Quote Originally Posted by Martin Miles View Post
Zhila-bila na svete muzhina c immenom aleks.
Жил_-был_ на свете мужчина по имени Alex.

Note that although мужчина ("man") looks feminine, it takes masculine verbs -- thus, the standard fairy-tale opening жил-был (literally, "there lived and there was") has to have past-tense masculine verbs, with a plain -л ending.

But you can say жила-была девушка (feminine sing. -- "Once there was a girl"), or жили-были муж и жена (plural -- "Once upon a time there were a husband and wife").

Also, с именем ("with the name") is definitely possible, but you wouldn't use it in this context, when talking about a person who is called by a particular name. Instead, the dative construction по имени ("by the name of...") sounds better, I think.

However, you could use the instrumental construction с именем if you were talking about (for example) an object with such-and-such a name engraved on it:

Мэри вышла замуж за молодого человека, по имени Джон. На годовщину свадбы, Мэри подарила Джону антикварную серебряную чашку из России с именем «Иван».

Mary married a young man by the name of John. For their wedding anniversary, Mary gave John an antique silver teacup from Russia with the name "Ivan".