Thread: Changing my name

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Hello.

As I know you can chouse the name of your saint patron by any reason: the day you will be baptisized usually has several patrons, you can be named after any famous saint or clerical person of the past, eventually you can chouse any favorite ortodoxal name which fits or which the priest will advise you.

Vasiliy is Bazil as I know and has nothing with William.

William is Willy, Will - [Uiliam/Viliam, Uil/Vil, Villi] - I would say it sounds close to Ilia/Ilja in Russian.

Geoffrey is Efrem - old and very rare today (but very good) Russian name.
Patronim from Efrem is Efremovich.

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You better forget the differense between Jewish and Russian.

Maria is Jewish
Fedor or Alexander are Greek names
and Yulia is Roman
But they are now Russian.

If you are looking for the paggan Slavic names (and you believe that they are Russian) you will eventually see that they are not Ortodoxal names. You have to chouse. If you wish to have the name like Borislav or Cviatopolk - you can not be baptisized with such a name. Russian is not equal with Slavic - remember that! Russian culture is multicultural it is a mixture, every period has its trace in its history and most of Russian names today are Greek, Roman and Jewish.
Anna, Elizaveta, Maria (and I guess Ioan) are Jewish and the most frequent names in Russia.
Russian names have Jewish, Roman, Greek, and even Turk origins and you can not help it.

The full name of Iliya is Iliya.

I did not tell you that Iliya means William in Russian. Read atantivelly.

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Ok. William means the one who was wanted. It is an old english (if not even german) name and it does not have any equivalent in Russian. But there are some rare and weird Slavic names (I can presume that they sound like the name Norbert for the English ear). There is a thread somewhere in the forum about Slavic names, but I can not recall where it is.

There is a feamale name Ждана (the one who was long expected), but I did not hear about such male names.

If you wish to be Daniil (I believe it is a name which can be given after the babti...(I can't write this word properly, neither the other words) into the Ortodoxal church. There are many Ortodoxal priests with such a name) Efremovich,then your friends could call you Danila (which is well spread for this name).

Full name Daniil Efremovich [last name]
The formal and polite Daniil Efremovich
Informal polite - Danila Efremovich
or just Danila

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ефремов,_Данила_Ефремович

Here is the article abou your тёзка (the one who has the same name with you).
It is written in Russian though. But is tells that he lived in 18'th century and was an honoured kazak's capitan.

no- william is not of english origin, its of latin origin i believe (ex: william the conqueror of normandy) in spanish its guillermo, i think in greek (yes i know, not latin) its Vasilarose (Which is why i incorrectly assumed Vasily means William in russian), i am pretty sure Vasilorose is greek for william because there is a greek guy i know who always calls this guy i know (named william) vasilarose!

by the way, jeffrey now is almost a purely english name to the best of my knowledge- it originates from Geofrey which in turn originated from the old english Godfrey, i am curious- how did that get translated into Efrem in Russian?

http://www.behindthename.com/name/william
It's a Germanic name, so there's no Russian equivalent.

Can I just ask why do you want to change your name? It always wonders me why people who don't live in the country, and cannot speak the language want to change their name into Russian, or any other, for that matter.
Or is that a requirement for joining the church?

I don't think it's a requirement of joining the church.

I don't get it either, people will be like "where's your name from", "It's Russian", "So you're Russian?", "....no.", "Riiiiiiight", "I just randomly changed my name to a Russian name", ".... "

And yes, Jeffrey, Geoffrey (the more traditional spelling), derived from Godffrey, is Germanic, meaning roughly "God's peace". The German analogue is Gottfried.

I suppose the Russian version of 'God's peace' would be Bogomir:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomir_Korsov

That's how they translated the name of the guy in that wikipedia article.

Radomir and Boromir, Frodo, Gendalf, Legolas...
When you baptisize you have to take the custom Ortodoxal name.
Bogomir can never be taken while baptisizing into the Ortodoxal Russian Church.

Originally Posted by TATY

I don't think it's a requirement of joining the church.

I don't get it either, people will be like "where's your name from", "It's Russian", "So you're Russian?", "....no.", "Riiiiiiight", "I just randomly changed my name to a Russian name", ".... "

And yes, Jeffrey, Geoffrey (the more traditional spelling), derived from Godffrey, is Germanic, meaning roughly "God's peace". The German analogue is Gottfried.

I suppose the Russian version of 'God's peace' would be Bogomir:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomir_Korsov

That's how they translated the name of the guy in that wikipedia article.

i resent your ignorance of the matter- first of all i am russian american, second of all i have ample reason to change my name and there is absolutely nothing random about it, the fact is you have no idea who i am, what i do- or what i do it for. so i dont like it when you assume things you have absolutely no clue about, calling my endeavors random, and making blatant accuasations.

Originally Posted by kamka

Can I just ask why do you want to change your name? It always wonders me why people who don't live in the country, and cannot speak the language want to change their name into Russian, or any other, for that matter.
Or is that a requirement for joining the church?

i have alot of reasons for changing my name- at least 5 of which i can think of off the top of my head, some reasons are private, others not so much. frankly- i identify as russian, even though i may be from america, my name was perferated at coney island when some of my family first arrived in this country- i also have many private reasons for changing my name which i will obviously not go into.

It's not a requirement, but has many reasons- the strongest (IMO) of which being based in Christ's renaming of his disciples. For me the name change would serve as a constant reminder of Who I owe everything to.

As for a patronymic I personally wouldn't try to make something up. It's one thing to adopt your patron saint's name, that has reasons... but realistically trying to create a patronymic just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We all try to find different ways to explore/celebrate our cultural heritage though so not knocking your idea, just my two cents.

As for name conversions I never understood it. A name is a name as far as I'm concerned. I remember when I took Spanish and someone told me "Diego" was the Spanish equivalent of "James," so I used that in class- but you ask other people and they laugh at that idea. I guess finding names of same meaning is one thing but James is James, Vladimir is Vladimir, and Diego is Diego. <- My opinion! I know a lot of people have different ones on this! Another example: In Russian I don't say "Я учусь в витворте университете," because I don't go to school at "vetvort" university, I go to school at Whitworth University (I say, "Я учусь в Whitworth университете").

As for selecting a Patron Saint, as a convert I'd talk to your priest but I think it's pretty much up to you. Mine has particular importance in that it was largely through studying him (St. Vladimir) that I decided to look into Orthodoxy.

Originally Posted by Volodymyr

It's not a requirement, but has many reasons- the strongest (IMO) of which being based in Christ's renaming of his disciples. For me the name change would serve as a constant reminder of Who I owe everything to.

As for a patronymic I personally wouldn't try to make something up. It's one thing to adopt your patron saint's name, that has reasons... but realistically trying to create a patronymic just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We all try to find different ways to explore/celebrate our cultural heritage though so not knocking your idea, just my two cents.

As for name conversions I never understood it. A name is a name as far as I'm concerned. I remember when I took Spanish and someone told me "Diego" was the Spanish equivalent of "James," so I used that in class- but you ask other people and they laugh at that idea. I guess finding names of same meaning is one thing but James is James, Vladimir is Vladimir, and Diego is Diego. <- My opinion! I know a lot of people have different ones on this! Another example: In Russian I don't say "Я учусь в витворте университете," because I don't go to school at "vetvort" university, I go to school at Whitworth University (I say, "Я учусь в Whitworth университете").

As for selecting a Patron Saint, as a convert I'd talk to your priest but I think it's pretty much up to you. Mine has particular importance in that it was largely through studying him (St. Vladimir) that I decided to look into Orthodoxy.

well i speak spanish fluently, and Jaime is the equivalent of james not Diego to the best of my knowledge, and i completely agree with you- i am trying to find a name that means something, i am not just making a name out of thin air, it has to mean something to me. i am trying to build my patrinomic based on a russified version of my fathers name. what is your advice on what i should do? i actually dont plan on changing my first name, just adding a middle and moddifying my last name. thanks for your input, i appreciate any insight i can get on the matter.

Personally I wouldn't change your last name. For just realistic reasons, you ever apply for another job you gotta specify that you changed your name, they are going to ask why, and "personal reasons," is not only not going to fly with them... it is going to throw up a red flag. Middle name is much easier to explain, particularly if it reflects your patron saint.

Originally Posted by Volodymyr

It's not a requirement, but has many reasons- the strongest (IMO) of which being based in Christ's renaming of his disciples. For me the name change would serve as a constant reminder of Who I owe everything to.

As for a patronymic I personally wouldn't try to make something up. It's one thing to adopt your patron saint's name, that has reasons... but realistically trying to create a patronymic just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We all try to find different ways to explore/celebrate our cultural heritage though so not knocking your idea, just my two cents.

As for name conversions I never understood it. A name is a name as far as I'm concerned. I remember when I took Spanish and someone told me "Diego" was the Spanish equivalent of "James," so I used that in class- but you ask other people and they laugh at that idea. I guess finding names of same meaning is one thing but James is James, Vladimir is Vladimir, and Diego is Diego. <- My opinion! I know a lot of people have different ones on this! Another example: In Russian I don't say "Я учусь в витворте университете," because I don't go to school at "vetvort" university, I go to school at Whitworth University (I say, "Я учусь в Whitworth университете").

As for selecting a Patron Saint, as a convert I'd talk to your priest but I think it's pretty much up to you. Mine has particular importance in that it was largely through studying him (St. Vladimir) that I decided to look into Orthodoxy.

You've missed the point:
When we, as foreigners with foreign names, go to Russia, we use our English name, because that's our name.
So James, would be Джеймс, not the Russian equivalent Иван.

However Tamerlane wants an actual proper Russian name (with patronymic and surname), and wants the Russian version of his name.

Furthermore, many English sounds don't exist in Russian, so if we pronounce our names exactly as they are in English, Russians have trouble understanding them and most importantly repeating them.

Imagine if your surname was Whitworth... the W, i, o, r, and th sounds in that word do not appear in Russian and a Russian without good English pronounciation (i,e, who's studied the language for a while) would be able to repeat it. How do you expect a Russian to say / understand that. So we adapt our pronuncation of the English name to assist the Russians to understand it, and also so they can also say it.

When I was living in Russia one of my friends was called Heather. When we first arrived and Russians asked her what her name was she'd me like "Меня зовут Heather". This usually resulted in a blank look from the Russians and they couldn't pronounce anything close to it. So over time she learnt to be known and and call herself Xьёзер (although personally I'd have gone for Xэзер) which is how the name was rendered on her Visa in cyrillic.
Even if I pronounced my name (Gregory) whith English Rs, some people couldn't understand it; simply rolling my R make it easy for them to understand, say.

Originally Posted by TATY

So James, would be Джеймс, not the Russian equivalent Иван.

Иван is not the equivalent for James. It's the equivalent for John.

But he's not going to Russia, thats one thing- though I would still tell them my name is James. I think its unfortunate we put almost everything into English these days but I wouldn't expect ethnic Russians to come up with some American name just to make it easier for me.

Let me put it another way. Patrynomics are basically uniquely Russian, I know for a fact some couldn't care less, and others would be offended that an American had created one for himself. I have no interest in getting into a debate whether they should or not- but as far as I see it thats the case. So like I said, I personally wouldn't try and create a patronymic, if only for that reason.

And I do understand where you are coming from Tamerlane. I have struggled to figure out how to participate in my Russian heritage since I first found out my family was Russian when I was 5 or 6. It's not easy to this day, to some people you say your Grandpa is from Ukraine and you are definitely "Russian," others laugh and think you are weird for trying to celebrate a heritage like that (two or three generations back).