Boris Unbegaun, professor of Slavic studies at Oxford University, explores the etymology and morphological features of Russian surnames, both patronymic and formed from the names of professions, toponyms and nicknames, and also talks about the surnames of the clergy, the family names of the Russian nobility, pseudonyms and deliberately changed surnames, the mass appearance of which in the first third of the twentieth century became a kind of sign of the times. The author reveals the meaning of the surnames of Greek, Baltic and Eastern origin common in the Russian Empire, and also gives examples of amazing and curious surnames that became fashionable at the turn of the century. The study is based on a variety of reference books and indexes, including the address book "All Petersburg" for 1910. The publication has an index and a frequency list of the hundred most common surnames.