Surname Spelling Challenges: Kreipovich, Geraitis/Giraitis, Strimike & Maldabuois ?

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Permalink Reply by John Peters on September 7, 2010 at 4:38pm

Here are the rules for surname endings. The masculine endings of surnames generally is "-as," "-is", "-ys", "-us", and sometimes "-a". The ending "-e" would be a female ending, so William's surname has been likely modified at least as to the ending.

The endings for women vary depending on their marital status. Married women use the ending "-iene" regardless of how their husband's name ends. But for unmarried women, the ending is based on the ending of her father's name.

If it ends in "-a" or "-as", then her name ends in "-aite".
If it ends in "-is" or "-ys", then her name ends in "-yte".
If it ends in "-us", then her name ends in "-ute.

So the daughter of Mr. Giraitis would be Eva Giraityte. His wife would be Mrs. Giraitiene. Sometimes before WWI, maiden name endings sometimes did not follow these rules and so you might see it written Eva Giratute or Eva Girataite. But the "-te" is a dead giveaway that the surname is for an unmarried woman or girl.

The surname KREIPOVICH would be Kreipavic^ius in modern Lithuanian. This ending (-vic^ius") is actually the way some Lithuanians converted the commonly used Polish "-wicz" into their language. Both mean "descendant of" someone named "Kreip-". The Polish "-wicz" is often rendered phonetically in English as "-vich", "-vitz", "-witz,", "-wich", "-wiz", etc. The Lithuanian "-vic^us" is often rendered in English as "-vage". Following the rules above, the wife of Mr. Kreipavic^ius would be Mrs. Kreipavic^iene and their unmarried daughter would be Miss Kreipavic^iute.
The given name "Vito" is most likely "Vytas", short for "Vytautas."

I cannot find a surname corresponding to Strimike in the online phone book for Lithuania. That doesn't mean the name didn't or even doesn't exist, but it does suggest that it has been modified. Someone in the group may fiddle with spellings and come up with some possibilities. The name as it is would be pronounced something like stri-mih-keh or shtri-mih-keh.

The village name MALDABUOIS has been badly mangled and would take some fiddling with to find what it is in fact. That ending "-uois" is closer to a French ending than anything from the Baltic or East European area. Again, perhaps someone will be able to try different combinations to try finding where this village is or how the name is actually spelled.

John Peters