How the heck do Russian names work?

[lady h]

In Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, one of the lines in the opening number is: "It's a complicated Russian novel: everyone's got nine different names!"

Russian names consist of three parts: given name, patronymic, and family name.

Given name is, well, given name. First name. These can have some seriously random nicknames. While deriving "Natasha" from "Natalya" seems to follow, you can also get "Sasha" from Alexander, "Alyosha" from Alexei, "Sonya" from Sophia, and so on. This can get seriously confusing, since there's really not a standard and each name can have several diminutives.

Patronymic or middle name is based off the father's name; it ends up literally translating to "son of" or "daughter of." For men, patronymics are formed of the father's first name plus an "-ovich", "-evich", or "-yevich" suffix. For women, it's the same, but with an "-ovna", "-evna", or "-yevna" suffix. I'm guessing there are some exceptions and irregularities, though, since Natalya Rostova's dad is named Ilya, but her name isn't Natalia Ilyevna, but Nataly Ilyinichna. (Someone who understands more about Russian help me or correct me.)

Then there's the family name, which also changes according to gender.

Generally, men's family names end in the following suffixes: -ov, -ev, -in, -iy, -oy, -uy, -yn, -ski.

Women's family names have the following suffixes: -ova/-ovna, -eva/-evna, -ina, -aya/-oya/-eya/-iaya, -yna, -skaya.

So we get things like Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky and Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya, who can be identified as children of "Nikolay" by their shared patronymic. Similarly we have Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin and his sister Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina who goes by Helene, because French was all the rage. This goes for Pierre too, whose name is actually Pyotr.

Generally, Russians will address each other by given name and patronymic if they are not familiar with each other, so, "Good morning, Maria Nikolayevna!" Apparently sometimes they can also be addressed by their patronymic alone as well, because all this isn't confusing enough. Diminutives are usually reserved for close friends and family.

Also, like American women, Russian women generally take on their husband's last name when married, though still with feminine suffixes.

SOURCES:

https://www.fbiic.gov/public/2008/nov...
http://lisahayden.com/lch/Russian%20N...
http://www.emporia.edu/~bartruff/docs...

(I basically summarized these but I'd definitely recommend giving them a look because they've got charts and things that make this all much clearer!)

[Anette]

Very helpful, I was already familiar with most of this but the French connection helped explain a lot ;) Also, according to wikipedia: "For masculine names ending in a vowel, such as Ilya or Foma, when they are used as a base for patronymic, the corresponding endings are -ich (for men) and -inichna (for women)."

[Rachel]

This is all soooo helpful, thank you so much Hadeer and Anette! I don't think I've ever read a Russian novel before so I was definitely lowkey worried about the names being too complicated to follow. This all makes perfect sense though.