Ukrainians seem rather monotonous when it comes to giving names to children. Every other person you meet is bound to be Lena, Katya, Dima or Andriy. The repetitiveness of Eastern European names even caused the name Natasha to become a synonym for prostitute in Turkey.
While parents and children are used to five Mashas and four Sashas in a class, foreigners find it funny and confusing. A popular joke in Kyiv goes: If airlines allowed changing names on a first-name basis only, some foreign men could profit handsomely. If one of their Olyas drops out of a holiday plan at the last minute, another one would not be that hard to find.
An inquiry into what – or rather who – preceded a tedious army of namesakes, unzipped a few interesting facts. History of names in this part of the world can be roughly divided into three periods: pagan, Christian and Soviet.
So for the first thousand or so years – before Christianity was adopted in 988 – the ancients named their children after forces of nature, traits of character, gods or animals. To give you an idea of the world back then, there were Wind, Pike, Nut and Yarylo (the Sun god), among others. Names made of two things or features were also popular. Some have even made it to our days. Vsevolod, a name made of two words, means a man who owns it all; Svyatozar – the one with a holy shine; Tyhomyr brings out peace and quiet.
People would acquire these names as teenagers at the time when their characters were more or less defined. At birth, however, they were called rather devious names to repel evil spirits. In those days you could easily end up lulling your baby Nekras (ugly), Zloba (spite), or Durak (fool).
Nature and people’s instincts in giving names waned under the pressure of a new force – Christianity. It was not just considered pious to name someone Peter or Ivan (John); it was required by the church calendar. Each day in the calendar was dedicated to particular saints and martyrs, and kids received their names according to when they were born. Kateryna, Anastasia, and Yulia among others came from Greece where the Orthodox Church was making first bold strides.
Sadly, only a small number of old Slavic names became canonical. Take for instance Prince Volodymyr, who baptized the Kyiv Rus. In his 30s, he was renamed into Vasyl in honor of Byzantium Emperor Basyl II. Only later, his name at birth, Volodymyr, was considered holy enough to appear in the church records.
Religious reforms were shaping up this ubiquitous calendar throughout centuries to come. Some argue there were not enough saints, martyrs or other destiny-changing priests of Slavic descent to enrich the calendar. Others say we had plenty of religious heroes – they just went down in history under already known Christian names. As a result, Ivan had up to 80 name days, Anna – nearly 20, and Maria – around a dozen in the church calendar. Male names significantly outnumbered the female ones. Since women played little part in state and church affairs, their names were rarely recorded.
Patronymics, or middle name derived from the father’s first name, appeared well before surnames. Apparently only very important people were entitled to have patronymics. In the 17th century, Russian Tsar Vasily granted the Stroganovs’ family the use of patronymics for making Ural and Siberia part of the empire.
Things started to change around 1917 – right after the demise of the royal family. When Lenin separated church from the state, the revolutionary spirit was still pungent. No longer required to go by the old books, some patriots were naming their sons Vladlen, an acronym for Vladimir Lenin. Among other revolutionary names for girls were Dazdraperma (a rude-sounding acronym from Long Live May 1st!) and Ninel (Lenin read backwards.) Marlen may sound like Marilyn Monroe’s first name, but in reality it stands for Marx and Lenin. The first electric light bulb invented around the same time was also glorified in a female name: Perli or Pervaya ElektRicheskay Lampochka Illicha.
The sea of communist names was somewhat diluted by foreign arrivals like Rudolf and Timur. After the World War II, however, people longed for stability and consistency when naming their children. And so Oleksandr, Oleksiy, Iryna, and Svetlana made a huge comeback. There are up to 20 popular female and male names that roam Ukrainian, Russian, Belorussian streets and beyond. Simple Christian names were tested by history, and no revolution could defame them.
Those who continued to experiment came mainly from rural areas. Some experts point out that intellectuals, for the most part, do not follow the fashion and prefer mature names.
If that is still the logic these days, this country is full of intellectuals. But somehow, it seems that tradition and conservativeness contribute more to the naming trends.
Top 15 names in 2009
(Source: Ministry of Justice)
Male:
Maksym, Viktor, Oleksandr, Kyrylo, Denys, Danylo, Andriy, Artem, Dmytro, Vladyslav, Yaroslav, Mykyta, Yegor, Illya, Bohdan.
Female:
Anastasiya, Sofiya, Anna, Darya, Valeriya, Mariya, Yulia, Yelyzaveta, Oleksandra, Kateryna, Alina, Nataliya, Viktoriya, Angelina, Veronika.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliya Popova can be reached at [email protected]
