I
really love the name
Mikhail (pron. “me-KY-el”, it sort of sounds like ‘denial’) but I don’t know if I could get away with using it on a non-Russian kid. I do have Russian roots on my mom’s side, but I don’t think it’s enough to actually be considered Russian. I wasn’t looking to name my kid something Russian and I’ve never even visited Russia. I don’t want to seem ignorant by using a Russian name, and feel like a hypocrite because I normally don't like it when people use names that are way out of their cultural experience. But then if you look at popular names like
Mikayla, how many of those parents are actually Ukrainian?