“What is in the name?”, they say. Actually, a lot, especially if you are Russian. Russian names have a rich tradition. Prior to the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russian names were largely influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church and often derived from the names of favorite Russian saints. However, with the introduction of communist rule, the government encouraged parents to choose new names with a revolutionary touch. Christian names still persisted and a crop of unique names arose as a result of amalgamation of the old and the new.
Russian names usually have 3 parts: First name, Patronymics and the Surname. The first names or personal names are usually dominated with a large number of diminutives (nicknames), which are usually stemmed from syllables in the first name. So IVAn can become VAnya or VAnka. Again, one of the most common diminutives Sasha may refer to both AlekSAndr, a guy or AlekSAndra, a girl! Though confusing at first, you slowly get to know how Russian names work.
The Patronymics are derived from the person’s father’s name. For instance, in Ivan Ivanovich, Ivanovich translates as “son of Ivan”.
Male patronymics usually end in -ovich or -evich while female patronymics end in -ovna or -evna.
As far as the Surnames are concerned, some are classically Russian sounding like Ivanov, though you can find a variety of off-beat ones too. One problem with Russian names is that they are originally written in Cyrillic alphabets. So when the need arises to write them in Latin alphabets (like English), a wide variety of spellings can arise since the names are only transliterated. Thus “Dostoevsky” is the same person as “Dostoevskii”.
Nevertheless, Russian names are beautiful, diverse and rich with heritage. So if you want to choose a Russian name for your baby boy, celebrate because you have a huge variety to choose from.
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