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What's in a name?
I did not know my daughter's Russian name until I met her, and was not expecting to have to commit to a new name by the next day...
My last name is Russian, and my daughter's first name was also very ethnic, so I wanted to tone down the ethnicity a bit, but thought I could "save" the name she was accustomed to by retaining it as her middle name. On the other hand, her middle name Alexandrova was similar to an old family name of ours, Alexandra... So I switched Alexandra to the first name.
The next day, the Russians gave me strange looks and shook their heads over the Russian-sounding but not Russian mix of Alexandra Irina. Didn't understand how the name confused them until later -someone told me that in Russia the middle name is always a feminization of a masculine paternal name, and there is no male name for Irina! To make matters worse, with a Russian last name, it all sounded especially strange to them...
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