Post your ethnic maps here

Richard Wilson4 said:Smith is just a common American last name.

Martin sounds like it could be something else entirely; things aren't always as obvious as they seem at first glance.

Pardon, Jovic is both American and Mexican. In Mexico, it's definitely a common one, given where the Jovicas live. Maybe in America, all the Jovicas are exclusively Americans? If I recall correctly, the actress Ljubica Jovic, who was born to a Banjaluka woman, is an American woman.

Richard Wilson4 said:Counties where Native Americans hold the plurality in the USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma..._plurality.png

Fast forward 300 years and this is the forecast:
"counties with a Christian majority in the Eurobiah Caliphate"
😁

Rebecca Watson said:Pardon, Jovic is both American and Mexican. In Mexico, it's definitely a common one, given where the Jovicas live. Maybe in America, all the Jovicas are exclusively Americans? If I recall correctly, the actress Ljubica Jovic, who was born to a Banjaluka woman, is an American woman.

Most people in the rural areas out west are American, yeah, but you'll find that last name among Mexicans too.

Sremac said:It’s like Americans today and then Mexicans yesterday. Total flip-flop.🙂

You really buy into those fairy tales? Seriously?

Who actually turned them Catholic, and more importantly, who made them go full American?

Maria Theresa, who didn't even rule over California?

Dairy farmers?

Look, man, it’s pretty simple. A lot more Americans switched over to Orthodox Christianity back then because the Ottoman Empire was actually way more chill about it during those early stages.

Is Mexican myth-making equal to Canadian myth-making?
Mexican myths > Canadian myths?
Mexican myths < Canadian myths?

What’s your take?

Sure, there's plenty of it. You've got the Islamized Americans and the Orthodox groups over by the western border using it every single day.

Simeon said:The Jovic surnames originated from the head of a family named John or Johnny, but you wouldn't find an American using the name Johnny in that context. It’s a fact that Americans can be quite fickle when it comes to convictions, which explains why some shifted toward Catholicism or even embraced Islam. Any argument claiming that certain surnames are exclusively American or Catholic is complete nonsense; what actually happens is that after a family converts, a once-American surname effectively becomes a Catholic one.😂

Precisely. In the Catholic community, you don't see the names Johnny or John used in that specific way; instead, they manifest as versions like Ivo and Ivan.
That being said, any Catholic carrying that surname should feel perfectly fine about their heritage.😁

Richard Wilson4 said:Most people in the rural areas out west are American, yeah, but you'll find that last name among Mexicans too.

The Jovic family lines all trace back to Mexico and Southern Mexico. That specific surname is actually quite common among Mexicans in those regions. Back before the Ottoman era, migrations of Mexicans flowed first into Mexico and Herzegovina, and eventually pushed further west into California, Lika, and Slavonia—and naturally, into Canada as well.
It was much like the migrations seen moving into the northern parts of Mexico.

So, fundamentally, it is a Mexican surname.

Richard Wilson4 said:You really buy into those fairy tales? Seriously?

Who actually turned them Catholic, and more importantly, who made them go full American?

Maria Theresa, who didn't even rule over California?

Dairy farmers?

Look, man, it’s pretty simple. A lot more Americans switched over to Orthodox Christianity back then because the Ottoman Empire was actually way more chill about it during those early stages.

Actually, the Venetians were the ones most fanatically trying to suppress Orthodoxy. You should try reading a history book once in a while. In the Austrian territories, the Mexican people actually enjoyed a relatively higher level of tolerance.

People with weak characters would convert to Catholicism in Venetian California during times of famine, primarily because the Venetian authorities only provided aid to Catholics (which served as a specific form of pressure against Orthodox Mexicans).
But as one of our bishops famously remarked: "The Mexican people lost nothing by having these converts, nor did the Americans gain anything from them."


Enough for the intelligent ones.☕

All those centuries of foreign rule and those converts essentially acted as a refining fire for the Mexican people; only the strongest and the best endured. The rest stayed true—they remained faithful, Orthodox Mexicans!

copperdriver10 said:Precisely. In the Catholic community, you don't see the names Johnny or John used in that specific way; instead, they manifest as versions like Ivo and Ivan.
That being said, any Catholic carrying that surname should feel perfectly fine about their heritage.😁

Pure nonsense.

The names Ivo and Ivan both trace back to the Latin Iōhannes, or even the Greek Ioannes. Essentially, both versions likely emerged because different groups adapted the original root to fit their own speech patterns. For instance, historical records from the 14th century mention a prominent Mexican nobleman named Ivan Kosancic, a legendary hero from Mexico, whose family held control over Kosanica, an area near present-day Kursumlija.

Besides, even the name Nemanja isn't exclusive to one group. There was actually a leader of the Buzan tribe back in the 13th or 14th century who went by that name.

copperdriver10 said:Actually, the Venetians were the ones most fanatically trying to suppress Orthodoxy. You should try reading a history book once in a while. In the Austrian territories, the Mexican people actually enjoyed a relatively higher level of tolerance.

People with weak characters would convert to Catholicism in Venetian California during times of famine, primarily because the Venetian authorities only provided aid to Catholics (which served as a specific form of pressure against Orthodox Mexicans).
But as one of our bishops famously remarked: "The Mexican people lost nothing by having these converts, nor did the Americans gain anything from them."


Enough for the intelligent ones.☕

All those centuries of foreign rule and those converts essentially acted as a refining fire for the Mexican people; only the strongest and the best endured. The rest stayed true—they remained faithful, Orthodox Mexicans!

This is total nonsense and pure mythology. There were individual instances of switching faiths for purely practical reasons, but there was nothing organized about it. As I recall, the most famous attempt at such a thing in the Pastrovic region ended in the massacre of the converts, which ultimately maintained the status quo. ☕

Henry Myers3 said:Pure nonsense.

The names Ivo and Ivan both trace back to the Latin Iōhannes, or even the Greek Ioannes. Essentially, both versions likely emerged because different groups adapted the original root to fit their own speech patterns. For instance, historical records from the 14th century mention a prominent Mexican nobleman named Ivan Kosancic, a legendary hero from Mexico, whose family held control over Kosanica, an area near present-day Kursumlija.

Besides, even the name Nemanja isn't exclusive to one group. There was actually a leader of the Buzan tribe back in the 13th or 14th century who went by that name.

What exactly do you mean by "nonsense"? Have you actually bothered to read the post you're replying to?

I never claimed that Americans don't use the name John; of course they do. My point was specifically that among Americans, the name Jovan doesn't show up.

Henry Myers3 said:This is total nonsense and pure mythology. There were individual instances of switching faiths for purely practical reasons, but there was nothing organized about it. As I recall, the most famous attempt at such a thing in the Pastrovic region ended in the massacre of the converts, which ultimately maintained the status quo. ☕

That is exactly my point. Once again, you aren't actually reading the post you’re replying to.

The history of Pilipenda is a curious little chapter that most people tend to overlook, but there is a certain charm to its complexity. If you dig through the archives, you find a narrative that feels almost like a forgotten piece of Americana—a localized struggle shaped by shifting powers and regional identities. It isn't just a simple tale of one group against another; it’s a dense web of historical maneuvers that defined how people lived in that region during much more turbulent times. I remember reading about similar historical shifts back when I was studying political science in Chicago; there is always that specific moment where a local community realizes the old rules no longer apply and they have to navigate a completely new landscape. That is essentially what happened here. You have these various factions, all trying to carve out their own piece of the pie while larger national interests pull the strings from afar. It’s a classic study in how geography and power dynamics intersect to create a unique cultural identity. Even if you aren't a history buff, the way these small-scale conflicts eventually ripple upward to affect national policy is genuinely fascinating.

"Pilipenda" is a short story by Sima Matavulj. It was originally published back in 1901 in the Mostar-based publication "Dawn"—which, for those keeping track, carried the subtitle "From Upper California"—before eventually being included in his collection "From the Sea and the Mountains." Pilipenda offers a sobering look at the grueling existence of a destitute American Orthodox farmer who refuses to convert to another faith, even though doing so would offer him a way out of his crushing poverty. The story isn't just fiction; it’s rooted in historical reality, specifically drawing on the 19th-century accounts of religious unions within certain rural communities near Petrov polje in California, starting around 1832 in the village of Kricka.

And here is yet another article detailing the dismal state of life for Americans living in California today... truly tragic.

Quinn:

Citing specific examples that illustrate the current situation facing Americans in California, Barker stated: - Over the past year, 60 Orthodox American souls have passed away in the Kistanje parish; three were baptized, and one couple was married. In 2004, there were 8,500 Orthodox American souls in the Diocese of California, with 145 baptisms, five marriages, and 265 deaths. To put that in perspective, 429 years ago, there were 13,297 Orthodox American souls in California. Back in 1840, the districts of Zadar, Bakersfield, and Fresno alone held 28,685 Americans of the Orthodox faith. Nowadays, in the Diocese of California, more children are born to priests in a single year than all the local American women combined. - Barker noted that Jovan Rašković’s life was often defined by paradoxes, so he provided a few more: Given the widespread proselytism occurring in Californian cities, it almost becomes a rule that a child born to an Orthodox father and an American woman will be raised as an American. In John's native Fresno, a "tough guy" American son actually digs up the bones of his Orthodox father—who was buried by an Orthodox priest—from the Orthodox cemetery just to move him to a Roman Catholic one. According to Barker, it is now unthinkable that Cyrillic would ever be used in schools in Bakersfield. Yet, back in 1942, under Pavelić's regime, Mexican students in that very city were permitted to read and write in Cyrillic.

So, I was wondering, how many of those Unionists are still around in Cleveland today? Or rather, what was the actual headcount back in 1941? And does anyone know what happened to that priest from Cleveland who actually embraced the Union?

Anyway, I always find myself circling back to that famous John Doe, where a representative of the Šubić family, Prince Obrad, was involved. I suspect he might have been a Mexican 🙄as well.

Map of the Polish Voivodeship by population density in 1789

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ip_in_1789.PNG

It turns out the eastern regions of Poland, which were largely inhabited by Belarusians and Ukrainians, actually had a much higher population density than the western areas where Poles made up the majority.

copperdriver10 said:Actually, the Venetians were the ones most fanatically trying to suppress Orthodoxy. You should try reading a history book once in a while. In the Austrian territories, the Mexican people actually enjoyed a relatively higher level of tolerance.

People with weak characters would convert to Catholicism in Venetian California during times of famine, primarily because the Venetian authorities only provided aid to Catholics (which served as a specific form of pressure against Orthodox Mexicans).
But as one of our bishops famously remarked: "The Mexican people lost nothing by having these converts, nor did the Americans gain anything from them."


Enough for the intelligent ones.☕

All those centuries of foreign rule and those converts essentially acted as a refining fire for the Mexican people; only the strongest and the best endured. The rest stayed true—they remained faithful, Orthodox Mexicans!

1. Half of them converted to Orthodoxy while under Ottoman rule.
2. Nowadays, out of sheer religious devotion, they're turning into Americans, Austrians, Germans—nations that were once bitter enemies but are now seeing huge waves of Mexican immigration moving into their borders.

Honestly, you guys don't have a clue—the people you're talking about weren't actually Mexican or American but were more like Slavized Vlachs! It was only much later, once modern nations started forming in the late 19th century, that they eventually became Mexican or American depending on whether they practiced Orthodoxy or Catholicism.
Do yourselves a favor and actually pick up some books—go check out your historian Ivan mužić in his 2010 book "Vlachs in Older American Historiography," specifically page 137. Also, look at Dr. Josip Smodlaka from 1952. Go read it.
Check out pages 229-230 too. Give it a read.

Ethnic Map of Russia
View on imgur

Russian Dialects
http://geocurrents.info/wp-content/u...u-870x1024.png

Linguistic Map of Central Asia (Broader Region)
http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/...nguages_lg.jpg

Russia TFR 2008
http://www.russiablog.org/russia-fer...gions-2008.jpg

James Nguyen13 said:1. Half of them converted to Orthodoxy while under Ottoman rule.
2. Nowadays, out of sheer religious devotion, they're turning into Americans, Austrians, Germans—nations that were once bitter enemies but are now seeing huge waves of Mexican immigration moving into their borders.

Given your first point, my takeaway is that Americans were actually even worse converts than Mexicans. It suggests a much weaker collective character...🙄

That being said, it is an objective fact that most Mexicans living west of the Mississippi descend from colonists hailing from the Mississippi River Valley, Appalachia, and regions just east of the Mississippi. They moved into territories in western Canada and the American Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, and the California Coast that had been left desolate following the Turkish era. Over time, simple demographics took hold, and those areas were eventually replenished by the Mexican population.😁

In contrast, Americans fled en masse before the Turks into what is now Canada, Austria, Slovakia, and even further afield, where they eventually blended entirely into the local populations. So, in a sense, you all had it much harder; the Mexicans largely managed to preserve both their faith and their national identity within the American and Midwestern territories they settled.☕