Choosing the name for the baby can be an interesting process... When our son was born, there were a number of criteria we as responsible parents had to consider prior to filling in the birth registration form. When he was born, the tag on his wrist simply said - Baby Gospodinova. It made me laugh indeed! But also taught me my first lesson... The specifics of your own language shall be left at the Boader Control agency. The English language doesn't defferenciate the gender by adding an ending to the last name. So as long as my name ends with -a, everyone assumes, my son's does exactly the same...
So what points did we personally have to consider when naming our baby son?
Firstly, the name should sound international, so don't be country-specific. Hence the probabilities of us living in the Russian-speaking only environment are not great, we thought it wouldn't be fair to call our son a typical Russian name.
The name shall not be long simply to compensate the lengthness of the last name. My husband had an example with a corporate email address which nowadays we use more often when a postal address. Imagine spelling that? But in general that would concern not only emails, but banks, airlines, hospitals, local authorities ...You name it!
We were mindful of other friends' kids' names (something I re-considered recently). Our initial point was that it is unfair to your friends if you name your child same name as their's. But frankly speaking, I don't really see it as an issue anymore. The migration is on its raise, and with a transportaion being more and more affordable, and the boarders being opened, the chance that your kid would be living next door to the kid of your friends in a long term are quite minimal... So why skip the name simply because your best friend who lives miles away from you has already named her son Daniel?!
One of the points we had to consider was any unpleasant associations or potential nicknames which could cause your child hard time as he or she would be growing up... A good friend of mine who worked in Moscow for quite some time once said that he loved the Russian name Sveltana. The point he was making was in short version, the name sounds as Sveta, so the chances of getting a nickname Sweaty Sveta are very very high. Another good example would be with a beautiful Russian name Anastasia, which a short version - Nastya... I will only let you guess... The recent example with boys name was about very typical Russian name Sergey, which may please grandparents's ears, but won't please your son's when he gets called Sir-Gay!
If the parents are religious, they could also consider how close the name they want to choose is close to the Biblical name. Am I overthinking it?! :)
At any country at any period in time, there will be its own tendencies and popular names. Be mindful of the fact that a child of the celebrity may profit from being called unusually.. North West may sound cool and trendy to Kim and the Kardashian gang, but wait until year three in school when they start leaning about the navigation system.
There are also plenty of surveys on line about most typical, most hated, and most unusual names which could help. Think long term, and don't let the hormones to rule your decision! Good luck!
yours
Tasha
xx
