For the origin of the name Boyko exist several etymological hypotheses, but it is generally considered, as explained priest :uk:Левицький Йосип Іванович|Joseph Levytsky in his Hramatyka, that derives from particle boiie. Specifically, it derives from the exclamation "бой!, бойє!", meaning "it is really so!", which is often used by the population. The 19th-century scholar Pavel Jozef Šafárik, with whom agreed Franjo Rački and Henry Hoyle Howorth, argued direct connection of the Boykos with the region of Boiki mentioned in the 10th centuryDe Administrando Imperio, but this thesis is outdated and rejected, as most scholars like Mykhailo Hrushevsky already dismissed it in the 19th century because Boiki is a clear reference to Bohemia, which in turn derives from Celtic tribe of Boii. The derivation from Boii, is also disputed because there is not enough evidence. Like in the case of Hutsuls and Lemkos, they are recorded in historical and ethnographic sources since the 18th and 19th century.
Origin
Like other Rusyn subgroups, they are considered as one of the descendants of East Slavic tribes, specifically White Croats who lived in the region, possibly also Ulichs who arrived from the East, and partly Vlach shepherds who later immigrated from Transylvania.
Demography
In the region inhabited by Boykos, named as Boikivshchyna, lived up to 400,000 people of whom mostly were Boykos. They also lived in Sanok, Leskom and Przemyśl County of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship in Poland, before the forced relocation in 1947. In memory of Boykos, Ukraine's national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in 2016 renamed Telmanove Raion into Boykivske Raion where Boykos were deported from Czarna, Bieszczady County after the 1951 Polish–Soviet territorial exchange. In 1970, was evaluated that lived 230,000 people of Boyko's origin. In Ukraine, the classification of Boykos and other Rusyns as an East Slavic ethnicity, distinct from Ukrainians is controversial. The deprecated and archaic term Ruthenian, while it is also derived from Rus', is ambiguous, as it technically may refer to Rusyns and Ukrainians, as well as Belarusians and even Russians, depending on the historical period. According to the 2001 Ukraine census, only 131 people identified themselves as Boykos, separate from Ukrainians. However, this figure is distorted because some people otherwise identifiable as Boykos regard that name as derogatory. In the Polish census of 2011, 258 people identified their nationality as Boyko, with 14 people listing it as their only national identification.
