A Guide to Understanding Russian Names

Through the example of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, I will demystify the three parts of Russian names—first names, patronymics, and surnames—and their purpose.

Greetings to all Dostoevsky enthusiasts!

One of the biggest challenges non-Russian speakers face when reading Russian literature is understanding names and their meanings. In this short guide, I will explain everything you need to know to understand Russian names.

First, we will examine how Russian names are structured and what they consist of.

During our reading of TBK, I will analyze all main characters and provide audio files with Russian pronunciations of their names. I will also create detailed character pages to support our discussions.

The character list page is here

All links to materials and schedule are here

A Russian name consists of three parts —

1. Given name (First name) — Имя (Imya)

2. Patronymic — Отчество (Otchestvo)

3. Family name (Last name, Surname) — Фамилия (Familia)

The respectful (or very formal) form of address: Given name + Patronymic

The common combination for introducing oneself for the first time or when signing something, but people don't address each other this way in direct speech — Given name + Surname

The order of the full name can appear in two variants

• Family name + (Given name + Patronymic)

• (Given name + Patronymic) + Family name.

The patronymic used in conjunction with the given name.

Let's examine everything using the example of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

1. Fyodor (Фёдор) — given name

2. Mikhailovich (Михайлович) — patronymic

3. Dostoevsky (Достоевский) — family name

4. Fyodor Mikhailovich (Фёдор Михайлович) — respectful full form of the given name

5. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky or Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich (Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский или Достоевский Фёдор Михайлович) — complete full name

6. Fyodor Dostoevsky (Фёдор Достоевский) — given name with surname without patronymic, the common way of introducing oneself, especially for young people, as the patronymic is often unnecessary for everyday communication.

Audio text — Fyodor, Fedya, Fedka, Fedechka, Feden’ka (Федор, Федя, Федька, Федечка, Феденька)

Basic

No surprises here, it’s just your regular first name, given at birth. In Dostoevsky's time, names were most often chosen from the calendar of saints, meaning a child would be named after a saint at baptism. This is why you couldn't just make up any name you wanted. You couldn't name a child just any word. These days it's simpler - you can use names that aren't from the approved list, though in some cases they may refuse to register a name.

Christians didn't do this - which is why there were relatively few names, so you could meet a lot of people bearing the same name.

By the end of the 19th century, the number of names in the church calendar had grown to 900 male and 250 female names. The Church tried to restrict the choice for Orthodox Christians with strict rules, requiring that a saint's name should be chronologically close to the date of birth, but judging by the list of most popular names, this rule was rarely followed - otherwise, the top ten most common names would not have included names whose saints' days fell only once or twice a year.

The top 10 in the end of 19 century looked as follows.

• Male names: Nikolai, Alexander, Mikhail, Ivan, Vasily, Alexei, Sergei, Vladimir, Pyotr, Georgy.

• Female names: Maria, Anna, Alexandra, Ekaterina, Klavdia, Tatiana, Vera, Olga, Elizaveta, Elena.

Intermediate

Personal names have many forms - both diminutive and pejorative. This is because Russian has many suffixes that create new variants of the same word. English doesn't have this - to characterize an object in English, you add an adjective, while in Russian you can change the word form itself.

For example for word apple (яблоко / jabloko). In English, if you want to indicate that an apple is small, you can only do so by adding a descriptor - small apple. In Russian, you can say small apple, but you can also change the word form itself by adding a diminutive suffix, resulting in the word " яблочко / yablochko". Then, just by saying "yablochko" - it's clear that the apple is small.

The same applies to names. In official books, at baptism, the full neutral name is always recorded. But each name also has a neutral diminutive form, as well as many variants of other diminutive forms, with different emotional coloring. All of this is due to suffixes.

• Fyodor (Фёдор) — neutral given name.

• Fedya (Федя) — neutral diminutive form of the name.

• Fedka, Fedechka, Fedenka (Федька, Федечка, Феденька) — with emotional coloring. Usually affectionate, tender, or friendly.

Every given name has a neutral diminutive form. And diminutive forms with emotional coloring.

Examples of some other names (from C&P):

• Rodion (Родион) — neutral given name.

• Rodya (Родя) — neutral diminutive form of the name.

• Rodka, Rodechka, Rodenka (Родька, Родечка, Роденька) — with emotional coloring.

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• Avdotya (Авдотья) — neutral given name.

• Dunya (Дуня) — neutral diminutive form of the name.

• Dunechka, Duniasha, Dunka (Дунечка, Дуняша, Дунька) — with emotional coloring.

Advanced

• There are double given names, but they're rare, like Anna-Maria.

• The popularity of names depends on the time period and fashion changes.

In the Russian Empire, there was a class-based stratification of names. A firm notion emerged about names befitting nobles, merchants, or peasants. Thus, by the mid-18th century, names like Ivan and Vasily came to be seen as colloquial, unbecoming for aristocrats, although not long ago even Tsars were called by these names - Ivan the Terrible.

Among landowner women, names like Praskovya and Evdokia also became rare, although a century earlier these were names given to tsarinas. The high society favored names like Ekaterina, Anna, and Elizaveta, but especially Maria. However, after this name took root in villages by the mid-19th century – as many peasants named their daughters after their noble ladies – it sharply declined in aristocratic circles because it had become "too peasant-like."

The following trend is clearly visible: the ruling class would set the fashion for names, and after several decades, the name would spread among peasants as "prestigious." Its popularity among common people would undermine its prestige among the aristocracy, and other names would come into fashion. Thus, during the Great Reforms of the 1860s, the name Olga rapidly gained popularity, displacing the former "champions" – Maria and Elena – from their top positions.

• Names have meanings, as they came from ancient names - Greek, Arabic, etc. Many people don't know the meaning of their own name, as it's not obvious and needs to be looked up specially. For example, the name Fyodor.

Fyodor - a male Russian personal name of Greek origin; derives from Ancient Greek Θεόδωρος ("gift of God", "God's gift"). The pre-revolutionary and church form of the name is Ѳео́доръ (Фео́дор) — Theodor (Feodor). It belongs to two-component theophoric names with the component [theo]- (θεός, "God"); the second component is δῶρον, "gift"

Many old names have analogues in other languages. For example, in English it's Theodore. There are also name variants, for instance, from the same Greek roots but in a different order came the name Dorotheos, and in another translation Bogdan "gift of God".

Audio text — Mikhailovich (Михайлович)

Mikhailovich = the son of Mikhail (Михаил)

Basic

The patronymic is formed from the father's given name by adding a specific suffix.

For boys -ovich (-ович), for girls -ovna (-овна).

This is the most common suffix, but there are other suffixes with slight differences.

Mikhail becomes MikhailOVICH and MikhailOVNA. All of Dostoevsky's brothers and sisters had the same patronymic since they had the same father.

A small hint for those who find it very difficult to read and remember these names - it's perfectly fine to ignore the patronymic when reading novels - you don't have to memorize them, just understand that it's a polite form of address. For identifying a character, the given name and surname are much more important. Characters are extremely rarely referred to by patronymic alone.

Intermediate. Can a patronymic be used separately from the given name?

Yes, but it's quite informal. No one would address someone this way in formal speech or with strangers. Close friends might use it if it's accepted in their circle. Using just the patronymic by itself might provoke a negative reaction. Some elderly people can address each other by patronymic alone - it's just a little friendly quirk. However, it would be rude to address elders by patronymic alone, if you don’t have that sort of relationship with them, some close friendship bont that would allow that.

In Crime and Punishment, there are variants of some patronymics - Romanovich / Romanych (Романович / Романыч). The second form is shorter, colloquial, and very informal.

Here’s a curious colloquial form of the patronymic Alexandrovich (Александрович) (son of Alexander) - Sanych (Саныч). In documents, only the full version of the patronymic would always be used. But as you understand, in Russian culture, people love to shorten words, creating new forms.

Advanced

The patronymic is given for life. In modern Russia, people can be without a patronymic if their father is unknown or not listed on the birth certificate. In such cases, there is a dash in the documents in its place.

Also in the modern world, there have been proposals to use matronymics, i.e., derived from the mother's name. This would be relevant in cases where there is no father, or the child prefers not to be connected to that name. However, this didn't catch on. Although apparently, some people managed to get a matronymic included in their documents.

Audio text — Dostoevsky (Достоевский)

Basic

A surname is a family name that unites the entire family or family tree. Surnames didn't always exist, and at some point, it became quite difficult to distinguish people by first names alone. That's why surnames are often descriptive - people initially chose their own surnames, so they could come from their profession, place of residence, and religion, and many also took surnames in honor of their father or grandfather, which is why there are still many Russian surnames that come from common names, which can be confusing non-Russian speakers. The same goes for the surnames that appeared from the practice of serfdom. The surfs could’ve been given names that refer not to their progenitor but to the person they serve. Basically, like an ownership signature.

For example, the surname Ivanov comes from the name Ivan. And a full name (surname + given name + patronymic ) all derived from Ivan would be Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich. This is often used as a neutral full name akin to John Doe, or a placeholder name in the document templates to show where a person must write their name.

It's particularly interesting to study surnames in Dostoevsky's works, as he sometimes gives surnames special meaning, as with Raskolnikov and Razumikhin. Here Dostoevsky is free to invent any surname, even ones that don't exist. Because unlike given names, there are no books like the list of saints for baptism that would limit imagination in creating surnames. If you add the correct suffix, any word can be transformed into a surname.

Intermidiate

Most commonly surnames end with:

• — suffixes -ov / -ev / -yov (-ов / -ев / -ёв) for men and -ova / -eva / -yova (-ова / -ева / -ёва) for women

Traditionally, most surnames end in -ov and -ova. If you see such an ending, it's 99% likely to be a surname. Why not 100%? Well, it could be an unusual form of a simple name or nickname. Most of the character surnames are exactly like this: Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Marmeladov, Karamazov, Miusov, Vorokhov, Polenov.

• — suffixes -in / -yn (-ин / -ын) for men and -ina / -yna (-ин / -ына) for women

Luzhin, Razumikhin, Pushkin

• — suffixes -sky / -tsky (-ский / -цкий) for men and -skaya / -tskaya (-ская / -цкая) for women

Chernyshevsky, Vyazemsky, Dostoevsky

• — suffixes -y / -oy / -iy (-ый / -ой / -ий) for men and -aya (-ая) for women

Tolstoy, Gorkiy

Of course, there are always exceptions, and surnames can be unique, come from other languages, or be invented by people.

Advanced

A surname defines the family line. Therefore, when a family is created, the surname unites it. Traditionally, women take their husband's surname after marriage. However, there can be other options - a man can take the woman's surname or they can combine both of their surnames. This results in compound surnames.

Why does this happen? Most likely when two families or clans merge, where one family doesn't want to replace their surname with another. And to ensure they still have the same surname, they simply combine them, keeping both. For example, there was the Saltykov family and the Shchedrin family. And thus emerged the Saltykov-Shchedrin family, to which one of the famous Russian writers belongs.

Dostoevsky's wife, born Anna Snitkina, became Anna Dostoevskaya, as she took her husband's surname.

Surnames usually have meaning, as they derive from some word, place, or name. Take Dostoevsky's surname as an example.

His surname comes from the Old Slavonic word (dostojьnъ), from which such words as "worthy" (достоин) and "dignity" (достоинство) also derived. It's likely that the Dostoevsky family line took their surname from the village of Dostoevo (Достоево) in Belarus, whose name came from the word meaning "worthy" - worthy people.

Audio text — Fyodor Mikhailovich (Фёдор Михайлович)

This is what you would use to politely address Dostoyevsky. Full given name plus patronymic.

This is how people address teachers, in some families - parents and grandparents, or other elder relatives, and strangers. If you're writing a letter to an older person, you should begin it with "Dear Given Name + Patronymic" — «Dear Fyodor Mikhailovich».

This is why in Dostoevsky's novels many characters are referred to by their given name and patronymic. For example, Porfiry Petrovich. He’s a government official, and the characters in the novel aren’t his friends and close relatives, so he’s referred to in this formal way. Petrovich (Петрович) is not a surname, it's a patronymic, meaning his father's name was Pyotr (Пётр). However, some people confuse this with a surname since his surname never appears in the novel, although Dostoevsky had considered the surname Semenov but abandoned it. The confusion arises because in some countries, like Serbia, the form ending in -ich is common in surnames.

Audio text — Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky or Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich (Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский или Достоевский Фёдор Михайлович)

It consists of the Surname and Given Name+Patronymic. This is how it appears in documents. Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich or Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - it's the same thing, but traditionally the formula is Surname-Given Name-Patronymic. This abbreviation «ФИО» (Фамилия-Имя-Отчество) is used for filling out various papers, applications, etc.

There's no significant difference in meaning whether the surname goes at the beginning or end, it depends more on the context.

In writing, the full name is often shortened to initials. Thus for Dostoevsky it would be F.M. Dostoevsky (Ф.М. Достоевский). This is done on book covers, for example. Also when signing documents and letters.

[Audio coming soon]

Audio text — Fyodor Dostoevsky or Dostoevsky Fyodor (Федор Достоевский или Достоевский Федор)

Thank you

dinesh

for asking this question, I hadn't written about this combination, but this is how characters most often introduce themselves in books.

This variant is more for writing, when someone is signing something. On social media, people won't just write their patronymic. They'll more likely just indicate their first name and surname. No one in conversation will address each other using first name and surname combination - this variant is suitable when you're talking about someone to clearly identify them.

This version of first name and surname without the patronymic isn't considered a full name, however, it's sufficient information in many situations. Among young people, no one will address each other using patronymics, other than in jest. Even among adults, there are plenty of people who don't want to be addressed by their patronymic. Therefore, when first meeting, they will say only their first name or first name with surname.

That's why the first name + surname variant can often be found among book characters, as well as on book covers.

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I really hope that names are now more or less clear. As we read, we'll analyze all the names from the novel, and I'll point out which ones are given names and which are surnames. There are interesting and unusual cases, as always. Different distortions, name-calling, and so on.

I hope you're already looking forward to discussing the novel.

Have a great weekend!