Historical-Linguistic Research of the Name of the Rachmaninov’s Clan: from the Indian Brahmans to the Russian Rachmaninov

The article is about the roots of the word Rachmaninov and the people who established this clan in Russia. Analysis of the famous theory about the royal roots of the Rachmaninov clan failed to be proved, neither historical facts nor their dates could be proved with the historical documents. The information which is used by the contemporary authors was taken from the S. A. Satina article, who, in her turn, relied on the book by some I. I. Rachmaninov, published in 1895 in Kiev. But there was no such the author, his real name was N. P. Vasilenko. The genuine information was found in the family tree of the Tambov’s branch of Rachmaninovs. The author studied the way of transformation of the original word “Brahman” to the Russian family name. The word belongs to the Hindu literary language saṃskṛta, goes back to the XX century BC with the meaning “the name of Hindu priests serving their God Brahma”. The word got to the Russian lands by the end of X century AC, was used in the Russian religion books, became customary for the Russian people with the meaning of “the dweller of the land near Eden”. When the clan of Moldovian noblemen arrived to Moscovia, the native Russians called them RACHMANs and later changed the name according to the Russian morphological rules for RACHMANINOV with the meaning “the son of Rachman”.