Russian etymological question

Where does the name Lukashenko come from?
I am also wondering because I stumbled across the following:

"In his explanation of Caroline Lukin's last name, Kinbote says that Lukin, like Luxon and
Lukashevich, comes from Luke. My question: what would a Russian speaker
imagine the root meaning of Lukashevich to be? For instance, we might
imagine that Luxon comes from lux, meaning light. "

I don't know Russian or Ukrainian but I have known or heard of some Dimitrenkos, Ivanenkos and other Ukrainians whose family hame was clearly firstname + enko. I always figured that -enko meant something like "son of". So I would guess that Lukashenko was son of Lucas/Luke.

Interesting sigline. Nabokov, the father of the emoticon. :-)

Vinny's instincts are correct. The -enko suffix means "son of" or "family of" and is associated with Ukraine, and, to a lesser extent, Belarus. (The latter, obviously, in this case). You generally won't find it among ethnic Russians (where the equivalent ending is ov / ova ) so your heading for the thread is off the mark.

how about the second part of the post tho -the luk in lukin, lukashevich -are these lukases?

why can't lukashevich just be a simple "son of lukas", as in Boris Lukasevich Putin - the son of Lukas Ktoznaetovich Putin?

Maybe Lukin means something like onion farmer. An onion related surname sounds a bit funny, but I knew a girl with the surname Onions, so there's no reason it can't be the same in Russian.

I've met many Russians with a surname ending in -enko who say they don't know of any family connection to Ukraine. Whether this is for political reasons or because their connection to the Ukraine was so many generations back I couldn't say.

mathilda, I think you've misread that sentence. There's no reason to think that the family name Lukin is Russian. Luxon (< Luke's son) certainly isn't. I think a Russian speaker would imagine Lukashevitch to be son of Lukas as #3 says.

Actually the name is Alyaksanar Lukashenka.
The -a ending is typical for Belorussian. In media, his name is usually spelled in its Russian version (with the ending -enko), transliterated in Latin alphabet (Alexander Lukashenko).

As for Lukin, my guess is that it's a Russian name, derived from 'luk' (onion). Well, it is a Russian name, but it might be another too.
'-in' is one of typical endings in Russian surnames - Voronin, Kosygin, Lenin.
Names of plants, including fruit and vegetables, are found in many surnames (not only Slavic) in central Europe. Other "versions of Lukin" I've come across with, were Zwibel (German) and Cybulski (Polish).

#5 it would be Boris Lukich;
#8 Luk is indeed onion in russian, but the last name derived from this would would be Lukov; as Lukin is from Luke's (provided the stress is on "I" not on "U').

Lukin can apparently be a Russian name. Vladimir Lukin. I wonder about the name of the town of Lukin, Illinois, though.

Before anyone asks, the Slavic root of Luk=onion is, according to the Online (English) Etymological Dictionary, a borrowing from Germanic. (English leek, German lauch). So is Finnish lauka.

#5 -- The surname Onions should not be a xource of amusement here at SiT; IMHO, every SiTizen's head should bow at the mention of the name.

This thread made me wonder if Lukoil's oil came from onions, but according to their website, 'LUK' is an acronym: LangepasUraiKogalymneft. Quite disappointing.

yellogreen #9
I take it that you are a native Russian speaker (which I'm not), but I find your reply confusing on both points.
If the christian name is Lukash, how can it become Lukich in paternal, or another derived form? It'd obviously be Lukashevich (or Lukashenko, Lukashev, or Lukashevski).

Other Russian names 'made up' with a vegetable root (no pun intended), and the ending -in: Kapustin (kapusta = cabbage), a composer, Morkovina (morkov = carot), a female basketball player, Kartoshin (kartoshka = potato).

VinnyD, #10
Luk, meaning onion, is only Russian, possibly Serbian too. Other slavic languages use some form of (Latin?) root, "cebula" (Pol.), similar to Portugese and Spanish (cebolla).
I can add to your list lök (onion), purjölök (leek), and vitlök (garlic) in Swedish.

#12, another vegetable name, but without the -in, is Pasternak (parsnip?) if I'm not mistaken (Latin Pastinaca).

According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, Old Church Slavonic (also called Old Bulgarian) has luku = onion.

"Luk" (exact same spelling) also means "bow" (as in "bow and arrow") in Russian. From this comes various "luk-" stem words (lukavit', lukavyi, lukavets) having to do with being "cunning."

I actually doubt this anything to with the name Lukashenko--although it'd be very appropriate if it did--but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

I am sorry you found my answer confusing, Fieldgate.
It appeared to me that #5 quoted purely russian name - Boris Putin, and I only wanted to correct him: the Russian patronimic of the name Luka is Lukich, not Lukashevich. AFAIK, Lukash/Lukasz (several spellings are possible) - is a Western Slavonic rendition of the biblical name Luke, Polish, in particular. As you probably know, Belorussian language has strong influences from Polish; so Russian Luka becomes Lukash in Belarus.
As to the root vegetable name, alas, I cannot come up with a rule as to why 'Lukov' and not 'Lukin' is going to have more of an oniony flavour; there must be one, I just don't know it. Just in time for dinner, I can only continue with more examples ready to jump into our healthy vegetable stew: Chesnokov (chesnok -garlic), Pomidorov (pomidor-tomato), Ogurcov (oguretz-cuumber) and Percov (peretz - pepper)... sorry if that wasn't much help. I am getting hungry now.

Luk for onion is also Serbo-Croatian (and some Slovene dialects), more precisely "crni (black) luk" (more common in Serbian) or "crveni (red) luk" (more common in Croatian), as "bijeli/beli (white) luk" means garlic (also called "češnjak" in Croatian)

#15 -- This isn't really apropos, but I just learned recently that English gherkin (pickled cucumber) derives (through Frisian) from Polish ogurek, which in turn may derive from a Greek word which the Greeks may have borrowed from Persian. It's the coolest etymology I've learned for a while, especially since the English word is such a humble one.