Вопросы ономастики (Jul 2021)
Types of Spelling Mistakes in Personal Documents of Russian Citizens and Migrants Applying for Russian Citizenship
Abstract
The paper analyses mistakes and inconsistencies that tend to occur in the spelling of surnames, first names, and patronymics in personal documents of Russian citizens when they register for pensions and other welfare payments, as well as in the documents of migrants applying for Russian citizenship. The material for the study was retrieved from in-person enquiries received at the Department of Russian Language, General Linguistics and Speech Communication of the Ural Federal University during 2005–2021. The certificates issued by the author in response to those requests served to confirm the identity of the names of applicants and their relatives in birth certificates, passports, employment records, marriage certificates, etc. The material includes the documents drawn up on the territory of the USSR and former Soviet republics, and some in the far abroad. The paper identifies the types of mistakes and variations in the spelling of names, patronymics, and surnames in these documents and looks for the reasons to such variation. The study showed that along with spelling mistakes which are generally few (dropping / replacing a letter, adding an extra letter, word formation errors), there are much more frequent cases of variation of names, patronymics and surnames due to linguistic and sociolinguistic reasons: 1) the use of orthographic name variants, 2) the use of the literary and colloquial version of the name, 3) replacing a little-known name with a more popular one with similar pronunciation, 4) the existence of word-formation and phonetic variants including multilingual equivalents of the personal name, 5) new variants appearing in the course of rendering the name into Russian and transliteration of specific vowels and consonants of other languages, 6) changes in the graphics and spelling in the languages of the former Soviet republics and a tendency to correct the Russified forms of names, patronymics, and surnames initially recorded in Soviet times to match the updated norms.
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