Аннотация:The article is devoted to the study of the evolution of the network of settlements of Besermyans, the main routes of their migration in the 17th — mid-20th centuries. The main sources for the study were the materials of census descriptions and household censuses, census tales, statistical data, the works of P. M. Sorokin and T. I. Teplyashina. At the beginning of the 17th century, Besermyans were recorded in six pogosts (or villages) and began to settle in another pochinok (small new settlement or forest clearing). By the middle of the 17th century, the first villages and pochinoks appeared on the territory of the modern Udmurt Republic. The greatest increase in the number of Besermyan settlements was observed in the second half of the 18th — early 19th centuries. More than a quarter of them were abandoned fairly quickly, sometimes later Besermyans reappeared in previously abandoned places. From the very beginning, their characteristic feature was cohabitation with representatives of neighboring peoples (Tatars, Udmurts, Russians). Assimilation processes were observed already at the early stages. Mass Christianization, on the one hand, accelerated the Tatarization of the Besermyans who had not accepted baptism, on the other hand, it contributed to the inclusion of a relatively small part of the baptized Chepetsk Tatars into their ranks. In the middle of the 20th century, representatives of the people lived in dozens of villages, mainly located in Northern Udmurtia. Special attention is paid to the analysis of Besermyan surnames and their transformation according to the censuses of the early — mid-18th century. The composition of nicknames derived from grandfathers’ names that had emerged by the beginning of the 18th century was supplemented in the middle of the century by surnames of Christian and, to a lesser extent, traditional origin.