Russian Forenames

[John Dunn]

L.M. Shchetinin, Imena i nazvanija, Izd-vo Rostovskogo un-ta, Rostov-on-Don, 1968, has a list of names together with tables indicating their frequency at various periods between 1612 and 1965.  Once you finally move to the Midlands, it will be an interesting challenge for your local library to see if they can track down a copy! 

As everywhere else, these things go in fashions.  It was in the 1920s that the fashion was for 'revolutionary' or 'progressive' names, such as Traktor or Ninel' (Lenin backwards); Shchetinin reckons that 0.03% of children born between 1922 and 1928 were blessed (if that is the right word) with the name Traktor (it has always been a slight disappointment that I have never mat anyone called Traktor or with the patronymic Traktorovich).  There was a fashion at the same time for foreign names, such as Robert and Zhanna.

By the late 1940s the pendulum has swung the other way, and the range of names used was very narrow: when I was a student in Rostov at the beginning of the 1970s, it seemed that 90% of our male contemporaries were called either Aleksandr, Vladimir or Jurij, and we had to resort to an elaborate system of nicknames in order to distinguish them.  By the 1960s, however, 'older' names had come back into fashion (as was the case in the UK), and so you find lots of girls being given the names Anastasija, Dar'ja or Oksana (Shchetinin has no records for the first two after the 1930s).  

Finally, the effect of fashion can be seen with Shchetinin's figures for the name Ivan after 1880:
1880-90: 13.6%
1908-16: 24.6%
1922-28: 1.85%
1932-38: 1.13%
1941-49: 0.85%
1951-58: 0.7%
1961-65: 0.6%
Which explains why I have met very few people called Ivan.

John Dunn.

______________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Stephanie Briggs [sdsures at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: 19 October 2010 13:21
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian Forenames

I was wondering if anyone could provide me with a list of Russian forenames,
and explanations as to why these names are used over and over for Russians,
Ukrainians, etc. ie Tatiana, Olga, Ekaterina, Ivan...one of my professors
years ago talked anout why the names are seen as "standard" Russian names,
but the reason escapes me. Also, at some point there was an effort to make
new names, which resulted in some pretty weird patronymics ("Elevatorovich",
Traktorovich"), so they went back to the standard names.

Stephanie (who is moving from Scotland to the Midlands on Friday - eek!)

*****************************
~Stephanie D. (Sures) Briggs
http://sdsures.blogspot.com/

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