![]() Jennifer Miller (Ilyana Barsova) contributed a list of feminine given names derived from primary sources (300 or so of which appear herein) and inspired me to get this far. I am therefore very thankful to people who have guided me over the past year in getting this far. This work has been (and continues to be) extremely time consuming. ![]() I therefore want to stress that this work is not flawless and should not be taken as the cardinal truth. Rather, I like to think that my level of expertise gives me a proper appreciation for just what my limitations are. Nor, for that matter, am I a professional historian. However, I study contemporary Russian politics and I am not a linguist (I have taken a few courses on the subject). I also have the advantage of sitting on top of one of the largest Slavic library collections in the world (at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). I am active in various professional organizations that are devoted to Slavic studies. I have conducted fieldwork and archival research in Russia and I consider myself fluent in the language. I have made numerous trips to Russia during that time. I have actively studied the Russian language in college since 1985. This version of the dictionary contains approximately 15,000 entries. These are cross-referenced to the closest Russian equivalent and may be considered as suitable documentation for the Russian version of the name (more details are provided in the following pages). Many of the spelling and transliteration variations found in the dictionary are not Russian at all. It is not limited to Russian names, but includes names used in medieval Russia originating from Ancient Greek, Latin, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, German, Turkish, and several other languages. This dictionary began in 1993 as a short booklet of 1000 entries and underwent numerous layout revisions and additions over the following year before reaching its current form. Tatiana's book, based in part on a Soviet baby-naming book, never had such pretensions. There has been a growing need for a book which would provide not only definition, but also historical documentation. However, the Society's standards for name documentation have changed. Tatiana Tumanova's Complete Book of Russian Names is truly impressive (in a way that could only be truly appreciated after attempting to replace it) and it has served well as the standard reference for many years. Along the way, I discovered that the Society lacked a truly rigorous source on Russian names. I stumbled across this project in the process of helping my lady try to document her Russian name. I do not have a Russian persona nor did I come to the Society with a deep interest in Russian history. I welcome any comments and criticism, particularly if they can help to improve the quality of this work. For the next version, I hope to complete entering secondary sources and be able to turn my full energies towards primary source documentation. I expect it to take several years to complete. Until then, all the errors herein remain my own. If all goes according to plan, I hope to be able to collaborate more fully with her on the next edition. I am also thankful to Masha Holl (Predslava Vydrina) who arrived on the scene recently, but who has generously given me permission to include some of her own research within this work. ![]() I am thankful for her support of a project which must seem terribly infantile in comparison to the work of professional medievalists. Eve Levin for giving me a copy of her research notes that made it possible to replace many of the inaccurate entries for Russian saints with a more trusted list of medieval Russian saints. I wish to thank the same people as before, but particularly Dr. Finally, the text has been reformatted into a double-column format and set in a proportional font (both of which make much better use of space). Another improvement has been the replacement of many secondary (and unreliable) citations with more accurate and primary sources wherever possible. All of these changes are in addition to approximately 10,000 more entries and a section of place names that has been nearly doubled. For example, the reader will notice the greatly expanded grammar section and particularly the alphabetical listing of name roots which (theoretically) will allow the careful user to create a period-sounding Russian name in "Chinese-menu" style by mixing and matching elements. However, it is much closer to the desired end product. This edition also has no such pretensions. The reason for this haste was that the first edition was never intended to be the definitive word on the subject. ![]() This second edition comes relatively soon after the first. Paul Goldschmidt's Dictionary of Russian Names - Introductory MatterĪrticles > Names Preface to the Second Edition ![]()
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