Cross-Cultural Blog

Russian names

Dmitry: Hi! My name is Dmitry. Let me tell you about Russian names. There are many names, popular and forgotten, old and new, national and borrowed from other nations.

Olesya: Russian names. According to the statistics, these are the most popular Russian names. For men – Danil, Nikita, Evgenyi, Fedor, Alexander, Bogdan, Michail, Maxim. For women – Anastasiya, Olesya, Elizaveta, Alexandra, Anna, Evgenya, Darina, Maria, Valeria

Dmitry: When we refer to people or talk about them, we often do not use pronouns the way they are used in English, because in Russian the form of the verb reflects the category of person and number, so we do not need to use pronouns the way they are used in English.
Words like ‘Mr’, ‘Ms’, ‘Ser’ etc also exist in Russia. We used to have different words to refer to people (like ‘comrade’ or ‘citizen‘ and others) in USSR. Nowadays we do not use those words, we can just say ‘man’ or ‘guy’. In formal situations, people would address the audience “ladies and gentlemen”. Moreover, sometimes we do not use any words to refer to a person. It is enough to say ‘excuse me’ to draw someone’s attention. However, if we know the person’s name, we use only name to refer to a person.

Our names can also be short and full. My full name is Dmitry and the short form is Dima (it sounds [‘di:ma])
Some short forms of names are similar in male and female versions, though they may differ in full versions. For example, short name Sasha is both male and female name, and the full version varies depending on gender: Alexander is a male name, Alexandra is a female one.

Short names often sound similar to the full ones, and the majority of short forms retain the beginning of the full name. For example Olga – Olya [‘O:lya], Valentina[Va len ‘ti na] – Valya [‘Va: lja]. For some names, short variants are very informal, so when talking formally, these names have only the full version.

When addressing politely a grown up person, whose name we already know, we use first and middle names. For young people we usually use just the first name, either in formal or informal talk.
Russian middle name is formed from the person’s father’s name. So, our middle names are called patronymic names. These middle names always end with ‘-itch’ for men and ‘-vna’ for women. For example, my father is Vladimir and my middle name is Vladimirovitch. So formally I will be addressed Dmitri Vladimirovich

How do names affect people?

Galya: Last year, in May, 20, there was demonstrated a TV programme ‘Incredibility theory’, which dwelled on the connection between a name and a person’s fate. It was pointed out that some people can even feel negative influence, produced by their names. And later, on the public opinion polls, they showed the attitude of some people towards their names: ‘I feel that my name prevents me from better life, or I’m sure I won’t gain any success having such a name’. A lot of answers similar to those were registered.

Olesya: My name is Olesya. It`s Ukrainian name which means ‘a forest girl’. I don`t know, if my name and its meaning have any influence on me. I like forests and I like nature... But I don`t think that the personality depends only on name.

Dmitry: I think names affect people. Sometimes I feel that people with the same name have similar characters. Maybe that is a stereotype, because often it is not true. Still, depending on a person, we can say which names would suit him. I think people may also be affected by the name when they learn what their name means. But I for example just don’t know the translation or the meaning of my name. Actually, I don’t care about it

Why people change names?

Galya: During history, shaman organized change name ceremonies, because they believed that it could help to cure a person. Cure happened because besides new name a person got new emotions from the outside. And we know that emotions are means of passing vital energy from one person to another, which is the strongest medicine
A name identifies a person. It is an identification mark for each of us. I believe that if we change our names we can change the life or even start a new one. A lot of people understand it and it urges them on changing their names. Sometimes, people change melodious names to ordinary ones. What would the reasons be? I think, people feel the effect of the name on their own life

Very often people choose names which provide melody or vibration. Unfortunately, people cannot even suppose that choosing inappropriate name can have dramatic effect on person’s fate, and provoke long depression and even strong mental disorder

Olesya: I really like my name-it`s neither rare, nor very widespread. I don`t want to change my name. Because I`m satisfied with my name and I regard it`s too hard to get used to a new name.
There are two main reasons why Russian people change names:

1) they move to the other country and it is very hard to understand or pronounce their names on the language of that country. They don’t want to be unique abroad
2) they simply don`t like it!!!

But why is it so? Some people, who have very widespread names, want to be unique. They want to show that their names reflect special features of their personality.
BUT, on the contrary, people who have unusual unique names from their birth, want to change their names to something more usual! It is hard for them to communicate with people.

Of course, there are some other reasons to change names. For example, fashion. People want to have MODERN names. Every year some new names come into fashion and some become out of date. Another reason of changing name is deep love to some literature character, movie hero, or a TV star. As for me, in my childhood I wanted to change my name and to be called Alice because I liked the book «Alice in Wonderland» very much.

In Russia parents can change a child’s name until he/she is 10. After the child is 10 and before he/she is 14, parents can change his/her name only if he/she wants to. From the age 14 to 18 you can change your name, but only if your parents agree. After 18 years, you yourself can change your name

Some ideas on nicknames

Galya: very often people make up different names for their friends. For example, I call my best friend O-LYA-LYA though her real name is Olya. Or we make Svetik out of Svetlana, Pusik out of Sasha or whatever. We define such names as made up names. Such names reveal our personal close attitude towards this or that person. This is often our subconscious choice. So the way we call a person carries our sincere attitude to him/her. And we know that emotions are means of passing vital energy from one person to another, which is the strongest medicine

Olesya: My friends and relatives call me Lesya and it`s good – but I don`t like when a person whom I don`t know well calls me so. People who love me call me Lesechka or Lesenka (diminutive suffix). Friends in the internet like to call me Lisenok or LeiSAN (these friends like Japanese culture). My nicknames are Panda (because it`s my favorite animal), LOVINGSEA (because I was born in the city, which is located on the seashore, and I like to watch the sea. I think my nicknames show what am I like, and they reflect my character a bit=))

According to the statistics, most popular Russian nicknames are: Noob, partisan (it`s russian word meaning ‘a guerrilla’), monkey, Killer (Sometimes the real name of a persom may be Kirill), Cat (The real name may be Katya for female, or Kostya for male), Hare (Or bunny), Angel, Kitty, Lucky, Happy, Sweet, Rabbit, Honey, Godfather

Dmitry: people who surf the Internet or play computer games choose nicknames for themselves. What is special about Russians is that some users try to write Russian letters using English ones. Like, English ‘n’ looks like a letter from the Russian alphabet that sounds like [p]. Some others are: ‘p’ sounds like [r], ‘H’ sounds like [n]. ‘bI’ looks like one letter, that sounds like [i], and a number ‘3’ looks like Russian [z]. But words written like that are not very easy to read for some Russians, especially grown-ups, who do not know about that way of writing

We have some questions about names to you!

What are the most popular names in your country?
How much do you think names affect people?
Is it good to change your name? Have you ever changed it?
What nicknames are popular where you live? What nicknames do you use?

Thank you! It will be nice to know your opinions abot names!