The meaning of Litwintschik

London, UK

9th February 2009

I went to get my haircut last week and the girl cutting my hair was from Lithuania. We got to chatting and at one point I told her my last name, she then said it means "Little Lithuanian". I had heard this once or twice before but it was never said to me in a convincing "this can't mean anything else" way. I fired a few messages around facebook to friends who might know Lithuanians that can help set the story straight and I got the following very helpful response back from a woman named Laima:

Your present surname sounds bit Polish:

Litwa - Lithuania in Polish

Litwiny - Lithuanians.

Litwintschik could be translated like "little Lithuanian" in Polish (schik is a diminutive ending).

LIT-VIN-CHIK also seems to have to do with Lithuania. Litwa, Litva, Lytva, Litvania means Lithuania in all Slavic languages, so seems that your surname is made from word Litwa or Litva.

Or, in fact "Litvin (as)". "as" is a Lithuanian ending.

Litvin-Litvinas is a word describing a Lithuanian person who had lived in the Great Duchy of Lithuania, but then moved to Belarus.

So yeah, it depends where your ancestors have come from (Russia, Belarus, Poland or Lithuania), but in any case I think their roots must have been in Lithuania.

My guess would be that very ancient ancestors of yours were Lithuanians, who had lived here at the times of Great Duchy of Lithuania, then moved to Belarus, still keeping their roots and calling themselves litviny - Lithuanians.

It's incredible how she got the Belorussian connection spot on. During the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuanian was often marginalised so it's no surprise to see the Polish diminutive ending "schik" at the end.

My Great-Granddad lived in Slonim in Belarus on the border of Lithuania. Sometimes food was scarce but Slonim was always reliable for growing potatoes and so people from Lithuania often drifted in.

When the Germans invaded everyone went up into the Urals. Eventually my Great-Granddad ended up in Pskov, Russia, near the Estonian border, and got an education. He become a Teacher and a School Principal. Eventually he was killed and my Granddad fled to Austria and Germany where his last name was converted from Cyrillic into Latin and became "Litwintschik".

I remember when I first walked around in Latvia and saw that a lot of people "looked" like me. It sounds odd but more so than in any other country, men shared the same hair and eye colours and facial features were somewhat similar. I think I will plan a trip to Vilnius to see what I can discover there.

I don't mean to marginalise my Scottish, Irish or Latvian roots with this article. It's just great to finally have a decent explanation to the meaning of my last name.