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Re: Surname Putin
You were right on Putin as a French and Italian surname, though it is not common in either country. In Italy it is confined to the Veneto region, and Vicenza appears to be a stronghold.
I still haven't found the meaning in either language, though I suspect that the French surname was not a compliment to its bearer.
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PutaSpanish "Puta" is a contraction for "prostitute" probably inspired in the goddess "Puta" (see Encyclopedia Mythica"). Might that have anything to do with this? I doubt it but, make a try.
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In italian "puttana" is also a prostitute like in French "putain"
what is curious is that "puto" originally meant just "little baby"
then the meaning has changed completely.
Only the Venetian surname Putin has kept the original sense of "little
baby=.
Of course the Russian surname has nothing to do with this origin.
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I think we can accept Sagani's interpretation of Putin.
French Putin from putain, a possibility, admittedly. There is also the French surname Puthod, equivalent to the Modern French puant, "stinking." Could Putin have the same origin? Either way, not good news for the French Putins. How fortunate that language changes and the meaning of surnames is lost.
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Personally, althought I suggested that possibility, I doubt that in any of it's variant the word "Puta" as in "slut" originated the surname "Putin" unless one takes any of the following positions:
1.it was an insult given to a family whose cultural differences seemed "far to lascivious" for those who employed it upon the insulted ones; 2.it was not understood as an insult for it was given to a family of hierodules (priestly courtesans; priestesses) or 3.they where the ones who used it to call someone else by this name but this backfired as those so-called thought that word so important to them that they used it as an emblem for those who employed it... And... You know what? That speculation is far to forced into... So... I would go back into the older meanings ("little baby" which might have been an euphemistic apelative for sluts in the same way that old sluts which are retired as such but work as pimps are called "matronas" in a very maternal[-like] sense), foreign (Russian) meanings and similiarly named deites (the god/godess Puto).
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