Titles of the nobility varied somewhat due to the influence of foreign rulers and the time period involved. For the convenience of the American reader, the below outlines the titles in English, Croatian, French, and German:
English Croatian French German ------- -------- ------ ------ Prince Knez Prince Fu"rst Duke Vojvoda Duc Herzog Marquis Margrof Marquis Markgraf Count Grof Comte Graf Baron Barun Baron Freiherr Knight Vitez Chevalier Ritter Noble Plemic' Noble Edler
Some of the titles were somewhat different in various parts of Croatia:
Old grave stones in Venetian Dalmatia will reveal names such as Martinovic' written as Martinovich. Germanic, Latin, Hungarian, and Turkish pronunciation and spelling all had influence upon the names. The higher the degree of success economically, religiously, intellectually, and as nobility, the greater the chance of name variation and assimilation into the ruling culture. In actuality, the peasant contributed most to preserving the true Dalmatian family names.
Dalmatians use a nickname or 'Nadimak' to differentiate between those with the same family name. This is practiced on all the islands.
Many individuals actually used two names for convenience such as under Venetian Dalmatia, Di Filippi was also Filipovich and Dominis was also Gospodnetich. Others Latinized or Germanized their names for business reasons.
The Croatian alphabet has a few variations that when stated in English in America give the name a new character and pronunciation. All accent marks were dropped and the use of LJ, J, L, and GR was restricted in some cases. As examples:
Croatian Pronounced American -------- ---------- -------- c^ ch c c' tch c c sa c z^ zh z z za z s^ sh s s sa s j yuh j lj lyuh l gr grr ger
Croatian slavic names are not as mysterious as they sound. Simple translation will explain the meaning of many of them. Some examples:
English Croatian Variations ------- ------------------- Wolf Vuk, Vukich, Vukovich Smith Kovac^, Kovac^ich, Kovac^evich Martin Martinich, Martinovich Peter Petrich, Petrovich John Ivanic, Ivanovich Cook Kuhar, Kuharich White Bijelich, Bijelovich