[TweetyMom04]

In the U.S. the most commonly used last name is Smith, Jones and Andrews.

I'm curious if anyone heard, asked (while in- country) or knows where to find this information. Maybe Russian Jen can shed light on this one of some of the more commonly used Russian Last Names.

***I'm not asking or implying for anyone to post their child's last name here as you may view this as a privacy issue. However if you feel comfy w/posting this information, ok.***

[RussianJen]

I know that 'Ivanov' (actually translated it would be 'Johnson' which is also common here in the States) is a national 'Smith' in Russia - there are many last names that are extremely common to different areas/regions - for example, where we lived there were over three pages of 'Scryabin' in the local phonebook - and we lived in a very small place!

Keep in mind that any kids in baby homes who were abandoned or for whom official paperwork was not finished, they will choose a first, patronymic, and family name for that child. We have one little guy who was left on the steps of the militia office when he was about three weeks old - they made up a name for him and his last name ended up being 'cherry', presumably because the cherry tree was in blossom at that time.

Also - I'm sure you're all aware of this, but family names in Russian are different for men and women - an 'a' is added to give the word the feminine form when it is a woman's name.

Hope that helped at least a little bit!

-RussianJen