Paul Goldschmidt's Dictionary of Russian Names - Grammatical First Elements and Themes
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Grammatical First Elements and Themes

Copyright (c) 1996 Paul Goldschmidt. Used by permission.

Grammatical Notes

The following section is an attempt to provide a dictionary of themes for adventurous name inventors. In theory, it provides the opportunity for a person to create an artificial Russian name (one that never existed but which could have). This is only a tentitive work and extreme caution should be used in creating such artificial names. For now, only Russian themes are included. Christian themes can be studied in the context of Latin and Ancient Greek and have been fairly well documented.

Forming an artificial name correctly requires a slightly higher sophistication in Russian grammar than has been previously provided. The following brief discussion of consonant mutation and the use of "fill vowels" will provide some basic guidelines. Readers are encouraged, however, to search through more detailed works. Moroshkin (1867), for example, provides a much more technical discussion of the formation of names.

Filler Vowels

It is necessary from time to time to add vowels to link themes and elements together. This is most commonly achieved by inserting an unstressed "-o-" between elements. If the theme ends with a soft sign ('), an "-i-" is more common. At times, an "-e-" or an "-u-" may be more appropriate. In the following sections, I have tried to provide the proper fill vowel with any theme or element that is capable of preceding another. However, remember that period orthography was far from consistent. For example, the simple combination of "Rad" (joy) and "Slav" (glory) could result in any of the following possibilities: Radoslav, Radislav, Rad'slav, or Raslav. Meanwhile, the combination of "Liut" (hard) and "Bor" (slay) could result in Liutobor, Liutibor, Liutebor, or Liutbor. As one can see, sometimes the filler vowel was neglected altogether.

The following rules of thumb (adapted from Gribble, 1973: 14) may prove helpful. Following this checklist in order will usually result in the correct choice of vowel. In each case, use the first rule that applies:

  1. after k, g, or kh, insert an "-o-"
  2. before an r, l, m, or n, insert an "-e-"
  3. before soft consonants or ts, insert an "-e-"
  4. before hard consonants, insert an "-o-"

If all of this seems horribly daunting, simply follow your tongue. Russians use the most comfortable vowel choice, so simply put on your best Boris-and-Natasha accent and try out a couple possibilities aloud.

Consonant Mutation

To make matters even more complicated, most Russian hard consonants also undergo transformations when merged together. This is most common in the case of grammatical first elements (or themes) ending in consonants that are placed in front of themes or deuterothemes with a vowel or "short-i" () at their beginning. The general result is that the terminal consonant will be softened by this transformation to make the link possible. Some examples of such softening: 


	p r pl'		t r ch/shch		st r shch	g  r zh
	b r bl'		d r zh/zhd		sk r shch	kh r sh
	m r ml'		s r sh			ts r ch		n  r n'
	f r fl'		z r zh			k  r ch		r  r r'
	v r vl'		l r  l'

Because of this, certain drastically differently spelled morphemes actually turn out to be related (e.g., "gor" and "zhar" or "kon" and "chn")(Gribble, 1973: 16). Some other examples include: Bog/Bozho, Bor/Boro, Boi/Voi, Bol'/Vel', Vlad/Blad, Zhir/Zhiv/Zhiz', Liub/Liud/Liut, and Mir/Mest'.

Consonant mutation, however, should not be confused with orthographic liberties. Rather, the transliteration inconsistencies of Central European scribes can make things even worse: Dado written as Dado, Dando, or Dindo; or Lalo written as Lala or Lolo; and so on.

For those who have do not wish to undertake the formation of an artificial name, this section can still prove useful. Using the index at the end can be a helpful starting point for a person who wishes to search for a name with a specific meaning (rather than one with a specific sound).

Grammatical First Elements

The following "grammatical first elements" share the characteristic of only being capable of being used at the beginning of words or names. For every rule, of course, there are notable exceptions (e.g., Borutzlatoslav, Neupomuk, Neupokoi, Pomstibor), but the rule holds in most cases. Moroshkin (1867: 33) also reminds us that names in diminutive form can lose their endings, leaving only the these elements (Viachko from Viacheslav, Sviatosha from Sviatoslava, etc.). Some of these elements are true protothemes, but many of them are only prepositions, negations, adverbs, or verbal derivatives.

Themes

Most names contain some sort of "base" theme as an element. Many contain more than one. Making a complete list of themes would be a formidable task. However, the following list is a reasonable attempt to list the most important examples and I can say, as Moroshin (1867: 89-90) wrote: "Of course, we cannot say that we have listed all the roots of personal slavic names (this would be too self-congratulatory and presumptuous), but we will permit ourselves to believe that the list of roots that were missed by us constitutes an insiginificant minority in comparison with the quantity of those which we did include." Of the known omitted cases, some are rare and occur in only a few cases, while others are simply nouns whose meaning are fairly straightforward and could be derived from a dictionary. These themes may appear like protothemes or like deuterothemes (at the beginning or end of a word or name) without any particular restrictions (beyond the consonant mutation described above).

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