Hey all,
I find myself liking Russian names recently (probably because I read [name_f]Anna[/name_f] Karenina…that book is amazing and so are their names! :)) So I was wondering what Russian names you know/recommend. Thanks!
A few of my favorites:
[name_f]Alina[/name_f]
[name_f]Alyona[/name_f]
[name_f]Anastasiya[/name_f]
[name_f]Antonina[/name_f]
[name_f]Darya[/name_f] ([name_f]Dasha[/name_f])
[name_f]Elizaveta[/name_f]
[name_f]Eva[/name_f]
[name_f]Ksenia[/name_f]
[name_f]Larisa[/name_f]
[name_f]Ludmila[/name_f]
[name_f]Nadezhda[/name_f]
[name_f]Natalia[/name_f]
[name_f]Olesya[/name_f]
[name_f]Polina[/name_f]
[name_f]Raisa[/name_f]
[name_f]Vera[/name_f]
[name_f]Viktoria[/name_f]
[name_f]Zhanna[/name_f]
[name_f]Zinaida[/name_f]
[name_m]Arkady[/name_m]
[name_m]Denis[/name_m]
[name_m]Lev[/name_m]/Lyev
[name_m]Maksim[/name_m]
[name_m]Mikhail[/name_m]
[name_m]Matvei[/name_m]
Ruslan
[name_m]Semyon[/name_m]
[name_m]Vyacheslav[/name_m]
I don’t like many Russian names, probably because I’m Russian myself and most of them sound very plain and boring to me. However, I do have a few favorites.
[name_f]Mila[/name_f]
[name_f]Polina[/name_f]
[name_f]Alina[/name_f]
[name_f]Eva[/name_f] (Russian pronunciation is YE-vah)
[name_f]Veronika[/name_f] (Ve-ro-NEE-ka)
[name_f]Sonia[/name_f] (in fact it’s a nickname used in [name_f]Russia[/name_f] for [name_f]Sofya[/name_f]/[name_f]Sofia[/name_f])
[name_f]Tatiana[/name_f]
[name_m]Daniil[/name_m] (Dah-nee-EEL)
[name_u]Misha[/name_u] (nickname for [name_m]Mikhail[/name_m])
[name_m]Slava[/name_m] (SLAH-vah, “fame”, used as a nickname for various longer forms)
Arkady
[name_m]Vasiliy[/name_m] 
I love it.
Also, I came across a list of old Slavic names not long ago. Most of them are rarely used today, but I’ve found some quite interesting. So maybe it helps too.
Zabava (Zah-BAH-vah, “fun”)
Zlata (ZLAH-tah, “golden”, still used sometimes)
Zima ([name_f]Zee[/name_f]-MAH, “winter”)
Lada (LAH-dah)
Lubava
[name_f]Rada[/name_f] (RAH-dah, “joy”)
[name_m]Bogdan[/name_m] (“God-given”)
[name_m]Goran[/name_m]
Gromoboy (Groh-moh-BOY, means “the one who fights thunder”)
[name_m]Danko[/name_m] (DAHN-ko)
I have been in love with [name_m]Mikhail[/name_m] with the nickname [name_u]Misha[/name_u] since high school. He was a character in a book series I read (The Russians by [name_f]Judith[/name_f] [name_f]Pella[/name_f]) and I have wanted to use it on a son ever since. (Too bad hubby says “We’re not Russian, and [name_u]Misha[/name_u] is too feminine”)
Thanks for the replies! A lot of great-sounding names here; I especially like [name_f]Zinaida[/name_f], [name_f]Polina[/name_f], and [name_m]Daniil[/name_m].
Oh my gosh, I love that series!! 
I took Russian in university and studied the history as well, so there are a lot of Russian names that I like:
[name_f]Anastasia[/name_f] (ah-na-stah-[name_u]SI[/name_u]-ya)
[name_f]Anna[/name_f] (nn [name_f]Anya[/name_f])
[name_f]Darya[/name_f]
[name_f]Ekaterina[/name_f] (nn [name_f]Katya[/name_f])
[name_f]Elena[/name_f]
[name_f]Galina[/name_f]
[name_f]Irina[/name_f] (Ee-[name_f]REE[/name_f]-na, not EYE-ree-na)
[name_f]Ksenia[/name_f]
[name_f]Milena[/name_f] (I’ve never met a Russian woman by this name, but Behind the Name lists it as Russian as well as Czech, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, etc.)
[name_f]Nadezhda[/name_f] (means hope; I’d use it but no one would pronounce it correctly. 
)
[name_f]Natalya[/name_f]
[name_f]Varvara[/name_f] (so much prettier than [name_f]Barbara[/name_f], [name_f]IMO[/name_f])
[name_f]Vera[/name_f]
[name_f]Yevgenia[/name_f] (sometimes written [name_f]Evgenia[/name_f])
[name_f]Yulia[/name_f]
[name_f]Zhanna[/name_f]
[name_f]Zoya[/name_f]
[name_m]Alexei[/name_m]
[name_m]Grigorii[/name_m]
[name_m]Ilya[/name_m]
[name_m]Kirill[/name_m]
[name_u]Konstantin[/name_u]
[name_m]Leonid[/name_m]
[name_m]Maksim[/name_m]
[name_u]Nikita[/name_u] (Why oh why did this have to become associated with hot female spies?)
[name_m]Nikolai[/name_m] (nn [name_m]Kolya[/name_m]; by the way, if you have a chance, check out the 90s movie [name_m]Kolya[/name_m]. It’s behind adorable.)
[name_m]Savva[/name_m]
Ooh, [name_m]Alexei[/name_m]! I knew about that one, but I forgot about it. Like a much more sophisticated [name_m]Alexander[/name_m].
Also, on [name_f]Natalya[/name_f]: I’ve looked up the name [name_f]Talia[/name_f], since I like the sound of that, and I was surprised to find it was Hebrew, not a diminutive of [name_f]Natalya[/name_f]/[name_f]Natalia[/name_f]. Anybody know if it’s used in Russian as a nn of [name_f]Natalya[/name_f], or if [name_f]Natalya[/name_f] has its own diminutive?
[name_f]Natalya[/name_f]'s most common diminutive is [name_f]Natasha[/name_f], although [name_u]Nata[/name_u] and Natashka are also used. [name_f]Talya[/name_f] or [name_f]Talia[/name_f] would definitely work, but I don’t think either are commonly used in [name_f]Russia[/name_f].
Interesting…thanks!
That’s right, I’ve never meet [name_f]Natalya[/name_f] with the nn [name_f]Talya[/name_f]/[name_f]Talia[/name_f] in [name_f]Russia[/name_f]. To be honest, it sounds a lot like Russian word for waistline, maybe that’s why…
Besides the ones that @maggiefromcanada listed, people also often use [name_f]Tasha[/name_f] (comes from [name_f]Natasha[/name_f]).
I really love Russian names too. I adore [name_f]Irina[/name_f] and [name_f]Nadia[/name_f].
[name_f]Nina[/name_f] was the almost-name of my sister, my parents both liked it. I was the only one who disliked it at the time, and she ended up being a [name_u]Lisa[/name_u]. I feel sooo guilty now, ugh, I had a hurrendous taste when I was little.
You know what, I think I should go to update my list with some Russian names later.
Others:
[name_f]Larisa[/name_f]
[name_f]Tatiana[/name_f]
[name_f]Yana[/name_f]
[name_f]Yelena[/name_f]
On the boys’ side, I do like [name_m]Ilias[/name_m].
My favourites are:
Girls
[name_f]Veronika[/name_f]
Valeriya/[name_f]Valeria[/name_f]
[name_f]Tatiana[/name_f]
[name_f]Irina[/name_f]
[name_f]Katia[/name_f] and [name_f]Yekaterina[/name_f]
[name_f]Galina[/name_f]
[name_f]Anjelika[/name_f]
Boys
[name_m]Dmitri[/name_m]
[name_m]Ilya[/name_m]
[name_m]Arkadi[/name_m]
[name_m]Lev[/name_m]
[name_m]Alexei[/name_m]
[name_m]Aleksandr[/name_m]
Oh my gosh, I’ve always liked Russian/other Slavic names but I recently read [name_f]Anna[/name_f] Karenina too, and watched The Last Station, that movie about the last few months of Tolstoy’s life, and it’s definitely made me more interested in them than before. I have a set of those Russian dolls somewhere and I’m tempted to dig them out just so I can name them… patronymic and surname too, of course
My favourites (mostly already listed):
Girls: [name_f]Ekaterina[/name_f] (nn [name_f]Katia[/name_f]), [name_f]Natalya[/name_f], [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f], [name_f]Yelena[/name_f], [name_f]Tatiana[/name_f], [name_f]Alina[/name_f] (I have a good friend named this, though she’s not Russian)
Boys: [name_u]Konstantin[/name_u] (nn [name_u]Kostya[/name_u]), [name_m]Valentin[/name_m] (nn [name_f]Valya[/name_f]), [name_m]Dmitri[/name_m], [name_m]Fyodor[/name_m], [name_m]Sergei[/name_m]
I also love Romanov even though it’s not used as a given name in [name_f]Russia[/name_f].
[name_m]How[/name_m] is [name_f]Nadezhda[/name_f] pronounced? My guess was that it’s basically phonetic, nah-dezh-dah, with the “zh” like the [name_m]French[/name_m] J in the [name_m]French[/name_m] words “juste”, “jouer”, etc. Not sure how to make that sound in English or if it even exists 
My husband is [name_m]Maksim[/name_m] & sadly, does not want to have a junior one day 
His family has a lot of interesting names. Ilusha, Grischa, [name_u]Mischa[/name_u], Danik, Fival are all nice for boys. I don’t like many of the girl names though. [name_f]Veronika[/name_f] is nice, but I would use [name_f]Veronica[/name_f]. [name_f]Valentina[/name_f], though not at all fashionable there, works well here. [name_f]Vera[/name_f] & [name_f]Nina[/name_f] are sweet.
I like [name_f]Daria[/name_f] which I think is the English version of [name_f]Darya[/name_f].