Or the Russian naming system. The first portion of a Russian's name (and possibly in other
Orthodox countries as well) is a
saint's name, generally one of the saints that is celebrated on the child's brithday or eight days later - because eight days after the birthday is generally when children are
baptized.
The second portion denotes who the child's father is, by using the father's name plus -ovich or -yevich for boys and -ovna or -yevna for girls. So if a father's name was Andrei, than his son's second patronymic name would be Andreyevich and his daughter's second patronymic name would be Andreyevna (you remove the I). Note: These are not a Russian's middle names, they do not have middle names.
And finally the child's third name is his last name, say Smirnov.
Later: VT_hawkeye and Byzantine pointed out several errors, some of which I corrected above. Also, VT_hawkeye pointed out, "if the father's name ends in a short-i (i-kratkoye)," you should use the yevich or yevna suffix.
Here is a full example:
Saint name father's name+suffix
Last name
|
|
|
v
v
v
(son) Ivan
Andreyevich
Smirnov
(daughter) Anna
Andreyevna
Smirnov
(father) Andrei