In this article, we would like to tell you about the unusual names that were popular during the Soviet Union time. A list of names which boys and girls used to be given became significantly larger after the 1917 Revolution and until the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time people used to give their children the names in honour of famous leaders, revolutionary events, as well as geographical locations, and symbols.
At that time, Soviet parents’ creativity and imagination were completely boundless. Today, we can roughly divide all these names into several groups. Let’s have a look at what unusual Soviet names were given to newborn children during the USSR time.
Children were often named after the month they were born in, for example: Dekabriy and Dekabrina (December), Sentyabrina (September), Noyabrina (November), as well as Fevralyn (February), and Aprelyna (April). The luckiest ones were born in October and named Oktabryonok.
Names of mountains, rivers, and cities also inspired parents. Therefore, they named their children the following names: Kair (Cairo), Neva (the Neva river), Parizh (Paris), Gyimalay (the Himalayas), Altaj (the Altai), Ural (the Ural), and Avksoma which means Moscow but spelt backwards.
Children born in the Soviet Union can be easily called Dub (oak), Beryoza (birch), Olha (alder), Azalya (azalea), or Gvozdika (carnation).
The USSR actively developed science, so many parents borrowed their children’s names from science. For exampe: from athematics – Algebrina and Gipotenuza (algebra and hypotenuse), from physics – Om(Ohm), Elektrina (electricity), from chemistry – the names of minerals and chemical elements: Rubin (ruby), Granit (granite), Radiy (radium), Geliy (helium), Volfram (wolfram), etc.
Slogans were very popular during the USSR time. So, people named their children after them. These were mainly names-abbreviations. For example:
Dazdraperma: Da zdravstvuet pervoe maja (Glory to the 1st of May).
Dazvsemir: Da zdravstvuet vsemirnaja revoljucija (Glory to the World Revolution).
Dalis: Da zdravstvujut Lenin i Stalin (Glory to Lenin and Stalin).
Damir: Dajesh mirovuju revoljucuju (Give the World Revolution).
Kukucapol’: Kukuruza – carica polej (Corn is the Tsarina of the fields).
For example, the name Avtodor originated from the abbreviated name for “The Association for Promotion of the Development of Automobilism and Improvement of Roads”.
Vojenmor – a shortened version of the word combination “military sailor”.
Revdar – a shortened version of the word combination “revolutionary gift”.
Majority of female names originated from male names, but with the letter “a” added at the end. However, there were a few original names. For example:
Kommunera – from “communist era”.
Layila – from “Ilych’s electric bulb”.
Prazdnosveta – from “holiday of the Soviet power”.
Pobeda – the name borrowed from a common noun.
Donara -from “daughter of people”.
Majority of new names were coined from the first letters of the name and surname of famous people. For example:
Vaterpezhekosma: Valentina Tereshkova – pervaja zhenshhina-kosmonavt (Valentina Tereshkova is a first woman cosmonaut).
Dzerzh – from F. Derzhinsky’s surname.
Kollontay – from A. Kollontay’s surname, a party and state person.
Jurgoz – Yury Gagarin orbited the Earth.
Zamvil – from “V.I. Lenin’s deputy”.
The name of the famous leader Vladimir Lenin served as a basis for many Soviet names, such as Varlen – Lenin’s great army, Vidlen – Velikie idei Lenina (Great ideas of Lenin), Vilich – from Ladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leljud – Lenin ljubit detej (Lenin loves children), and Ninel’ – Lenin (“Lenin” read vice versa and with soft sign).
It used to be popular to name children after foreign heroes who were related to the revolution, art, or science. There were quite many girls with the name Andzhela (after Angela Davis, an American human rights activist). Boys were named Dzhon (after John Undike, an American writer), or Ravel (after Maurice Ravel, a French composer).
Every time has its own trends for fashion, hairstyles, as well as names. We hope you enjoyed the article and learned about the names which were really popular in the Soviet Union.
As it seems to us, Daugavpils is the best place to learn Russian now, because our city is situated in the EU and NATO, but at the same time 90% of the city’s population speak Russian at home.
Etude on Dvinsk by F.Fedorov
The Baltic region is one of the most catastrophe prone regions of the 2nd millennium, especially its second part; it is the centre of attraction of ‘geopolitical’ interests of the European world. Probably the most tragic fate has befallen to the eastern part of the present Latvia and its multi-titled town of Dinaburg – Dvinsk – Daugavpils. During its 730 years long history, the town went through five rather autonomous periods of development, five different lives (German, Polish, Russian, Latvian, Soviet), and at the beginning of the 1990s it entered into the 6th period.
The history of Dinaburg – Dvinsk – Daugavpils is the history of five attempts by the town to begin its life anew; and this is determined not only by the fact that the town was four times burned down and had to start life from scratch, but first and foremost because each of these periods was characterized by a total change of ethnos and the socio-cultural field.
The present article deals with the cultural space of the town in one of the most efficient periods of its development – from the 1860s till World War I.