Feminine Name Construction
Gender and Names:
Names, just like other nouns in the Russian language, have grammatical gender. Generally, the grammatical gender of a name matches the physical gender of the person bearing the name. Most of the time, if a name ends in a consonant, it is grammatically masculine and therefore suitable as a men's name. If a name ends in an "a" or a "ya", it is grammatically feminine and, therefore, usually a woman's name. (Exceptions are discussed in Gender Bending Names.)
On-line explanation of Russian grammatical gender: http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/agree1.html
The default masculine form of Russian nouns is generally the un-suffixed root form ending in a consonant. Suffixes added to the root form can make a masculine or feminine name.
With the limited number of women's names recorded in period documents, it would be very helpful to have rules for converting men's names to women's names. Other Indo-European languages have these techniques. The Latin and Greek rules are discussed below. We know Russian has rules for converting masculine patronymics into feminine patronymics, masculine surnames into feminine surnames, masculine adjectival bynames into feminine ones, masculine titles into feminine titles, etc. so there must be rules for converting masculine given names into feminine names (and vice versa).
The remainder of this page primarily addresses first names. I have started another page for Feminine Bynames.
In Women and Gender in 18th Century Russia, p 11, Wendy Rosslyn says, "Many female first names are derived from male ones, or were previously male and then transferred to women."
And Astrid Baecklund in Personal Names in Medieval Velikij Novgorod says, p73: "In the native nomenclature the suffixes -a, -ja [-ja equals -ia, я] served, in the first place, to form feminine names. This function conditioned -- as it seems -- their use in the formation of hypocoristic [diminutive, nickname] masculine names also."
Prior Laurel Precedent:
Current SCA precendent is: "Submitted as Tama Katerina Evstokh'eva, the name Tama is not formed according to documented Russian practice. [Emphasis mine.] Nebuly explains: " The addition of an -a will rarely create a feminized form in Slavic languages, and more often creates a masculine diminutive of a given name, e.g. Antip/Antipa, Dorosh/Dorosha (Dorofei), Kharko/Kharka (Khariton). For each pair of names, both forms are listed as masculine by Wickenden. I was able to pull all three of these example pairs from Wickenden in less than a minute by opening to random pages, which should show evidence that this pattern is common. Adding an -a is only a general pattern of feminization in Slavic names in certain special cases where the root name is a standard old dithematic name, like Borislav, Borimir, Svetislav, Svetimir, etc. Of the three examples presented in the LoI, only one is of this type (Rostislav/Rostislava), and is legitimately a feminization. However, since the submission uses the proposed masculine root Tam, which is not a dithematic name in Russian, such examples do not apply toward justifying this submission. They represent a different specialized case."
http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2009/07/09-07lar.html Tama's unsuccesful appeal that inspired the research here - July 2009 LoAR
http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2004/10/04-10lar.html Tama's initial submission - October 2004 LoAR
From the May 2004 LoAR - http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2004/05/04-05lar.html
Name.
Obela is not constructed following the rules for name formation for Russian feminine names. The given name Obela was justified as a hypothetical feminization of the masculine given name Obel. Unfortunately, Nebuly points out that "The only example of a Russian feminized name formed by adding -a given in the LoI is Krasa, which may be of either gender." He explains that for other apparent examples, both the masculine and feminine forms were borrowed from other languages: "Unfortunately, the pattern of feminization established for Agripina and Anastasiia from Agripin and Anastasii is a pattern from Latin and Greek (respectively) prior to their importation, and not a feminization that was made in Russian. Imported Classical names cannot establish a pattern of feminization in native Russian names, as the counterexamples given in the LoI attest. The citation of Mara does not indicate a Russian feminization of Mar, since the note under that name in Wickenden indicates that the individual was the daughter of a Serb and not a native Russian. In general, Slavic languages do not form feminine equivalents of masculine given names by adding -a except in cases where the name is an original Slavic deuterothematic name. Since Obel is not such a deuterothematic name, we cannot form a feminine equivalent."
The form of the name given+patronymic+patronymic is fine for a Russian name. If the submitter chooses a Russian feminine name, the rest of the name should be registerable.
So what is "documented Russian practice"? Despite what Nebuly says above (unfortunately summarized without any support), it would usually be to suffix -a or -ja.
The o/a switch:
Some of these masculine names with -a endings come about because medieval Russians had a tendency to switch their o's and a's. A word like кольцо (kol'tso) , which is grammatically neuter, was sometimes written with an "a" at the end, which makes it look grammatically feminine. This is a likely explanation for the Kharko/Kharka pair noted in the precedent quoted above. Baecklund confirms this practice, p. 31, 67.
Masculine Diminutives:
The precedent says "The addition of an -a will rarely create a feminized form in Slavic languages, and more often creates a masculine diminutive of a given name".
First of all, while "masculine" diminutives in Russian can be created by adding feminine grammatical forms, most are not a simple matter of adding an -a to the end. (Mikhail becomes Mikailo, Mikha, Mikhaila, Mikhailets, Mikhailo, Mikhalka, Mikhalo, Mikhas', Mikhei, Misha, etc.) Secondly, Russians loved diminutives. As stated in Wickenden (3rd Edition, p. xx), medieval Russians seemed quite willing to use diminutive names as proper names for legal purposes and even as the basis for patronymics - the equivalent of having "Jim" on one's birth certificate or calling oneself "Johnnyson".
The fact that it is so much easier to find masculine diminutives of given names created by adding -a than feminine names formed that way is a sampling error. It is NOT because it was "rare" to form feminine names this way, but because it is so rare to find feminine names at all. The person who wrote the above commentary was actually answering the question, "What are names ending in -a most commonly used for in Wickenden's Dictionary?" and given the vast preponderance of men's names in our documentation and the Russian fondness for diminutives, it is hardly surprising that the answer was "Masculine diminutives." The question that needed to be asked was "How are masculine names usually feminized in Russian?"
Just because you usually see people using hammers to drive in nails, doesn't mean they don't also use them to pull out nails. It might just mean that you are spending more time on new home construction sites than on demolition jobs. (Sampling bias)
Using the same logic as the precedent, we could say that "The addition of an -a will rarely create a masculine diminutive form in the Russian language and more often creates a genitive singular declension of a masculine noun. I was able to pull three of these examples in less than a minute by opening to random pages in the Russian Primary Chronicle which should show evidence that this pattern is common." But, of course, that doesn't mean that "a" wasn't used for forming masculine diminutives, just that the Russian Primary Chronicle has more examples of genitive case nouns than diminutive names. Likewise, evidence that adding -a was often used to form masculine diminutives does not preclude the use of that technique in making feminine forms of masculine names. Obviously a single grammatical tool may be used for multiple purposes, just as a hammer can be used for multiple purposes.
Dithematic Slavic names as example of native Slavic feminization pattern:
The above precedent stated "Adding an -a is only a general pattern of feminization in Slavic names in certain special cases where the root name is a standard old dithematic name, like Borislav, Borimir, Svetislav, Svetimir, etc." However, the author gave no examples of the "general pattern" of feminization of Slavic names to indicate what a "special case" the dithematic names supposedly are. Again, Baecklund indicates that adding -a or -ja is the "general pattern" for forming feminine names in Russian.
In fact, the grammar of the pagan Slavic names would seem likely to be an example of the ancient Slavic default for feminizing words/names than a "certain special case". Granted, one shouldn't assume that the ancient practices were universally preserved, on the other hand, it's not very logical to take them as the "exception that proves the rule" especially when no alternate rule has been presented nor is there any information about how or when the pattern of feminizing Russian names changed.
Just because dithematic names are a special case historically and culturally in Russian onomastics (gradually replaced by Christian name and surving longest in the princely families) doesn't mean that they're a special case grammatically. They would still follow the same rules of declension as other Slavic names. Even words assimilated from other languages follow the Russian grammar rules. See below.
As can be seen in the tables, there are plenty of examples of non-dithematic names modified to be feminine names by adding a feminine ending, most frequently -a. Wilraaven van Nijm [aka Nebuly from above] of the Academy of St. Gabriel says that most of these apparently non-dithematic names are actually abbreviated dithematic names. For example, he says that "Slava" is not the feminine of "Slav" but rather a shortened form of "Slavomira". However, Wickenden explicitly states that Slava is the feminine form of Slav, Agripina is the feminine form of Agripin, etc.
Wilraaven has given me no documentation for his assertion that there is no such thing as a monothematic Russian name. His assertion is quite startling given the numerous examples of apparently monothematic Russian names to be found, including some which I cannot find used in any Russian dithematic names. Eg. Bazhen/Bazhena, Bel/Bela, Ben/Benka, Ded/Deda, Gine/Ginechka, Gost/Gosta, Griven/Grivna, Iev/Ieva, Kir/Kira, Koi/Koia, Krest/Krestiia, Lank/Lanka, Luk/Luka, Man/Mana, Mar/Mara, Maran/Marana, Miakush/Miakusha, Nerad/Nerada, Olen/Olena, Pets/Petsa, Rozh/Rozha, Rus/Rusa, Samon/Samona, Sason/Sasona, Slavn/Slavna, Sobin/Sobina, Sudil/Sudila, Vil/Vila, Zhdan/Zhdana.
Astrid Baecklund discusses monothematic names as a very common group of Russian names that seem to be more popular among the lower classes that the more elegant dithematic names. p.43. She does not specifically indicate that they are to be declined different from the dithematic names.
Grammar rules in Russian depend on the ending of the word, not on the begining of the word, how long the word is or the linguistic origin of the word. See Wickenden's Grammar on forming patronymic bynames to see many examples of this.
And Occam's Razer (the simplest answer is usually the best answer, all else being equal) would indicated that it makes more sense to derive Slava from Slav than from Slavomira or Predslava or Slavibor or some other such dithematic name.
Foreign names adopted by the Rus:
It is true that many of the masculine/feminine name pairs are of foreign origin, primarily saints names adapted from Greek/Latin when Rus was converted to Christianity. So a big concern is that the sample is skewed by a large number of names feminized using a foreign feminization pattern.
First of all, when Russians assimilate foreign words and names, they apply native Russian grammatical rules to them. As discussed by Alan Timberlake in A Reference Grammar of Russian, foreign names are treated grammatically just like native Russian names as long as they can be put into one of the standard grammatical classes which usually isn't too difficult, p 153-8.
Furthermore, we know that the Rus did not slavishly copy what they received from the Byzantine Church but created their own forms of iconography, ecclesiatical music, and church architecture. Neither did they copy the names of the Latin and Greek saints into their language exactly, much less adopt Latin or Greek grammar rules. Baecklund discusses the russification of Christian names in detail and confirms that the names were changed to suit Slavic linguistic practices, pp. 45-48. Names that did not match familiar Russian endings were modified. Difficult-to-pronounce consonants were replaced with easier consontants, and awkward vowel blends were changed also.
Latin feminization;
Standard Latin grammatical practice is to take a masculine noun, which typically adds -us to the root, and drop the masculine ending to add the feminine -a. So alumnus becomes alumna. This was also used for names.
http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/showfinal.cgi/2206.txt
The usual feminine form of <Faustus> is <Fausta>. <Cornelius>
becomes <Cornelia> and <Rutilus> and <Rutilius> become <Rutila> and
<Rutilia>, respectively. [6] All of the other masculine forms above can
also be feminized by replacing the suffix <-us> with <-a>.
Based on the above, Russian names clearly do not follow the Latin pattern of feminization. No Russian men's names end in -us, because they modified the Latin names to suit their own Slavic linguistic sensibility which dictated that the masculine form of a name be the un-suffixed word root. Some names not only dropped the -us, but also changed the form of the root, eg. Paulus became Pavel. Since no Russian men's names end in -us, they cannot be using the Latin feminization pattern of dropping the -us ending before adding the -a ending. So the "just add -a" feminization pattern was not blindly copied from Latin examplars, but rather conveniently follows the pattern of the Old Slavic dithematic names.
Greek Naming Practices:
Greek grammar is very complex, but like Latin is based on removing a masculine ending and replacing it with a feminine ending.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_nouns
In ancient Greek, the first declension includes only masculine and feminine nouns (not neuter). The feminine nouns all originally ended in -ᾱ, which changed to -η (-he) in the Attic dialect unless the last letter of the stem was ε, ι, or ρ. Some feminine nouns, however, have short ᾰ in the nominative and accusative singular. The masculine nouns originally all ended in -ᾱς, which changed to -ης unless the last letter of the stem was ε, ι, or ρ.
In the second and third declensions, masculine and feminine nouns have the same form. (Second declension - masculine and feminine nouns end in -ος . Third declension nouns in the nominative singular end with the vowels α, ι, υ, ω or with the consonants ν, ρ, ς (ξ, ψ) and each different type of ending has it's own rules of declension.)
Classical Greek from http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names/formation.html
Names generally followed regular rules of declension; and women's names, which could take neuter as well as feminine terminations, covered broadly the same range of meanings as men's, including those with strongly military and political connotations, such as Alexandra, Stratippe, Demostrate... [Note that in Russian, women's names never have a neuter ending.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Greek_grammar#Nouns
In modern Greek, three of the most frequent declension classes for masculine nouns: one with singulars in -ος [-os]; one with singulars in -ας [-as]; one with singulars in -ης [-is]; and one with singulars in -εας [-eas] and plurals in -εις [-is]. There are some other, minor ones. The two most frequent classes of feminine nouns are those with singulars in -α ([-a]) and in -η ([-i]) respectively). They both correspond historically to the Ancient Greek a-Declension.
Here again, we see that Russians modified the Greek male saints' names by consistently dropping the masculine ending to use the root form and changing some of the vowels and consonants. Since no Russian men's names use the Greek masculine endings, they cannot be using the Greek pattern of dropping the masculine ending and adding a feminine ending, especially since Greek feminine names don't all end in "a" and Russian women's names do. So the feminization pattern was not copied from Greek examplars, either.
Phoebe -> Fiva, Piame -> Piama, Salome -> Solomeia, Theopiste -> Theopista
Byzantine Names:
The Byzantine church blended Greek and Latin (and Hellenized Hebrew) names in developing the roster of saints' names that was available when Rus converted to Christianity in the 10th century.
http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/byzantine/feminizing.html#feminizing_family_names
All the family names on the Family Name Table are given in masculine form. To feminize these family names, convert using the following chart.
| Convert These Endings | To This | As Shown in These Examples |
| -es, -is, -on, and -os | -ina | Kourtikes - Kourtikina, Laskaris - Laskarina,
Balsamon - Balsomina, Angelos - Angelina, |
| -nos | -ne | Komnenos - Komnene |
| -tes | -tissa | Akropolites - Akropolitissa |
| -as | drop s and add -ina | Doukas - Doukaina |
http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/byzantine/fem_given_names.html - post-10th century Byzantine feminine names. Note that many of them end in letters other than -a. This is practically unheard of for Russian women's names. Names pairs from the same website include (masc/fem): Ioannes/Ioanno, Leo-Leon-Leontios/Leonto, Theodoros/Theodora,
| Name | Year | Source | Russian form |
| Anna | 1057 | DP | Anna |
| Eirene | 1066 | DP | Irina |
| Elaiodora (monastic) | ? | ||
| Eugenia (monastic) | 1239 | DP | Evgeniia |
| Eudokia | 1388 | DP | Evdokiia |
| Euphrosyne | 14th century | DP | Evfrosiniia |
| Helene | 1407 | DP | Elena |
| Ioanno | (late centuries) | ODB | Ioanna |
| Kale | 952 | ODB | Kala ? |
| Leonto | (late centuries) | ODB | ? |
| Maria | 1351, 4th century | DP, ODB | Mariia |
| Simonis (a very rare name) | early 14th century | ODB | ? |
| Theodora | 1059 | DP | Feodora |
| Theodosia (monastic) | 14th century | DP | Feodisiia |
| Thomais | 14th century | DP | Fomaida |
| Xene (monastic) | 14th century | DP | Kseniia |
| Zoe | 1062 | DP | Zoia |
Byzantine name pairs from http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/byzantine/early_byz_names.html
Alexander/Alexandria, Anastasius/Anastasia, Antoninus/Antonina, etc.
One might argue that the masculine and feminine forms of these saints names were derived independently. I.e. Russians looked at Marcianus and decided they didn't like the -us ending so dropped it since in Russian the unmodified root is the default masculine form (and of course changed the c to k to preserve the pronunciation). Then they looked at Marciana and decided that was fine as it was for a woman's names (except for the c/k switch, of course). However, it is interesting that, if developed independently, the separate masculine and feminine forms of the names ended up looking exactly like names following the Old Slavic pattern: masculine names formed from the unmodified root of the word and feminine names made by adding a feminine ending to the word root.
A feminist might propose that the Russians actually adopted the feminine forms first, then derived the masculine forms from the feminine forms by dropping the -a ending. Interestingly, there are a few names such as Helene and Agatha that have no masculine equivalent that I've been able to find yet in Greek, but do in Russian - Elen/Elena, Agaf/Agafiia.
Either way, the forms of the "foreign saints names" are very consistent with the standard practice in Russian grammar of converting the gender of nouns referring to animate objects.
Patronymic bynames just add -a:
Russian patronymic bynames follow the "just add -a" rule for the most common types: Malinin becomes Malinina, Sviatoslavov becomes Sviatoslavova, Vasil'ev becomes Vasil'eva, Iakovlev becomes Iakovleva. The same applies to patronymics written with a "-vich," which also had an "a" added to them to make them feminine. [Wickenden]
Standard Pattern of Feminizing Russian Given Names:
According to Evgenie Medvedev at http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue5/bigred2.html, masculine and feminine Russian given names are usually differentiated by the addition or subtraction of "a". Baecklund confirms this practice in her discussion of names in medieval Novgorod, p73.
We've already seen that the ancient Slavic dithematic names are feminized by adding -a, and modern Russian names are usually feminized by adding -a. It seems logical that Russian names in the SCA period were feminized the same way. And as can be seen below, there are many examples of how the Russians "feminized" masculine names to use as women's name by "just adding a", although there are other grammatical forms also. All of them produce names that end in -a or -ia (-а or -я).
So while "just add -a" is the most common pattern, there are therefore exceptions. So the precendent against universally allowing such a pattern, while overstated, is reasonable until such time as we can sort out what names are exceptions and which follow the general rule. The answer lies in observing the different classes of Russian names and understanding their grammatical significance.
Classes of Russian Personal Names - work in progress.
Masculine-Feminine Name Pairs - alphabetical list
Feminization Patterns - The above names arranged into patterns of feminization\