>>In England "Biro" is the generic word for a ball-point pen (because of the trade mark "Biro"). So "Slave of the ball-point pen"? BTW why do so many names have "slav" and "ov" at the end? I presumed "ov" was like "son of" or "of the family of". But "Slave of Boris of Boris's family"? "Mc" in my name means "of the clan of" (I think).
>>
>>Terry
>
>About "ov" You are right.
>Slav come from "slava" wich means "glory", so Golry to Boris :o)))))))))))))))

Or "glory to the Biro" a fine invention! :-)

Ah. Maybe it's different further West. I understood that the countries we call "the Slavic" nations (e.g Yugoslavia"), the "slav" bit comes from the Latin for "slave" ("slavus"?) as it was from these bordering countries that the Romans got many of their slaves. No doubt Dragan "Mr Etymology" will have something to say on this.

Terry