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Ukrainian names: origin and meaning

Ukrainian names: origin and meaning

From long ago Ukrainians thoroughly chose names for their babies, because they knew – child’s destiny may depend on chosen name. While choosing a name, parents wanted to guarantee a numen protection. That’s why Ukrainian princes and hetmans had glorious names such as Izyaslav (one who gets his glory) and Bohdan (one who is given by God). Here you will find Ukrainian baby names with transliteration.

Ukrainian names origin

The etymology of Old Ukrainian (pre-Christian) names can be easily traced. Names for children were chosen according to family life circumstances. For example, a long-desired child got the name Zhdan (from the word “zhdat’” – “to wait”), surprise baby – Nezhdan (“ne-” – negative prefix + “zhdat’” – “to wait”). The first son in a family was named Odynets’ (“odyn” – “one”), the third – Tretyak (“tretiy” – “the third”).

Names with negative connotation were given in order to protect children from malign forces (for example, Gore – meaning “misfortune”, Zahvoray – from “zahvority” – “take sick”.

At the end of X century Kievan Rus’ adopted Christianity, and Christian names of Greek, Latin, Hebrew origin replaced Old Russian names, though Old Russian names were in use along with new Christian names for a long period of time.

Modern Ukrainian names

The list of contemporary Ukrainian names consists of:

  • Byzantine Christian names loaned along with Christianity adoption in X century. The most popular Ukrainian names such as Ivan, Oleksiy, Petro, Kateryna, Fedir are Christian names.
  • Old Russian names: Volodymyr, Rostyslav, Vsevolod, calques from Greek – Bohdan, Ukrainian female names Vira, Lyubov, Nadiya, some names of Scandinavian origin – Igor, Oleg, Olga.
  • Names, loaned from West Slavic and South Slavic languages: Vanda, Ruzhena, Vlasta, Kvitoslava.
  • New names appeared in Soviet times (XX century): Ukrainian girl names Volya, Svoboda, Slava, Liliya etc.
  • Names loaned from West European languages: Arnold, Albert, Zhanna, Artur, Eleonora. Such names became usual due to popular books and films.

Regional specific features

Although the Ukrainian names system is the same for the whole country, regional specific features can be found (especially in the Western Ukraine due to territorial and political, geographic factors).

For example, among the common Ukrainian names in Zakarpattia there are loans from:

  • Hungarian (Pishta, Tibor, Feri, Imbri);
  • Czech (Vozhena, Vlasta);
  • Polish (Bronya, Kasya);
  • Romanian (Floriy, Liana, Nikora);
  • German (Rudi, Vili, Termina, Terta).

Some common names in West Ukrainian dialects have different spelling: Dmytro – Gmytro, Marysya – Maryshya, Antin – Gantin.

Ukrainian women (girl, female) names

Ukrainian men (boy, male) names