Talk:Miklos Udvardy

Spelling of name
I have the Nat. Aud. Soc. field guide of his and his name is spelled Udvarty, which is correct?

response
Udvardy is correct. In Hungarian this name means that the family was originally from a town called Udvard (a municipality that was part of Hungary, now Slovakia). The ‘y’ is a modified version of the ‘i’ adjective forming affix often used in names of Hungarian nobilities. (The ‘i’ is also used in forming surnames, but only for families who weren’t counted as noble.) The same thing applies to Udvardy’s mother’s name: Komlóssy Erzsébet. Her name means the family is said to be from Komlós (also originally Hungary, now Ukraine), and since they were apparently also of noble origin, the adjective is formed not as Komlósi, but by using the ‘y’ affix, which in turn sometimes doubles the last letter, hence the name Komlóssy.