13th and 14th-century fief-owning Baltic vassals have been recorded – Manegints, Radiķis, Tontegode, Tots, Aulis, Mažeiki brothers, Grimeķis, Sirkants, Gaiža, Duvkants, Dumpjāts, Treinis, Gribonis, Mēlvaldis, Kantebute, Stegebute, Taites, Angutis, Poja, Krūms, Pitkejānis, Tautenis, Sentots, Cielava, Karīds etc. After the Christianization Latvians began giving their children Christian first names, such as Marija, Anna, and Pēteris. Lutheran priest Christoph Harder also coined a number of new names from Latvian words for different virtues like Dievmīlis (God-lover), Strādulis (hard-worker), Žēlīte (sorrowful one), and Skaidrīte (clear one). Before the emancipation from serfdom (1817 in Courland, 1819 in Vidzeme, 1861 in Latgale) only noblemen, free craftsmen or people living in towns had surnames. Therefore, the oldest Latvian surnames usually originate from German or Low German, reflecting the dominance of German as an official language in Latvia till the 19th century. Examples: Meijers/Meijere (German: Meier, farm administrator; akin to Mayor), Millers/Millere (German: Müller, miller), Šmits/Šmite (German: Schmidt, smith), Šulcs/Šulca (German: Schulze, constable), Ulmanis (German: Ullmann, a person from Ulm), Godmanis (a God-man), Pētersons (son of Peter). Some Latvian surnames, mainly from Latgale are of Polish or Belorussian origin by changing the final -ski/-cki to -skis/-ckis, -czyk to -čiks or -vich/-wicz to -vičs, such as Sokolovskis/Sokolovska, Baldunčiks/Baldunčika or Ratkevičs/Ratkeviča. However, some surnames of Latvian origin (like Mucenieks, Kalns and Putns) have also been recorded as early as the 16th and 17th century, for example, among the transport workers. The official records of Latvian names were often variously forcibly assimilated into the foreign culture dominant at times in Latvian lands. For example, local pastors, who were often of German descent, used to issue marriage and birth certificates with Germanized names: e.g., Kalns was written as Berg (both meaning "mountain" in Latvian and German respectively). Sometimes "de-Germanization" produced a slightly different name, e.g., Daugmants was Germanized as Daugmann and then de-Germanized into Daugmanis. Demographer Ilmārs Mežs has estimated that nowadays around a third of all the Latvian surnames are of German origin. Most Latvian peasants received their surnames in 1826 (in Vidzeme), in 1835 (in Courland), and in 1866 (in Latgale). Diminutives were the most common form of family names. Examples: Kalniņš/Kalniņa (small hill), Bērziņš/Bērziņa (small birch). During the times when Latvia was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, in official usage Latvian names were commonly Russified. In particular, it followed the three-part pattern of Russian names: given name, patronymic, family name. Also, the masculine endings of