#qurmanay is so much better than katya though.... truly gorgeous name

[samodivas]

i'm glad you're interested in qazaq names! most of them are dithematic of mixed turkic, arabic + persian origin, and the stress is on the last syllable except for foreign names which i'll mention a bit later. popular elements for girls are ay (moon, turkic), nur (light, persian) & gül (flower, persian), f.ex. aynur (moonlight; fun fact: this is a feminine name in qazaq, but masculine in tatar), aygül (moon+flower), aysuluw (moon+beautiful, both turkic). bek (prince), han (khan), sultan are popular for boys, like aysultan, imanbek. of course we also use religious names like musa, iliyas, and it's not unusual to mix them with the above elements, like nurislam, älihan (äli-ali the caliph). some names can be standalone, like arman (masc, dream) or gauhar (fem, diamond). there are also superstitious feminine names to give parents a son, like ulbolsın (let there be a boy), uldämet (desire a boy), ultuwar (she'll give birth to a boy), ulbala (male child). i actually hate that tradition bc it's basically telling your child you were disappointed in their sex and you wanted someone else :( other superstitious names are names with bad meaning to protect from the evil eye, usually masculine, like kötibar (he has a butt), names with the qul (slave) element (älimqul–scholar+slave), or "traded" children, like tölegen (paid for), satıbaldı (bought), satılğan (sold). a longed for son can be named tilegen (wished for), qudaybergen (the qazaq bogdan basically—we have 3 words for god so there are variants too). there are few unisex names, quanıc (joy) and jeñis (victory) are the first to come to mind, but i can't think of many others. some foreign names are commonish, like elvira, zhanna, albina, while others have a distinct soviet vibe like roza, klara (all feel dated though). marat, damir, & dias, common masculine names, are also of alleged soviet origin—i can see it for the former two, but dias besides the spanish communist has arabic origins (bright) so i'm not as sure about that one. history-inspired names are trendy nowadays, like tomiris & zarina after the saka queens, alan (masc) after the ancient alans. typical qazaq nicknames are formed using the first syllable or letter and adding -äke (æ-KEH) to it, f.ex. maqsat (masc, goal, any other M name) - mäke, jandos (masc, soul+friend, any other J name) - jäke. -jan (soul, persian) is an affectionate suffix, like -ka in slavic languages so to speak, so älim can become älimjan. more russian suffixes also persist, like gulya for gül names. feminine qazaq names don't typically end in -a, so if you see one, it's probably russified (gülnar-gulnara, iñkär-inkara). it used to be more common in soviet times, when russian nicknames were used for qazaq names, f.ex qurmanay (fem, sacrifice+moon) would become katya instead. as for surnames, in soviet times you'd get a slavic suffix (-ev, -ov, -in) but nowadays more and more people remove them, so qanat (masc, wing) tastemirov (rock+iron) becomes qanat tastemir, plus there's the grandfather thing i talked about. parents can choose to give their child a russian or qazaq-style patronymic, like kayratovich/kayratovna (qayrat - will, energy) or qayratulı/qayratqızı. matronymics aren't a thing as far as i'm aware. in official docs we use surname - name - patronymic but outside of that the usual order is name - surname or name - patronymic - surname (or name - patronymic if the patronymic IS the surname!). when addressing a senior (in age or rank) in a russophone environment we use name - patronymic, in a qazaq speaking environment however we use name - mırza (sir) / hanım (ms), f. ex qayrat mırza, gülnar hanım. i tried fitting in everything i could and even then i'm sure i probably forgot something—sorry for the wall of text😵‍💫if you wanna share any bulgarian naming customs i'd love to hear them!

That's super interesting, thank you!

We have some similarities but I'll put them under a cut to make the post more compact on people's dashboards.

The first thing I want to mention is a naming practice, which is relatively new - from the past 30 - 40 years, I believe, maybe just a bit older.

Typically, naming your child after a relative (usually your own parents) is the way it goes. So you have Georgi, his son Ivan, and the grandson is Georgi, and then he names his own son Ivan and so on and so forth. I've seen this which much less common names and my own family has this tradition on nearly every side. The names are cyclical -they come back in a generation or two, grandparents to grandchildren is usually the row.

However, it's increasingly common to "name" your child after someone by using no more than the first letter of their name. Grandma Sevda gets a grandchild named Sonya and the parents tell her "It starts with the letter S for you!"

Personally, I think it's a little bit insulting because it's essentially saying "well, see, grandpa Tzonko (version of Stanko, meaning "stay with me"), your name is just so fucking ugly I could not bear the thought of my child having it, but I wanted to stroke your ego. So meet baby Tzvetan ("flower") because the first letter is all I could tolerate!"

But on the other hand, it lets you be a lot more creative with names. Instead of having your child be Maria the 17th in your family line, they can be something unique that you still feel is connected to the tradition. A girl I know has a similar tradition in her family where they cyclically use the letter V to name the next generation, which is kind of nice because it isn't totally restrictive, like having to name your kid Vasil or Vasilena - they can be anything, like Velichko, Veneta, Venera, Vurban, etc.

Origin of names.

Bulgarian names are also of mixed origin, most commonly Slavic and Greek, often with Hebrew origin if they are biblical, and with occasional Turkic, Arabic, and Persian influence or meaning.

Slavic names tend to have "enchanting" or literal meanings, so they wish for certain characteristics upon the child, such as being "red" (Rumen, Rumyana), "kind/good" (Blaga, Blagoi), "healthy/sturdy/strong" (Zdravko, Zdravka). Snezhana (snow) is likely to be born when there's a lot of snow, Zornitsa (morning star) in the morning, Nedelcho, Nedyalko, and Nedelin ("not-doing"/Sunday) - on a Sunday.

Names of Greek origin are Bulgarized so Dimitrios is Dimitar (endless nicknames: Mitko, Mite, Mitak, Dimo, Dimcho, Dimi, Mityo, etc.) and Georgios is Georgi (nicknames: Gosho, Gogo, Zhoro, Zhore, Gyore, etc, etc.) and sometimes regional variants like Gyurgi or Gyorgi. These names have mostly come into use through religion, so all of them are usually connected to saints and feast days that people celebrate.

Turkic (and Turkish) names are usually avoided because of a lingering distaste for Ottoman rule, but elements like Gül are persistent and it's not too uncommon to find someone Bulgarian named Güla or Gülka.

For Arabic and Persian, the most common and beloved name I can think of right now is Biser (pearl) with the feminine equivalent Biserka. There was a theory that it's one of the only Proto-Bulgarian words (i.e: Turkic or Indo-Iranian origin, depending on which camp your theory is in) but it's much likelier to simply be an Arabic loan that made itself at home.

Christian Bulgarians use translated/Slavicized versions of Biblical names (Ivan and Yoan = John, Yordan = Jordan, Lazar = Lazarus, etc.) and Muslim Bulgarians tend to go for Arabic names from the Quran (Ali, Hassan, Ibrahim, Nebahad, Shaban).

I'm making the distinction that Muslim Bulgarians typically use Arabic names because Muslim Turks in Bulgaria most commonly use Turkish adaptations of Arabic names. It's just a small detail that's been emphasized to me both academically and in the flesh by a religious Muslim Bulgarian before.

The most common historical names are names of Tsars - Simeon, Samuil, Petar, Asen, Kaloyan, Ivan, Aleksandar, and Boris. Also khans, from the beginning of the country's history as a state, with the most popular choices being Asparukh and Krum.

Some foreign names have been replacing Bulgarian ones, so instead of "Elisaveta" you get "Elizabeth" and instead of "Stefan" you get "Steven" (but written in Bulgarian Cyrillic which honestly makes them painful to read like... Стивън just ain't it). Names like Alice and Vivian and others have also been increasingly more common. Personally, I don't like some of them as much as others. And it is 100% a personal bias because I will absolutely judge someone naming their child Kristin instead of Hristina but I won't judge my best friend for doing it with a less basic Western name. (e.g: Vivienne, Carolina, Pascalina)

Pronunciation/stressed syllables.

I feel like this is entirely intuitive and prone to constant change but maybe that's because I pronounce Todor differently every time I say it... I believe the stress depends on the length of a name.

Three syllables or more - stress on the second syllable. e.g: KrisTIna, DiMItar, EvGEniya, AlekSANdar, etc.

Two syllables or less - stress on the first syllable. e.g: KRIsi, MItko, ZHEni, SAsho.

Superstitious names.

The name „Момчил“ (Momchil) is given to a boy that was very wanted, as it basically means "male child" but I'm not sure if girls have ever received „Момчила“ (Momchila), however, there is another type of "enchantment" people used to put on their kids.

Names like Stoyan, Stoil, Stoyko, Stanko, Tzanko, and Tzonko are all names that say "stay with me". Trayan (or Trajan, if you're in the Western Balkans) is also common but it has one more meaning (Slavic origin would say sturdy, withstanding, etc. But the Roman origin is the name of an emperor + likely meaning "the Thracian")

Another common practice in the past was that people who had many daughters (or many children in general) would name the final one "Stiga" (literally the word for "Enough") to prevent future (female?) children from being born.

We've also had superstitious names with bad meanings for protection! (And I admit that Kötibar made me giggle.)

The most common "bad" name would be Grozdan or Grozdanka meaning "ugly" (grozen). But it's appeared more in fairytales than in kindergartens in the past decades. It's also very similar to the word "grozde" which means grapes, so I think it's a name that combines both meanings somewhere in its past.

Unisex names.

There aren't many unisex names left in Bulgarian, if there were many. The most common one would probably be "Tony" - short for feminine and masculine forms of Antonio, Antoanette, Antoan, Anton, etc. But interestingly enough a lot of old-timey male names used to sound a lot more feminine than they do today.

e.g: instead of "Andrey", it was "Andrea"; names like "Dragota" and "Enravota" are also uncommon now. "Nane" is a very colloquial name that I haven't heard used for an actual person but it's like in the English "Tom, Dick, and Harry" type anecdotes. It's also debatable if "Nane" is the vocative case for "Nanyo" or "Nancho" or something else entirely. It's usually a man in the anecdotes but it can easily be from "Nanka", which is feminine.

Most common nicknames just shorten a name to its first two syllables and end with „и“ (-ee), e.g: Hristina = Hrisi, Teodor = Tedi, Viktoria = Viki. For some names, you choose a more comfortable syllable. Antonio = Toni; Aleksandra = Sani, etc. Some names you end with "-sho", like Petar = Pesho, Mihail = Misho, Todor = Tosho, Aleksandar = Sasho, Aleksandra = Sasha, etc. Another common theme is using the first syllable of a name (or nickname) and then repeating it. So Maria becomes Mimi, Bilyana = Bibi, Dilyan = Dido, Dilyana or Diana = Didi, etc.

It's a very rich nickname economy here.

Official names.

Most documents here are NAME - PATRONYMIC - SURNAME, so I was always surprised as a child when TV shows had Americans writing their last name first. I think the only exceptions here are your ID card and passport because those are international documents, but most things you would sign with your name requires all three in their usual order.

It's interesting that Qazaks sometimes use patronymics as a last name because this was also an option during the regime here. Some teachers (and some of my relatives) used to use their patronymics very strictly. I think it has to do with honouring their fathers. I recently spoke to an old lady talking about how strictly she made everyone refer to her as her patronymic because she was proudly her father's daughter.

We usually address each other by first name only but if you want to be formal, you can avoid a name entirely and use "Miss/Mr/Mrs" (we don't have that neutral Ms that English speakers use to not disclose marital status) and use the plural form of the "you" pronoun as a form of respect.

There's definitely more to be said but I think we were thorough enough for an impromptu off-the-top-of-your-head type of explanation 😄