Russian names: the history

Names are part of human history. The everyday life, the religion, hopes, fantasies and creativity of a nation, its historical contacts are all reflected in names. Any word that was used to call a person was gradually perceived as his personal name, thus any word could have become a name. So, a personal name is a special word used to identify some person and given to him individually in order to be able to address him, and also talk about him with others.

In the history of Russian names one can single out three stages:

1.  Pre-Christian period: people used original names, characteristic of the whole Eastern European region but created by means of Old Russian language.
2.  The period after Russia was christened: along with Christian religious ceremonies, the church began to bring in foreign names that were borrowed by the Byzantine church from various ancient nations.
3.  The period after the Socialist Revolution: a lot of new names were adopted, and even more were created on the basis of the new reality - many compounded.

Before Christianity was introduced, Russian names were not much more than nicknames given for this or that reason. In the ancient times, people perceived a name as an integral part of the person. They were hiding their names from their enemies, thinking that knowing a person's name is enough to harm that person.

All kinds of characteristics served as the basis for Russian surnames. For example, how important the person was - was he first, second, or third in rank - gave birth to such surnames as Tretyak (which means "the third guy"), as with the famous Russian hockey player and coach Vyacheslav Tretyak, or Tretyakov (which means this guy's father was "third"), as with the founder of the Tretyakov art gallery in Moscow.

Other features that evolved into surnames were the color of hair, skin, the build and complexion, character, time of birth. Many nicknames were given on separate occasions. As generations went on, surnames were formed from the family's head nickname or first name with a suffix showing "belonging", for example, Ivanov means "belonging to Ivan", Ivan's son. Some of the Old Russian first names are still around - Vadim, Vsevolod...