Ksanka's Personal Name List

Russian form of Zacharias.

Ukrainian form of Eugene.

Name of unclear origin. It may have been a folk form of Hermes via its canonical forms Yerm or Yerma, Hermas via Yermiy, Hermolaos via Yermolay or another canonical name beginning with herm-, such as Hermogenes, Hermokrates or Hermippos. Other possible origins include Yeremey and German. It may have had Tatarian origin, being thus a variant of Yermek. Finally, it may have been a nickname derived from irmak (ирмак) meaning "millstone of a hand-mill". Yermak Timofeyevich was a 16th century Muscovian conqueror of Siberia.

Russian form of Aemilianus (see Emiliano).

Russian form of Ephraim.

Russian diminutive of Yakov.

From the Old German elements walt "power, authority" and mari "famous", also used as a translation of the Slavic cognate Vladimir.

Form of Victor used in various languages.

Russian form of Basil 1.

Short form of Voldemārs and other Latvian names containing the Baltic/Germanic element vald "rule".

Meaning uncertain. It is used as a Russian form of the saintly name Bademus. Alternatively it may be derived from Slavic vaditi "to accuse, to argue" or from an Old Norse source. According to legend, this was the name of a legendary leader of the Ilmen Slavs who fought against the Varangians.

Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian form of Theodore.

Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian form of the Greek name Ταράσιος (Tarasios), which possibly means "from Taras". Taras was an Italian city, now called Taranto, which was founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC and was named for the Greek mythological figure Taras, a son of Poseidon. Saint Tarasios was an 8th-century bishop of Constantinople. It was also borne by the Ukrainian writer and artist Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861).

Form of Spartacus in several languages.

From South Slavic sloboda meaning "freedom".

Georgian form of Sergius.

Form of Rostam in various languages.

Form of Yeruslan used by Aleksandr Pushkin in his poem Ruslan and Ludmila (1820), which was loosely based on Russian and Tatar folktales of Yeruslan Lazarevich.

From the Late Latin name Romanus meaning "Roman". This name was borne by several early saints including a 7th-century bishop of Rouen, as well as medieval rulers of Bulgaria, Kyiv and Moldavia.

Russian form of Ῥοδίων (Rhodion), a short form of Herodion, referring to Saint Herodion of Patras.

Ukrainian and Esperanto form of Peter.

Ukrainian form of Eustathius.

Croatian, Russian and Ukrainian form of Orestes.

Polish form of Algirdas.

Russian form of the Old Norse name Helgi (see Helge). The Varangians brought this name from Scandinavia to Eastern Europe: it was borne by a 9th-century Varangian ruler who conquered Kyiv and made it the capital of the state of Kievan Rus.

Ukrainian form of Eleutherius. Olefir (or Olifer) Holub was an early XVII-century Cossack hetman.

Means "returner, homecomer" in Greek, from νέομαι (neomai) meaning "to return". In Homer's Iliad this was the name of the king of Pylos, famous for his great wisdom and longevity, who acted as a counselor to the Greek allies.

Russian, Ukrainian, Turkmen and Armenian form of Nazarius.

Russian, Bulgarian and Macedonian form of Nahum.

Romanian, Russian and Polish form of Myron.

Ukrainian form of Marcianus.

Transferred use of the surname Marat.

Russian, Belarusian and Macedonian form of Maximus, as well as an alternate transcription of Ukrainian Максим (see Maksym).

Russian and Ukrainian form of Lucianus.

Belarusian form of Leon.

Means "lion" in Russian, functioning as a vernacular form of Leo. This was the real Russian name of both author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and revolutionary Leon Trotsky (1879-1940).

Contracted form of Korneliy. Also compare Corné, which this name could be considered to be a cognate of.

A well-known bearer of this name was the Russian children's poet Korney Chukovsky (1882-1969).

Archaic Polish form of Conrad.

Short form of Kliment.

Dutch, Czech and Slovene form of Charles.

Spanish and Manx form of Iohannes (see John). Like other forms of John in Europe, this name has been extremely popular in Spain since the late Middle Ages.

The name is borne by Don Juan, a character from Spanish legend who, after killing his lover's father, is dragged to hell by the father's ghost. The story was adapted into plays by Tirso de Molina (1630) and Molière (1665), an opera by Mozart (1787), and an epic poem by Byron (1824), among other works.

Serbian and Macedonian form of John.

Scandinavian, Macedonian and Serbian form of Joachim.

Variant transcription of Iskandar

Russian form of Hippolytos.

Russian and Belarusian form of Elijah.

Bulgarian diminutive of Iliya. Since the 1960s it has been in occasional use in German-speaking countries.

Ukrainian form of Igor.

Russian and Bulgarian form of Ignatius.

Possibly means "interpreter, teacher" in Arabic, related to the root درس (darasa) meaning "to study, to learn". According to the Quran this was the name of an ancient prophet. He is traditionally equated with the Hebrew prophet Enoch.

Chechen, Ossetian and Kyrgyz form of Ibrahim. This is also a Russian form, used to Russify native versions of the name in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Bosnian, Urdu and Indonesian form of Harith, as well as an alternate transcription of the Arabic name.

Variant of Gunther.

Alternate transcription of Arabic فيصل (see Faysal), as well as the form in several other languages.

Derived from the Old German name Hariwini, composed of the elements heri "army" and wini "friend". It may have merged somewhat with the name Eberwin. A notable bearer was Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), an Austrian physicist who made contributions to quantum theory.

Derived from the Slavic element dorgŭ (South Slavic drag) meaning "precious".

Russian and Ukrainian form of Daumantas.

Alternate transcription of Russian Дмитрий (see Dmitriy).

Russian form of Diomedes.

Short form of Bogdana, Yordana or Gordana.

Possibly derived from the Slavic elements danŭ "given" and mirŭ "peace, world". Otherwise, it might be of Turkic or Russian origin (see Damir 2). It was popularized by a character from Marija Jurić Zagorka's novel Gordana (1935).

From the Greek name Δαμιανός (Damianos), which was derived from Greek δαμάζω (damazo) meaning "to tame". Saint Damian was martyred with his twin brother Cosmas in Syria early in the 4th century. They are the patron saints of physicians. Due to his renown, the name came into general use in Christian Europe. Another saint by this name was Peter Damian, an 11th-century cardinal and theologian from Italy.

Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian form of Bogdan, as well as a Polish variant.

Medieval Danish form of Absalom.

Bulgarian and Macedonian form of Athanasius.

From an old Indo-Iranian root meaning "Aryan, noble". In India, this is a transcription of both the masculine form आर्य and the feminine form आर्या. In Iran it is only a masculine name.

Ukrainian form of Artemios. It is also an alternate transcription of Russian Артём (see Artyom).

Armenian and Ossetian form of Arsenios.

Modern form of Arminius.

French and Catalan form of Herman.

Spanish and Portuguese form of Hannibal.

Polish and Belarusian form of Anatolius.

From the Greek name Ἄλεξις (Alexis) meaning "helper" or "defender", derived from Greek ἀλέξω (alexo) meaning "to defend, to help". This was the name of a 3rd-century BC Greek comic poet, and also of several saints. It is used somewhat interchangeably with the related name Ἀλέξιος or Alexius, borne by five Byzantine emperors.

In the English-speaking world this name is more commonly given to girls. This is due to the American actress Alexis Smith (1921-1993), who began appearing in movies in the early 1940s. It got a boost in popularity in the 1980s from a character on the soap opera Dynasty.

Alternate transcription of Russian Алексей (see Aleksey).

Russian form of Joachim.

This is the Hebrew word for "man". It could be ultimately derived from Hebrew אדם (ʾaḏam) meaning "to be red", referring to the ruddy colour of human skin, or from Akkadian adamu meaning "to make".

According to Genesis in the Old Testament Adam was created from the earth by God (there is a word play on Hebrew אֲדָמָה (ʾaḏama) meaning "earth"). He and Eve were supposedly the first humans, living happily in the Garden of Eden until they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a result they were expelled from Eden to the lands to the east, where they gave birth to the second generation, including Cain, Abel and Seth.

As an English Christian name, Adam has been common since the Middle Ages, and it received a boost after the Protestant Reformation. A famous bearer was Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790).