Russian Naming Convention: Difference between revisions

[[Russian Naming Convention]]s and your quick and easy guide to diminutives.

 

 

You're reading a Russian-written and/or set novel in which there's a hot [[Sensual Slavs|Soviet]] [[Mata Hari|spy]] (with blonde highlights, natch) called Ekaterina Ivanovna Smirnova. She hangs around Moscow and goes to Moscow Centre to do her work, where she's called Comrade Major Smirnova or Ekaterina Ivanovna. Then she goes to visit her friends, who start calling her Katya. Then she visits her parents at their [[Dacha]] (they're senior CPSU members, so they have a dacha) and they call her ''Katen'ka''.

 

 

 

So we're back to our hot female spy. Her full name is Ekaterina Ivanovna Smirnova. Her first name is obvious- the Russian form of Katherine. But what about the other two:

* Smirnova is the feminine form of Smirnov, a very common Russian surname. Women (often) add an "a" to the surname.

 

 

Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian surnames have a variety of different types, usually tallying with ethnic origin. The Russian ones:

Common surnames: Ivanov, Smirnov, Kuznetsov, Petrov, Sidorov

 

 

Common first names in those three countries (with English equivalents where they exist).

** "Dunya"

 

 

In Russia, when you're referring to someone in a formal setting, you don't just use their first name, but their first name and patronymic, i.e. "Ekaterina Ivanovna" or their diminutive. ("Ivan Ilyich" is a name familiar to Tolstoy wonks, who will tell you that that's not the character's full name; Soviet history buffs will tell you the same about [[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich|Ivan Denisovich]].)