Thread: Vladimir

For the oddest reason, my German teacher thinks that Walter is the equivalent of Vladimir(sort of like John is the equivalent of Ivan). But Vladimir is a pre-Christian Russian name, isn't it? Who can give me the history and origins of this name? As well as help me prove that it isn't the equivalent of Walter...

Originally Posted by Pravit

For the oddest reason, my German teacher thinks that Walter is the equivalent of Vladimir(sort of like John is the equivalent of Ivan). But Vladimir is a pre-Christian Russian name, isn't it? Who can give me the history and origins of this name? As well as help me prove that it isn't the equivalent of Walter...

I can't prove it, of course, but you are right, this is an ancient Russian name. It consists of 2 Slavic roots: "влад" as in "владеть" and "мир" (world). (This two-part composition is typical for old slavic names, many of which survive in modern slavic languages). It means soemthing like "The owner of the world".

And, by the way, according to the info I found on some website, Walter comes from an Old German words meaning "Ruling people". That may be the source of your teacher's error, since both Vladimir and Walter were names of rulers, princes and dukes.

Ahh! I was thinking that the влад in there did indeed come from владеть. I didn't want to say anything without knowing it for sure, though. Interesting...

I have a friend, his name is Владимир, and his aunt used to call him Вальдемар. I also knew other Vladimirs who were called "Waldemars".

every vladimire i know is from russia.

old thread dug up ...lets just lay this to rest.

It means soemthing like "The owner of the world".

not so bad

my first teacher called me Waldemar. Remember I was very angry to hear this name

I know of 2 hispanics named Vladimir but their names are pronounced Bladimir since the V sound is not heard very much in central america. Of the 2, one is from El Salvador and he was named after his grandfather.

I know of 2 hispanics named Vladimir but their names are pronounced Bladimir since the V sound is not heard very much in central america. Of the 2, one is from El Salvador and he was named after his grandfather.

I doubt that his name originally is from El Salvador. Maybe his grandfather was Russian, or named after some Russian ancestor.

About Vladimir and Walter -- in the first half of the 20th century, at least in the US, it was common for children of immigrants to be "renamed" by their Anglo teachers when they began to attend school, if their given names were perceived to be excessively "foreign." So plenty of little Vladimirs and Wolodzymyrs became Walters when they started school.

All four of my grandparents and many of my other senior relatives had non-English given names, and only one used an exact English language rendition of her name. The others wound up with English language names that were unrelated to their original names except that they started with the same initial consonant. (Manya became Martha, and so on.)

Eastern European immigrants sometimes changed, or at least slightly modified their original names to "fit in" better. (My grandfather used the name William, hardly a Slavic name, and he dropped a couple of letters from his surname.)

It was also common for immigrant families to choose Anglo names at least somewhat close in sound (if not actually related to Slavic names) for their children born in the US. So a first-generation American might be named Walter when he would have been named Vladimir if he were born in Europe.

Probably not all that interesting to most posters here, but I do family history research and things like patterns of name changes among immigrants are useful in that. The relationship between the names Vladimir and Walter helped me to track down the long lost American relatives of some acquaintances in Belarus.

And since I have lurked and haven't previously posted here and this is the Russian Names forum, a word about my nic. It's what my (native Russian speaking) cousins call me, and it's about as Russian as my given name can be without changing it.

Carry on!

VLADIMIR was the name of a great, great grandfather....but of my 4 great grandfathers, there were 3 Jacobs...2 spelled Jacob, and 1 spelled Jakob.

I'm still hunting down my genealogy...and Jakob, Vladimir, and a few others I have listed, lived in Neudorf or Kassel, Odessa, Ukraine.

Can anyone help me with those areas? I'd really appreciate it.

That's funny. I'm from Odessa too.

My friend that is Polish has a brother named Jacob, but they spell it Jakub. And for short they call him Kuba. Just another observation.

I wish I could say that I'm from Odessa...it's just family, from a few generations back! I know my grandma would be proud of me, if I ever told anyone I was from Ukraine.....