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North Macedonia

Naming Customs

Understanding customs used in surnames and given names can help you identify your ancestors in records. Learn to recognize name variations and see clues in names.

Around a quarter of Macedonia’s population are ethnic-Albanian and may follow Albanian naming practices. See, Albania Naming Customs.

Online Tools

• Behind the Name: Macedonian Surnames
• Behind the Name: Macedonian Given Names
• Surname experience at FamilySearch - search by surname to learn its meaning and origin

Surnames

• The surnames in Macedonian are predominantly made by adding the possessive suffix -ски (-ski), usually with an additional possessive suffix to a personal name -ев (-ev), title, occupation, etc.
• Elision (joining together or merging) is common in Spoken Macedonian, and this has resulted in forms such as -оски (-oski) and -ески (-eski). An example is the surname Милевски (Milevski) which is made up of the personal name Mile and the possessive suffixes -ев (-ev) and -ски (-ski).
• There are some surnames without suffixes such as Темелко (Temelko), Насто (Nasto), Митре (Mitre), Никола (Nikola), Ристо (Risto), Терпо (Terpo) and Трајко (Trajko) among the Macedonians of Albania.
• There are also some names whose etymology is unknown.
• Female surnames mirror those for men, but inflect for grammatical gender: -ова (-ova), -евa (-eva), -ска (-ska). Consequently, the feminine form of the surname Milevski is Milevska (elided forms would be Mileski and Mileska, respectively).
• The most common suffixes used for surnames and the most common (top 6) surnames by statistical region are as follows:

Eastern, -ов/-ев: Стојанов, Николов, Митев, Јованов, Атанасов, Иванов.

Northeastern, -овски/-евски: Јовановски, Стојановски, Трајковски, Спасовски, Николовски, Илиевски.

Pelagonia, -о(в)ски/-е(в)ски: Ристески, Ристевски, Стојановски, Талевски, Петровски, Петрески.

Polog, an Albanian-majority region. Top 6 surnames are Albanian.

Skopje, -овски/-евски: Стојановски, Николовски, Трајковски, Јовановски, Петровски, Крстевски.

Southeastern, -ов/-ев: Стојанов, Ристов, Митев, Атанасов, Јованов, Ѓоргиев.

Southwestern, -о(в)ски/-е(в)ски: Ристески, Наумоски, Петрески, Стојаноски.

Vardar, -ов/-ев: Стојанов, Петров, Јованов, Ристов, Николов, Димов.

Given Names

• The origin of the Macedonian names varies. Most of them are of Macedonian Slavic origin, but there are popular names of foreign origin as well.
• Some names can be simple, such as Драги (Dragi), and some can be complex, such as Драгомир (Dragomir).
• The names are given according to people's will, way of living and the conditions where people live. They are quite important in the Macedonian society since they serve as an identification, and they are basis for development of the Macedonian surnames and nicknames.
• Many personal names unique to Macedonian were historically hypocorisms: ex. Гоце (Goce) (for Георгија (Georgija) and variants) which is now a name in its own right, while others have remained hypocorisms such as Зоки (Zoki) for Зоран (Zoran).

Nicknames

In Macedonian, usually, the nickname is given according to some physical characteristic of the person, but also they can reflect person's profession, personal characteristics, mental capabilities or disabilities. Some Macedonian nicknames are: буцко (bucko, "fatso"), зборко (zborko, "chatterbox"), женкар (ženkar, "ladies' man") and many others.