What about parents says the name of their child?
'05.10.2018'
Source: Psychologies
I am deeply convinced that the fashion for names is not exactly fashion, ”says the famous Russian director and author of articles Elena Pogrebizhskaya. It seems to me that this is how our, pardon the pathos, national values manifest themselves at this moment in time. What are they like now?
The family lives on my floor: grandmother Natasha, grandfather Igor, their daughter Svetlana and her daughter. The girl's name is suddenly Nicole. A couple of days ago, on the playground, another mother called her son: “Eugene, come here!”. And mom-dads Nicole and Eugene are quite ordinary Russians, just such a fashion for names, Elena writes for Psychologies.
If you remember how the last ten years my friends and acquaintances called children, what will happen? (All my friends are Russians: they were born in our country and live constantly).
There is Mia, Michel, Hannah, Aaron, Michael. There is a rather pronounced tendency to call children traditional Slavic names. I know Radomir, Dobrynya, Izyaslav, several Daniilov and Timofeev, Matvey and Yegor, girls Yaroslav, Stanislav, Velin and Vasilisa.
In my classroom on 1980, most of the boys were called Sergei, and half of the classmates were Natasha. It seems to me that now such a class is basically impossible, because children are called differently.
It is necessary to understand that the pre-revolutionary choice of names basically corresponded to the Orthodox traditions. A baby was born, parents opened the calendar - the church calendar - and watched which saints had a memorable day on this date. Let's say they chose a name for a boy born on 25 May. On this day, Herman, Germogen (Ermogen), Denis, Epifan, Ivan, Pankrat, Poluvy, Proterii, Savin, Fyodor, Philip are listed.
Parents chose from the set of names that which they liked best. Orthodox traditions were not just a way to choose a name, but one of the cornerstones of the worldview.
After the revolution, children were massively named after leaders and ideologues. Moreover, the parents did not do this because it was necessary or fashionable, this corresponded to their convictions. For people who called children Vilen (short for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin), Kim (Communist Youth International), Rem (revolution, Engels, Marx), those in honor of whom they gave offspring such names were real heroes.
In honor of their favorite literary heroes, children have always been called.
Pilot Valery Chkalov was a real hero for the Soviet people, so in 1930 many boys were named after him. In the 1960-s there were many Yuri, named after Gagarin. And while the cosmonauts remained the main characters for the Soviet people, Hermann appeared in honor of Titov and Valentina - in honor of Tereshkova. Gradually, the cosmos became something almost mundane, and the babies stopped giving the names of astronauts.
In honor of their favorite literary heroes, children have always been called. In the pre-war Soviet period, after the publication of the book by Arkady Gaidar “Timur and his team”, the Turkic name Timur became perhaps the most popular. Poetess Agnia Barto dedicated a poem to this phenomenon:
"They called Timur,
And from day one
Heroic deeds
Everyone is waiting on me. ”
As soon as the movie appeared, the parents began giving the sons and daughters the names of their favorite movie characters and actors. In 1937, Yakov Protazanov’s “The Brideless Girl” came out on Soviet screens, and over the following 15 years, parents annually called Larissa no less than 22 girls on 1000 newborns.
In the 1950s, there was a lot of Lolita in the country in honor of the Argentine film star Lolita Torres. As soon as the 1980-s “soap operas” poured into the country, the girls began to be called Marianna and Roses. And how many Alice appeared after the “Guest from the Future”.
Now 12 girls named Arya live in Moscow and St. Petersburg in honor of Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. In general, naming children after movie characters is our eternal value. It will always be as long as there is a movie.
The focus of the parents is their personal, private world, not global, collective social values.
But back to the beliefs of parents, which they express not in anything, but in the names of the children.
In 1970, the Soviet people largely lost faith in the correctness of communist ideas. Most of all in those years they wanted a beautiful life. Such a life was personified by foreign names, which immediately and en masse began to be given to newborns. During this period, many Edward, Aleksov, Alfred, Rudolph, Roberts and Alberts appeared in the USSR. The girls were called Ewami, Martha, Renata, Jeanette, Isolde and Magda.
And what are our current values about today's choice of names? A surge of patriotism and interest in the roots, everything Russian, Old Russian and Slavic are driven by those who give children such names as Darin, Radomir, Izyaslav and Dobrynya. Classic Slavophile direction.
Parents who feel themselves to be Europeans or "citizens of the world" (let's call them Westerners) - and this is also a pronounced tendency - give children names that are international or very foreign to the Russian ear. This is just mom and dad Nicole, Aaron and Eugene.
After studying the statistics of registry offices and Rosstat, I came to an important conclusion. It seems to me that in recent years we have no collective heroes. No pilots, no astronauts, no polar explorers, no other heroic men and women, no leaders - no one at all, after whom we would call children. That is, the focus of moms-pap's own life, personal, private world, rather than global, collective social values. This, in my opinion, for a single family is good and correct. And by the way, what were you guided by when choosing a name for a child?
