After you’ve spent more than two weeks in Russia and made friends with at least a handful of Russians you will, without a doubt, ask yourself: “Is it just me or does this country only have ten given names all in all?” Though it may seem as if everyone you meet is either a Masha or a Dasha or a Misha or a Vova, it would be harshly unfair to claim that Russians only have ten names to go around, five for women and five for men. Believe it or not, but that is as a matter of fact not the case. Recently I received a wonderful gift from the students in my Swedish class at Ural State University in Yekaterinburg, Словарь русских личных имён [Dictionary of Russian personal names] by А. В. Суперанская, which boasts on its front page to contain «более 7500 русских имён» [“more than 7500 Russian names”]. My first reaction at this was, of course, to raise my eyebrows in surprise – if they have so many names then why do I have over ten women called Irina in my phone and almost as many men with the name Aleksey? Russian parents aren’t known for being very eager to experiment and choose an infrequent or peculiar name for their newborn child but prefer something usual, traditional and as common as bread with soup. Keeping kids apart in a class with five boys named Boris can easily be done with a little help from their отчества [father names]. In Russia a person is officially called both by first name and father name, but in private the first name is rarely ever used in its full form. Instead every name has a short form and that is the name most commonly used, and what some people might see as their “real” name. The use of first names in their full form has become more and more common during the last ten years since Russia, despite its deep dedication to xenophobia, has failed to withstand influence from the West.

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