Typical Names

The Typical Medieval Russian Name - work in progress...

As can be seen in Paul Wickenden's Dictionary of Period Russian Names, a tremendous variety of names can be documented in use in the Middle Ages, however, the typical Russian name was rather stereotyped - an Orthodox Christian name drawn from a relatively small pool of names combined with a patronymic byname of perhaps slightly greater variety (?).

By far, the most common given name was a Russianized Christian name, based on a saint venerated in the Orthodox Church, but only a limited number of those names are found with any frequency in the period sources. A Russian would be named for one of the saints being commemorated on the day he was born, or on the day he was baptised (usually 8 days after birth), or using the Christian name of a relative or godparent.

The 11 most common men's names in the Novgorod birchbark letters according to Predslava Vydrina are: Ivan (54), Semen pronounced Se-MYOHN (34?), Georgii (32), Grigorii (23), Stepan (23), Mikhail (22), Foma (21), Fedor pronounced FYOH-dor (21), Vasilij (21), Iakov (16), Matfei (16).

The 10 most common men's names in Novgorod charters and documents according to Astrid Baecklund are: Ivan (146), Vasilei (79), Grigorei (72), Fedor (71), Semen (57), Iakov (51), Stepan (49), Michailo (35), Iurii (32), Esif (31). These ten names accounted for 623 individuals. 23% of them carried some variation of the name Ivan.

The 11 most common women's names in the Novgorod birchbark letters according to Chajkina are: Maria (14), Anastasiia (10), Khristina (7), Efiim'ia (7), Sofiia (6), Iana (6), Evdokiia (5), Ul'iana (5), Fedos'ia (5), Fevroniia (4), and Marfa (4), out of a total of 130 instances of women's names (Predslava).

When second name was used in medieval Russia, by far the most common form of byname was a patronymic byname, i.e. a name based on the father of a person (or in the case of married women, the husband). Such names usually end in -ov for men and -ova for women.

Examples:

Popular SCA name types and their use in medieval Russia:

Nicknames and descriptive names.

Could be used as given names or as bynames, but not nearly as common as Christian given names or patronymic bynames. # examples in X source.

As given names, they would be used in place of the Christian given name by Russians who had not been converted to Christianity, or used as a first name in everyday speech by Christians who also had a Christian given name. This practice was particularly favored by the early Russian princes (the princesses, on the other hand, generally used their proper Christian name).

As bynames, they served to distinguish one Ivan from another.

They tend to be physically descriptive, or based on occupations, plants, animals, birds, although their meanings may not have been taken literally. Keep in mind that animals and plants that are attractive or have symbolic meaning for us in the 21st century, may have had rather different connotations in medieval Russia.

Locative names or toponyms (names based on places).

Rather unusual in medieval Russia. # examples in X source.