Historical and ethnographic sources indicate that Ukrainian surnames have been stably inherited by patrilineal pattern for more than three hundred years. They are characterized by huge morphological and semantic diversity, unevenly distributed across territories with different history, demographic processes, anthropological types and ethnic composition of the population, distribution of biological, biochemical, immunological and genetic markers.
A total of 697,147 surnames were identified in Ukraine’s population. There were 87 surnames of Ukrainian origin and 13 surnames of Russian origin on the list of 100 most frequent ones. The strong positive correlation was revealed between the proportion of an ethnic group and the number of related ethnic surnames for regional populations, the correlation coefficient is rs=0.703 for Ukrainian surnames, rs=0.739 for Russians, rs=0.393 for “others”.The genetic distance matrices based on alleles’ frequencies in AB0, Rhesus, Y-haplogroup loci correlated positively with the distance matrix based on last names. The correlation coefficients for Y-haplogroups was r=0.58, for blood groups AB0 and Rhesus r=0,60. The number of indexes characterizing population structure and current processes were calculated. The isonymy index stood at Ir=2.1×10-4 for the Ukrainian entire population. The low Ir values were observed in the southern (Ir=2.2×10-4), eastern (Ir=2.7×10-4) and western (Ir=2.4×10-4) regions, whereas high values were specific for the central (Ir=3.2×10-4) and northern (Ir=3.4×10-4) regions. The spatial distribution of this value throughout Ukraine tends to increase from southeast to northwest. The isonymy index Ir was used as a basic indicator for further calculations. The diversity index α for the entire population is α=47×102. The maximum value was identified in southern region (α=45×102) with a maximum in the Crimea (α=62×102). The western region also has high diversity (α=42×102). The northern region was less diverse (α=29×102), with the minimum value α in the Zhytomyr region (α=19×102). This indicator’s spatial structure reflects geographic distribution and previous history of populations. The inbreeding coefficient describing population’s subdivision and marriage structure for the Ukraine entire population stood at FST=5.3×10-5. FST value was higher in the northern region (FST=8.1×10-5) and lower in the southern region (FST=5.6×10-5). The smallest value FST was observed in the Crimean population (FST=4×10-5), the maximum in Volyn (FST=18×10-5). There was negative correlation between the inbreeding coefficient and population size: the correlation coefficient for regional populations was r=–0.48, for regional populations of Odessa region r=–0.38, for populations of Poltava region r=–0.80. Genetic processes reflecting migrations and genetic drift (founder effect) were analysed in studied populations. It was revealed that genetically efficient migrations impacted unequally in different territories. The influence of genetically efficient migrations was minimal for the population of the central region (Kiev region, υ=6×10-4), whereas it was significant in the southern region, especially in Crimea (υ=38×10-4). The founder effect has resulted in significant differences between adjacent local populations for all the indices. The υ index indicates influence of genetically effective migrations on the formation of the modern population. For the Ukraine’s entire population it was equal to υ=1.0×10-4. In the southern region this value was υ=5.6×10-4, in the eastern υ=3.9×10-4, northern region υ=3.5×10-4, central region υ=3.4×10-4, western region υ=3.8×10-4. The largest genetic impact of migration was detected in the southern population, in particular Crimea. The population’s differentiation and relative genetic isolation were characterized by ‘place index’ Ip, which is an analogue of pair-wise genetic distance between populations. According to this indicator, the central region was very close to the general population whereas the western region was most remote. To calculate the place index, the ranks of the twenty most common surnames in local populations were used. The average place index for the twenty most common surnames (I20) throughout Ukraine was I20=10,5. For the southern region I20=15, eastern I20=24, northern I20=14, central I20=11, western I20 =37. The majority of sites where place index was high were located in the border areas. Surnames of the Ukrainian population have been consistently inherited by the patrilineal type for more than ten generations. They are characterized by high diversity, unevenly distributed over the territory, associated with genetic markers adequately reflect the ethnic composition, territorial location and history of individual populations, that are displayed in relevant genetic indicators.
Key words: population, surnames, ethnomarkers, isonymy, population structure, entropy, inbreeding, migration, founder effect, genetic distances.
