It does sound similiar to me esp if you don't pronounce the T. Voldemort is the only other association most English speakers are going to have with Vol*d let alone Vol*d*m*r. But I don't think in practice it'd be that strong of an association - I'd guess a Vlad would get Dracula comments more than a Volodymyr would get Voldemort comments.
I think it's an ok name if I imagine using it for a person. But I've never personally encountered it. I guess people dislike it in the abstract because they're not familiar with it and then only have negative word associations (I can see vole and dim as possibilities for example); they might also associate it with politics and dislike that, if Zelenskyy is the only one they've heard of. And in general, I think the majority of users on this site tend to be biased in favor of Romance language based names and conventional English/biblical names.
This message was edited 12/23/2024, 11:39 AM