GemmaNZ's Personal Name List

Russian and Ukrainian form of Zenobia.

Diminutive of Zhanna.

Russian and Ukrainian form of Eudocia.

Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian form of Eve.

Russian and Ukrainian feminine form of Vitalis (see Vitale).

Russian form of Cecilia.

Feminine form of the Roman name Tatianus, a derivative of the Roman name Tatius. This was the name of a 3rd-century saint who was martyred in Rome under the emperor Alexander Severus. She was especially venerated in Orthodox Christianity, and the name has been common in Russia (as Татьяна) and Eastern Europe. It was not regularly used in the English-speaking world until the 1980s.

Russian form of Paraskeve.

Russian form of Nino 2.

Russian diminutive of Lidiya.

Possibly derived from the name of the ancient city of Larisa in Thessaly, which meant "citadel". In Greek legends, the nymph Larisa was either a daughter or mother of Pelasgus, the ancestor of the mythical Pelasgians. This name was later borne by a 4th-century Greek martyr who is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Church. The name (of the city, nymph and saint) is commonly Latinized as Larissa, with a double s. As a Ukrainian name, it is more commonly transcribed Larysa.

Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian form of Claudia.

Diminutive of Yekaterina.

Bulgarian form of Eugenia and an alternate transcription of Russian Евгения (see Yevgeniya).

Bulgarian and Macedonian form of Katherine, and an alternate transcription of Russian Екатерина (see Yekaterina).

Russian form of Eudocia.

Spanish, Catalan, Russian and Polish form of Ariadne.

Russian diminutive of Anna.

Feminine form of Antoninus.

Form of Hannah used in the Greek and Latin Old Testament. Many later Old Testament translations, including the English, use the Hannah spelling instead of Anna. The name appears briefly in the New Testament belonging to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah. It was a popular name in the Byzantine Empire from an early date, and in the Middle Ages it became common among Western Christians due to veneration of Saint Anna (usually known as Saint Anne in English), the name traditionally assigned to the mother of the Virgin Mary.

In England, this Latin form has been used alongside the vernacular forms Ann and Anne since the late Middle Ages. Anna is currently the most common of these spellings in all English-speaking countries (since the 1970s), however the biblical form Hannah is presently more popular than all three.

The name was borne by several Russian royals, including an 18th-century empress of Russia. It is also the name of the main character in Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina (1877), about a married aristocrat who begins an ultimately tragic relationship with Count Vronsky.

Russian diminutive of Alla.

Diminutive of Aleksandra.