My name is.... what?

So one of the things we've learned in Ukraine is that names can be very complex!

Almost instantly after people meet me, they turn Antara into Antaruchka.

It's a way of addressing someone more informally- to draw them closer to you and make it more 'tender.'

Arun's nickname never ceases to crack me up- it's Arunchik.

However, you can't just haphazardly add 'uchka' and 'chik' to people's names. There are certain endings that 'match' with certain names.

The other thing that occurs is the diminutive version of names. I learned quickly that my student called Nastya- was actually Anastasia in my attendance sheet. Natasha was Natalie. Maria was Masha. Olga was Olya. Ira was Irina. For the boys it was equally interesting: Alexander was Sasha. Dmitry was Dema. Vladamir was Vova.

The whole Slavic naming structure gets even more complex than just nicknames though!

Turns out everyone is also given a patronymic middle name. This essentially is a 'son-of' or 'daughter-of' identification. It doesn't function in the same way as an American middle name. Sometimes they are dropped or abbreviated. I really think the historical origins of the patronymic is to help people identify the lineage of an individual. And even though that function is becoming more obsolete in our modern age- the tradition remains.

This is way my students' formal names look like this:

Svetlana Iosifovna Kuzmina

Which means this girl's name is Svetlana- she is the daughter of Iosif (Joseph) and her family name is Kuzmina. But of course... she goes by Sveta (the diminutive).

Whew!