Cat names

[Helen Fedor]

I was once told (in Bratislava) that a fairly common Slovak name for a cat is Murko,  based on the word < murkat' >, meaning 'to purr', so that Murko would mean something like 'little purring (male) one'.  Someone recently asked me how you would make a feminine name out of this.  Just replacing the 'o' with an 'a' wouldn't do it, as that would make it Murka, which would mean either 'of Murko' (the genitive) or 'he/she/it is purring,' no?  So what would be the feminine equivalent?
 
My cousins, who live in the eastern part of the country, once told me that a typical name for a female cat is Cica, which translates to 'she who suckles', no doubt referring to the endless stream of kittens to be found in Slovak villages.
 
H

[Martin]

that a typical name for a female cat is Cica

Like chick in English, men sometimes use the noun cica based on "cat, kitten" as an even more boorish equivalent of "babe." It is based on cicať, "to suck" or "suckle," which also gave the name of the class of mammals: cicavce. But the people you spoke to in Bratislava invented the verb you mention, Helen, to "explain" the meaning of the other characteristic name for a cat, there is no record of such a verb in Slovak. There are similar verbs, e.g., mručať (commonly, a murmuring sound bears make), but that's not where Muro/Murko comes from.

The name is based on murkovaný, an equivalent of the English "tabby (tiger)" or "calico (tortoiseshell)" indicating cat colors. The word is related to the English moor, it first used to refer to grayish, ashen tabbies in Slovak, but the meaning has expanded over the centuries.

The default gender for a cat is feminine in Slovak (while cat tends to be personified as "he" in English), so the description is murkovaná mačka, but as a name, Muro or Murko is applied to tomcats, no feminine derivation.

BTW, "to purr" is priasť (the same as "to spin = create yarn"), based on the sound of a whirling spindle.

[Helen Fedor]

Fascinating.  Thank you, Martin for explaining it all, including the false etymology.  Is there any other stereotypical name for a female cat?
 
H
 

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Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 11:16:02 -0700
From: m.r.v...@gmail.com
To: slova...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Slovak Spot] Re: Cat names

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[Martin]

stereotypical name for a female cat?

Not many, people give their cats "foreign" human names, invent endearments, Slovak human names. Among the few that would be recognized as such are Cica, Mica, Čiči, and Cilka (a nickname for Cecília), i.e., ones with the sounds commonly used to attract a cat, ci-ci [tsee-tsee] or či-či [tshee-tshee]. Not that cats appear to react to them any more than to other sounds. BTW, I have now traced a few instances of the feminine Murka as a cat's name, and here is a drawing of a "Siberian," as he says, cat called Murka by a person identifying himself as Russian, so this word for "tabby/calico" may also appear in other Slavic languages.

[htcstech]

Muci was the default name of any cat we owned. For decades I thought it meant cat. Turns out the name was a family tradition probably coming from the Slovak/Moravian side of the family*. We never used cici as for us meant 'small (often lactating) breast' of any mammal or human, so you wouldn't find me wandering the neighbourhood yelling that out when the cat went missing....

Cica meant a young cat, mother cat, equivalent to pussycat. Indeterminate gender and used as a generic term. Macicka was heard occasionally.

Macka (Macska-Matska) just means cat.

I had to look up tom-cat. In Hungarian it is Kandur which has no obvious relationship to the Slovak Murko/Muro. However Google gives the name Kocur.

I did take the trouble to listen to Google translate's word sounds for Hungarian Macska and Slovak Macka. They are different in the vowel sounds and it was the Hungarian version that I knew best.

Peter M.

* We were culturally isolated from other Slovaks/Hungarians since 1956 for many years, so there were no new words introduced in my vocabulary till about 1975.

On 27 March 2015 at 06:53, Martin <m.r.v...@gmail.com> wrote:

stereotypical name for a female cat?

Not many, people give their cats "foreign" human names, invent endearments, Slovak human names. Among the few that would be recognized as such are Cica, Mica, Čiči, and Cilka (a nickname for Cecília), i.e., ones with the sounds commonly used to attract a cat, ci-ci [tsee-tsee] or či-či [tshee-tshee]. Not that cats appear to react to them any more than to other sounds. BTW, I have now traced a few instances of the feminine Murka as a cat's name, and here is a drawing of a "Siberian," as he says, cat called Murka by a person identifying himself as Russian, so this word for "tabby/calico" may also appear in other Slavic languages.

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[Martin]

tom-cat. In Hungarian it is Kandur which has no obvious relationship to the Slovak Murko/Muro

There's no expectation that it might. Muro is based on "tabby, calico," i.e., on the coloring of a cat's fur. A "tomcat" is kocúr in Slovak.

Muci was the default name of any cat we owned ... probably coming from the Slovak/Moravian side of the family

Both muci and cica are pretty common words for "cat, kitty, pussycat" in Hungarian.

Macska-Matska) just means cat

Pronounced [matshka]. Hungarian borrowed it from the Slavic languages around it, all of which have mačka like Slovak. It may be related to maco/macko [matso/matsko] based on "fleshy, chubby" and used as a nickname for "bear, teddy bear" in Slovak, borrowed as mackó in Hungarian.

But the word kočka [kotshka] became common for "cat" in Czech a long time ago, perhaps under the influence of the German Katze, and variations on kot are used for "cat" in the rest of the Slavic languages, with the same origin as the Slovak kocúr, "tom cat": the versions in k- are from the Latin catus that also gave cat in English and similar words in the other Germanic languages.

The fact that the word for an animal we think of as so commonplace today actually needed to be borrowed "from the south" shows that cats didn't used to be in Europe in the distant past. They spread from the south and their name traveled with them.

[Helen Fedor]

I still remember my mom once saying of an older fellow, who was running around with a much younger woman, that he was a < starý kocur > (old tomcat).

Might cats have come with the Roman legions?  If the armies had grain supplies, they certainly would have needed the cats.

H

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Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 19:04:51 -0700
From: m.r.v...@gmail.com
To: slova...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Slovak Spot] Re: Cat names

[Martin]

a < starý kocur > (old tomcat).

The Slovak for "an old womanizer," also starý cap, "an old billy goat." The former can contain a hint of recognition, the latter one can be only negative.

Might cats have come with the Roman legions?

Cats spread throughout the Roman Empire, spilled across its borders, continued on after its demise. The Roman legions did not reach most of Central and Northern Europe, but cats got there eventually.

[Michelle Mader]

My maiden name was Maco.  When I was a little girl my father told me how the name was pronounced in Slovak (different from how we pronounced it here).  My Croatian grandmother (dad's MIL), who didn't get along with him, heard and started making fun saying that's how they used to call cats in Croatia, "Here mats, mats, mats". 

[Martin]

how they used to call cats in Croatia, "Here mats, mats, mats"

Interesting, Michelle. [Mats-] or [matsh-] are also the roots of alternative names for cats in Italian (e.g., macio pronounced [matcho], a word so similar to mačka). Some speculate that the sound may be linked to how a cat's sound is imitated by humans, meow in English, miau or mniau in Slovak.

As to your last name, in addition to it being an informal word for "a bear" or "a teddybear," it is also a fairly common nickname for men named Matej (Matthias), Matúš (Matthew), and less often so Martin as well as Miroslav, Marcel. Or for a chubby man regardless of his first name, and sometimes a man's nickname for no obvious reason. In an obit for a man whose first name was Peter, his friend wrote: "Maco is something soft, friendly, not very agile, endearingly lazy, and sometimes grumbly, and so all Peter's friends called him Maco since anyone could remember."

How do you commonly pronounce your last name?

[Martin]

We have always pronounced it with a short a, hard c, and long o.  When tracing the family tree among Maco(s) in the USA I can usually tell which ones stem from eastern Slovakia because they tend to pronounce it with a long a.  My family is from western Slovakia.

Thanks, Michelle, I take it that ma- sounds like the beginning of mat, and the end rhymes with with go. The variations in the pronunciation you note must have developed in the U.S., there is no difference in how the nickname Maco is pronounced in Slovakia, it's the same all over: ma- as in "open your mouth and say 'Ah'," and the final sound is similar to the -o- in the English word not, but with more rounded lips [mahtso].

After immigration, the spelling of some Slovaks' last names remained and their pronunciation changed, Anglicized, as with your last name Maco, in other instances, the spelling changed in an attempt to maintain the pronunciation. Two striking examples of each of the developments:

• The last name Tóth (historically, "a Slovak") that the descendant families of the immigrants often pronounce as rhyming with goth -- with the sound -th- that does not exist in Slovak (the Slovak pronunciation is similar to the English taught).
• The last name Guidas, which looks vaguely Italian, but actually developed as an attempt to represent in English the Slovak pronunciation of gajdoš [GAHee-dosh], "a bagpiper."

[Michelle Mader]

>>Thanks, Michelle, I take it that ma- sounds like the beginning of mat, and the end rhymes with with go. The variations in the pronunciation you note must have >>developed in the U.S., there is no difference in how the nickname Maco is pronounced in Slovakia, it's the same all over: ma- as in "open your mouth and say 'Ah'," >>and the final sound is similar to the -o- in the English word not, but with more rounded lips [mahtso].

Yes, Martin, we pronounce it the way you took it.  I was aware that the pronunciation is the same throughout Slovakia [mahtso], what I meant was that within the US among those who still spell it Maco those from around Kocise tend to use the long a like the beginning of bacon while those from around Bratislava tend to use a short a like the beginning of mat.

>>After immigration, the spelling of some Slovaks' last names remained and their pronunciation changed, Anglicized, as with your last name Maco, in other instances, >>the spelling changed in an attempt to maintain the pronunciation.

I have found this, too, with my name when doing my research.  I've had to allow for Maco, Macko, Matso, Matcko, and Matsko.

>>Two striking examples of each of the developments:

• >>The last name Tóth (historically, "a Slovak") that the descendant families of the immigrants often pronounce as rhyming with goth -- with the sound -th- that >>does not exist in Slovak (the Slovak pronunciation is similar to the English taught).

• In Cleveland this name is always pronounced as rhyming with both.  People who pronounce it the other way and move to Cleveland end up changing the pronunciation.
  

• >>The last name Guidas, which looks vaguely Italian, but actually developed as an attempt to represent in English the Slovak pronunciation of gajdoš >>[GAHee-dosh], "a bagpiper."

• Would this be the same name that ended up being spelled Gaydos in the US?  Lots of those in Cleveland, too.
  

[Martin]

Thank you for the clarifications and confirmation, Michelle.

Would this be the same name that ended up being spelled Gaydos in the US?

Exactly. That seemed to be the common Americanization of Gajdoš. Guidas makes sense once we know the origin, but probably few would guess it's Slovak without it.