The first semi-final of the World Cup has come to an end, with Argentina beating Croatia 3-0 to reach the final once again, and Messi has also surpassed a number of records.
Argentina certainly deserve cheers and celebration, in stark contrast to the defeated Croatian team, 37-year-old Modric hid his tears after the game.
This World Cup, whether for Messi or Modric, is likely to be their last World Cup, and I hope they can all enjoy the next matches.
Today, let's talk about a lighter topic, why do Croatian players have a "strange" word at the end of their names?
The most famous player, of course, is the "Magic Flute" Modric, in addition to Livakovic, Yuranovic, Kovacic, Brozovic, Perisic and so on. There are only a few players in the squad whose names do not have "odd".
This "odd" character, of course, is transliterated as Chinese. The corresponding letter suffix is "IC, VIC, OVIC", etc.
Why do Croatians have such a suffix after their name?
To put it simply, this is the traditional custom of Croats and even Yugoslavs.
Yugoslavs are one of the main ethnic groups in Europe, including Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, and many more. The state of Croatia, formerly part of Yugoslavia, became independent only in the 90s.
In the traditional Croatian naming custom, a part of the father's name will be used as the son's name, the specific method is to add "ic, vic, ovic", etc. after the father's name, which means "son of so-and-so".
For example, Modric directly means "Modri's son". Livakovich, the son of "Livakovy". By relying on the suffix of this name, we can also identify to a certain extent who is of Yugoslav descent. For example, friends who like to watch the NBA should know the legendary coach Popovich. Popović's father is Serb, his mother is Croatian, typical of Yugoslav descent.
Another example is the famous Swedish football star Ibrahimovic, although he is a Swedish national, his father is Bosnian, his mother is Croatian, and his name also bears a clear Slavic imprint.
Of course, I am not saying that all people with "odd" after their names are Yugoslavs or Yugoslav descendants, nor that Croats must have "odd" after their names, there are special cases for everything.
Similarly, Russians, Ukrainians like to have "skysky, nov" and so on after their names.