, not your brother Bill. Bill from France.