Russian and Ukrainian names for boys. The difference between Russian and Ukrainian names

Ukrainian names have much in common with Russian and Belarusian ones. This is not surprising, because our peoples have common roots and one story. The intertwining of destinies has led to the fact that now in Ukraine they are asked to write down children in the Russian-language form of the name, while in mother tongue it may sound very different. What is the peculiarity of Ukrainian names?

Let's look into the past

Now in Ukraine, the fashion is returning to call children Old Slavonic names. So in kindergartens and schools you can meet girls Bogdana, Miroslava, Bozhedana, Velena, Bozena. The boys are named Dobromir, Izyaslav, Lubomir. But this is only modern tendencies, although they were observed for almost the entire centuries-old history of the fraternal people.

When Christianity was adopted in Russia, they began to baptize everyone in the church and give the names of the holy great martyrs. This tradition continues to this day. But we still continue to name children exactly as it is written in the certificate? And why is this happening?

It turns out that this phenomenon is more than a thousand years old. Ever since the first Christian years, people who were accustomed to this continued to call their children. And what the church requires of them simply remained on paper. So the names could actually be different. Bogdan was baptized as a child under the banner of St. Zenobius, and Ivan as Istislav.

Examples of names of Christian origin

But the language of the people is great and powerful, so some Ukrainian names were nevertheless borrowed from the Christian faith. Over time, they were changed and adapted to the gentle sound of the colorful language. By the way, there are also native Russian analogues. For example, Elena in Ukraine sounds like Olena, Emilian - Omelyan, Glykeria - Licker (Russian Lukerya).

In the Old Russian language there were no names that would begin with the first letter of the alphabet A. This rule later passed to Ukraine, with the exception of the name Andrei (Andriy, although in some villages you can hear Gandriy) and Anton. But Alexander and Alexey, more familiar to us, had the first O and turned into Oleksandr and Oleksiy. By the way, dear Anna in Ukraine sounds like Ganna.

Another phonetic feature ancient language- the absence of the letter F. Almost all words with F are borrowed from other countries. That is why the Christian versions of Thekla, Philip and Theodosius turned into Tesla, Pilip and Todos.

Ukrainian male names

It is simply impossible to name all the names suitable for boys and which will be considered primordially Ukrainian. There are a great number of them, and all of them have Old Slavonic roots. We propose to consider the most common Ukrainian male names and their meaning.

Women's names

Many female names are derived from the male. List of Ukrainian given names in feminine form:

The meaning of Ukrainian names can be understood from the very name. Originally Ukrainian words were used to display their meaning on the character of the child. Therefore, if you read Miloslav, then you mean that this sweet creature will certainly become famous.

How to read Ukrainian names correctly

In the Ukrainian language, almost all letters are similar to Russian. Except for a few. They are especially difficult for people from other countries, because the language requires them to be pronounced smoothly and softly.

So, the letter g is in two versions. The first ordinary is read gutturally, softly, and the second with a tail is more firmly. Besides:

• e is read like Russian e;
• her:
• i - and;
• and - similarly s;
• ї - like "yi"
• yo - like Russian ё.

Features of modern names

Modern Ukrainian names have already lost their uniqueness. Of course, the parents of the western regions and some central regions still preserve ancient traditions, but the rest, and especially big cities prefer to use Russified forms. By the way, data about a person is written in two languages ​​- national and Russian.

Russian name- Ukrainian name? Passport problem

In Soviet times, the names of residents of the Union republics were recorded in passports in two languages ​​- Russian and national language republics. At the same time (in the case of Ukraine and Belarus), the name and patronymic were not transcribed, as is customary throughout the civilized world, but were replaced by the corresponding analogues: Pyotr Nikolaevich - Petro Mikolayovich, Nadezhda Vladimirovna - Nadia Volodimirivna. The nationality of a person had no influence: the Ukrainian Petro in the Russian-language documents still appeared as Peter, and the Russian Nadezhda in the Ukrainian-language documents as Nadia.

In modern Ukrainian legislation, this practice is theoretically abolished: according to the Constitution, a citizen has the right to a transcribed record of a name and surname in accordance with his national traditions. However, in reality, in order to achieve the desired spelling of the name, people have to overcome many bureaucratic obstacles. The same thing happens with the entry of the name on the birth certificate. For a long time, parents who wanted to name their daughter Anna encountered stubborn resistance from the registry office workers, who claimed that there was no such name in the Ukrainian language, but there was Hanna (which is blatant illiteracy: the variant Anna has existed in the Ukrainian language for many centuries). AT recent times resistance subsided - not in last turn because legally savvy parents began to challenge these actions in higher instances.

How to pronounce Ukrainian names

The Ukrainian alphabet is very close to Russian, but there are several differences between them:

e reads like Russian uh;
є - like Russian e:
і - like Russian and;
and- as an average between Russian s and and;
ї - as " yi"
yo- like Russian yo after consonants: Stas yo- Stas yo(but not Stasio).
yo- like Russian yo at the beginning of a word or after hard consonants.

Unlike the Russian yo, which is always stressed, Ukrainian yo/yo may be unfortunate.

Letter " G" denotes a voiced guttural or back lingual fricative (as in Russian literary pronunciation Bo's words G)

letters s,b,yo,uh not in the Ukrainian alphabet. Together separating solid mark an apostrophe is used ( ’ ).

Unstressed vowels in Ukrainian are pronounced as clearly as they are under stress (unlike in Russian, where unstressed o usually turns into a, and e into i: k a row, t and l and background).

O in a closed syllable in Ukrainian often turns into і , hence the paired variants of names arise: Anton and Antin, Tikhon and Tikhin. But both options are inclined the same way: Anton,Anton,Anton,Tikhon,Tikhon, Tikhon.

Ukrainian male names ending in - about, are inclined according to the second declension: Danilo-Danila, Danila, Danil, Petro-Petra,Peter, Peter.

Ukrainian traditions of composing and naming

The list of Ukrainian names is close to Russian, as well as Belarusian, since all three peoples had common sources- these are both Orthodox saints and pagan names. The latter functioned for a long time on a par with church ones: in everyday life a person was called by the name that his parents gave him, pagan, and not the church. For example, Bohdan Khmelnitsky had a church name Zinovy, which was rarely mentioned anywhere. The ancestors of the Ukrainians believed that in this case a person would be protected by two different mystical principles - paganism and Christianity.

Over time the names church calendar entered into everyday life and began to be perceived as relatives. Under the influence of speech, church Ukrainian female names were subjected to phonetic changes, resulting in their own options. So, borrowed Alexandra, Anna, Agripina turned into Oleksandr, Hann, Gorpin (in Ukrainian, the initial “a-” is transformed). The names that have the letter “f” in their composition also change: Theodore - Khved, Joseph - Yosip, Osip.

Historically, there was no sound f in the East Slavic languages, which is reflected in the already mentioned form "Opanas", as well as in the now obsolete version of the name Philip - Pilip. In folk speech, the letter “f” was usually replaced by “p” (Philip - Pilip), while “fita” was most often replaced by “t” (Theokla - Teklya, Theodosius - Todos, Fadey - Tadey).

Many names were formed with the help of diminutive suffixes: Leo - Levko, Varvara - Varka. At the same time, they were considered full-fledged names, which were used not only in everyday life, but also in official documents.

Modern Ukrainian male and female names consist of several types: names from Orthodox calendar, as well as their folk and secular forms; Slavic names (Volodimir, Vladislav, Miroslav, Vsevolod, Yaroslav); names of the Catholic calendar (Casimir, Teresa, Wanda); borrowings from other languages ​​(Albert, Zhanna, Robert, Karina).

Modern trends

The most popular women's and male names in Ukraine were recorded: Danilo, Maxim, Mikita, Vladislav, Artem, Nazar, Darina, Sofia, Angelina, Diana.
In Ukraine, over the past few years, about 30 names have remained popular when registering children, the most common among which are the names Alexander and Anastasia.

At present, however, there are broad sections of people with a mixed Ukrainian-Russian identity who may prefer one or another variant of the name, which does not always coincide with the form declared by the nationality and language of the document. Therefore, now both Anna and Hanna write in passports; and Olena, and Alyon; and Natalya, and Natalia, depending on the desire of the carrier.

It should also be noted that many typical Ukrainian forms of Orthodox names, starting from the 1930s, in Soviet Ukraine were gradually replaced by their Russian or quasi-Russian counterparts, and were preserved only in the western regions. For example, in eastern Ukraine, instead of the traditional Ukrainian Todos, Todosіy, the Russified form Feodosіy is currently used.

Names not common among ordinary people until the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, Viktor, have identical forms in Russian and Ukrainian.

Most often, Ukrainians choose among male names:

Alexander, Danil, Maxim, Vladislav, Nikita, Artem, Ivan, Kirill, Egor, Ilya, Andrey, Alexei, Bogdan, Denis, Dmitry, Yaroslav.

Among female names are more common:

Anastasia, Alina, Daria, Ekaterina, Maria, Natalia, Sofia, Julia, Victoria, Elizabeth, Anna, Veronica, Ulyana, Alexandra, Yana, Christina.

However, the sympathy of Ukrainians for strange or unusual names for Ukraine does not decrease either. So, recently, boys named Loammiy, Lenmar, Yustik, Ararat, Augustine, Zelay, Pietro, Ramis and girls named Elita, Navista, Piata, Eloria, Karabina, Yurdana have been registered.

The indicator of Ukrainians, who, at a conscious age, expressed a desire to change their own name, remains constant.

The Ukrainian name book is close to Russian and Belarusian, since the main sources of names for all three peoples were Orthodox saints and, to a lesser extent, the traditional circle of pagan Slavic names.

As is known, East Slavic peoples pagan names for a long time functioned in parallel with church ones. Receiving a church name at baptism, a person in everyday life used the traditional Slavic name given to him by his parents. Among Ukrainians, this custom lasted a very long time: for example, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky bore a double name - Bogdan-Zinovy ​​(the church name Zinovy ​​was given at baptism, and the Slavic Bogdan acted as the main name).

However, the names from the church calendar gradually entered Ukrainian life and were no longer perceived as borrowed. At the same time, under the influence of folk speech, they underwent strong phonetic changes, and as a result, in parallel with the canonical church names their secular and folk variants arose: Elena - Olena, Emilian - Omelyan, Glikeriya - Licker, Luker, Agripin - Gorpina (the same process took place in Russian: cf. Elena - Alena, Emilian - Emelyan, Glykeria - Lukerya, Agrippina - Agrafena).

Like Old Russian language, Ukrainian does not allow the initial a-, so the borrowed names Alexander, Alexey, Averky turned into Oleksandr, Oleksiy, Overkiy. Initially uncharacteristic Ukrainian language the sound f in folk speech turned into n or hv: Theodore - Khvedir, Khved; Athanasius - Panas, Opanas; Evstafiy - Ostap; Yosif - Josip, Osip (although the forms Afanasiy, Evstafiy and Yosif are still used in parallel in the Ukrainian language). In Western dialects, the sound f, denoted in writing by "fitoy", turned into t: Theodore - Todor; Athanasius - Atanas.

Many folk forms were formed using diminutive suffixes: Grigory - Gritsko, Pelagia - Palazhka, Leo - Levko, Varvara - Varka. Nevertheless, despite their external "diminutiveness", they were perceived as full names. So, the sons of Bogdan Khmelnitsky were known among contemporaries under the names of Yurko (Yuras) and Timish, although their baptismal names were Yuri (George, Russian. Georgy) and Timofіy (Russian. Timofey).

Modern Ukrainian names can be divided into several categories:

1) The most extensive layer is the already mentioned names from the Orthodox calendar and their folk and secular forms. Some names are predominantly common in folk form: Mikhailo, Ivan, Olena, Tetyana, Oksana, Dmitro (church Mikhail, Ioan, Elena, Tatiana, Xenia, Dimitri). Others are more common in the church (canonical) - Evgenia, Irina, Anastasia, although these names also have folk variants: Їvga / Yugina, Yarina / Orina, Nastasia / Nastka. Olesya and Lesya are very popular as passport names, originally - diminutive forms the names of Oleksandr and Larisa (the male version of Oles/Les is less common).

2) Slavic names: Vladislav, Volodymyr ( Russian Vladimir), Miroslav, Yaroslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, Stanislav. Note that in Ukraine Slavic names are more common than in Russia; female forms are also more often used: Yaroslava, Miroslava, Stanislava, Vladislava.

3) Names from the Catholic calendar, spread due to contacts with Catholic Poland and found mainly in the western regions of Ukraine: Tereza, Wanda, Witold, Casimir.

4) Names borrowed from other languages ​​relatively recently: Alina, Alisa, Zhanna, Diana, Albert, Robert, Snezhana, Karina.

In the days of our ancestors, the names given to newborns had special meanings. Now, secret meanings are of little interest to anyone. This material will tell about Ukrainian names, their history.

Historical digression

Ukrainians took to a greater extent part of the names from the Orthodox saints and to a lesser extent - the traditional names of the Slavs.

The Eastern Slavs for a long time used the ancient names of their pagan ancestors along with the church ones. And so it happened: a person at baptism in christian church received a church name, and at birth he was called an ordinary one. Thus, the child was guarded all his life by two deities: a pagan god and a Christian saint. Church naming, according to the testimony of numerous written sources hid from all strangers. So the person defended himself from slander, damage and the evil eye. Double names are not uncommon today.

Over time, Church Slavonic names have firmly entered the life of Ukrainians and began to be perceived positively by them. Due to the specifics of the language and peculiarities of pronunciation, they have slightly changed. For example, Ukrainian names never started with the letter a: Oleksandr (Alexander), Overky (Averky). Similar modifications occurred with the letter f: Khved (Theodore), Panas (Athanasius). However, names with this letter at the end still exist today: Eustathius, Joseph. Diminutive forms have become full-fledged replacements: Levko ( ex Leo), Palazhka (formerly Pelageya), Varka (formerly Varvara), Gritsko (formerly Grigory), Yurko (formerly Yuras), Timysh (Timofey).

What is popular these days?

Exist next classification Ukrainian names:

• The names that came from the old Orthodox calendar (Larisa, Oleksandra, Olena) are quite common, they are still called children;
• Male Ukrainian names, the roots of which stretch from Old Church Slavonic and his numerous dialects: Svyatoslav, Vladislav, Yaroslav, Yaropolk, Yaromir, Vsevolod;
• Polish with a Catholic origin: Lubomir, Teresa, Wanda;
• Female Ukrainian names that came from other countries, obeying fashion trends: Karina, Zhanna, Josetta.

Most of the Ukrainian modern names are of Romano-Germanic origin. They are characterized by ancient symbolism (everyone, without exception, has a meaning and meaning), two-complexity: Miroslav, Brotherlyub.

What was the most common name given to children in Ukraine this year?

Statistics report that last year the most popular names for girls and boys in Ukraine were Alexander (Sasha) and Anastasia (Nastya). They are beautiful and have wonderful positive characteristics, whose reliability is proved by the happy fates of thousands of Nastya and Sasha, who have already lived their lives on earth. Alexander has always been considered the winner, and Anastasia means "reborn". By naming children in this way, people hope for a bright future, a good and calm life.

Anna (Anyuta, Anya), Alena (Alenka), Valentina (Valya), Polina (Fields), Natalia (Natasha), Elizaveta (Lisa) also appeared in the top of the most popular female names in the last six months. Ancient names are now in less demand, people are more likely to pay tribute to fashion.

Boys were most often called like this: Maxim (Max), Dmitry (Dima), Phillip, Egor (Egorka), Nikita. Many of these names have Slavic roots and are actively used in Russia and the Near Abroad.

The rarest names

What was the least common name for boys? They were: Zelay, Augustine, Loammiy. These names are unusual, they are difficult to pronounce and combine with the surname and patronymic of an ordinary Ukrainian. Children named like this may have problems with peers at school and in the yard.

The girls also received the following rare names: Carbine, Indira, Ale, Aladina. They are rarely used because of the difficulty of pronunciation and dissonance, together with the often most common surnames of Ukrainians.

List of beautiful Ukrainian names

The name of the baby should be happy and joyful, give hope for the best and warm with its sound. That's the name of the child can only loving parents wishing him happiness.

When choosing the right and beautiful name It is important for your son not to make a mistake. It is not a great secret that the name of a person determines his own destiny. You can give a name to the baby, which in the future will only help him through life. And you can significantly worsen life circumstances future man. How to choose Ukrainian 2019 correctly and harmoniously? What does the popular naming mean, and how can it affect the future human destiny?

Names for boys

Parents are advised to take care of choosing a name for their little son in advance. It is important to take into account the factor that the boy will become the successor of the family, and, accordingly, his chosen name should also give a beautiful middle name. Moreover, the name of the boy must necessarily be in harmony with the chosen surname, because future man he will certainly have an appropriate position in society, and he does not need any ridicule that is associated with a discrepancy between the last name and first name.

Of course, most parents prefer to choose popular boy names in 2019 in Ukraine. But you need to know that modernity does not stop in place, so often exotic and rather unusual names come into use. In no case should you choose a name that will somehow humiliate the boy, so it's best to opt for a simple but rather beautiful name.

With the appropriate choice, the time of birth of the boy is of great importance. It is known and proven that each season of the year brings its own characteristics into the character of a person, but with a properly chosen name, one can burden or highlight the main qualities. Interesting, but the most popular names for boys in 2019 can soften positive traits in character and weight the negative in the disposition of the child. What gives the character of a person each of the seasons?