Russian name

[tallc00lone.livejournal.com]

For history we're doing a project where we have to act as immigrants to America. I was assigned Russia, which is basically the hardest langueage to learn any words to *pulls hair out*

Well, that was off subject.
But anyways, my immigrant is going to be a poor, struggling ballerina named Anastasiya* Roccanova. Do you think this name fits both her character, and ethnicity?

**Anastasiya is pronounced Ahn-uh-staw-see-uh

Comments

[soulsurvivarida.livejournal.com]

I think it fits her character because if I remember correctly wasn't the girl Anastaia from disney movies a poor russian orphan. I think she gets wealthy or they find out she was really wealthy in the end, but she was poor in the beginning. So I think the name fits.

[soulsurvivarida.livejournal.com]

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ok, first of all that surname sounds more Italian than Russian. Second, a Russian ballerina called Anastasiya? Cliche, cliche, cliche. Pick a different profession, your teacher will thank you for taking the time to do so.

Third, unless your accent is very weird your phonetic rendering is way off. Ann-na-STAH-zhah. The first two syllables are Anna but with a gap, there's no aw sound at all, and 'iya' is no different to 'ia', it's just another way of transliterating the Cyrillic. Unless you're also saying Russ-ee-ya for the country, why pronounce the name that way?

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001472.html has some genuine Russian names with a pronunciation guide. How about picking one first name and one last name from those? And make the poor girl a cook or something.

[tallc00lone.livejournal.com]

http://masterrussian.com/aa031001a.shtml

See? That's where I found Anastasiya.

And what's wrong with being a ballerina? In case you're not familiar with ballet, but a TON of famous dancers are Russian.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

ahnahstahSEEya is not Ahn-uh-staw-see-uh. See the difference? And the emphasis on SEE is more Greek than Russian. But you're right, why should I take the word of the Anastasia I worked with over a website that doesn't appear to originate in the former Soviet Union? She was born in Pavlodar and spent 26 years of her life there so I expect she doesn't know how to pronounce her own name.

Russian ballerinas tended to be gainfully employed in Russia, and if they moved to the US were quite likely to travel as sponsored employees and go straight into a company. It's a honking great cliche precisely because 'a ton of famous dancers are Russian' (yes, and many more pretended to be), just as it is to make all Italian immigrants work in pizza parlours and all Pakistani immigrants become shopkeepers. Use some imagination, your teacher will appreciate the effort.

[sageharper.livejournal.com]

Slavophile and onomast here, so yes totally agree with bopeepsheep.
Anastasia is common/authentic as a Russian name owing to the princess and such (almost dragging it into cliche), though your spelling and pronounciation are off.
Also she'd probably be called Anya for short.

As for the surname, it sounds more like a patronymic; which for girls is their father's name + ova or evna (whichever flows better) [it literally means 'daughter of ...']. This would be used almost as we would a middle name.

So I'd read Roccanova as a patronymic; 'daughter of Rocco'?
Uh close but no cigar, as Rocco is an Italian name. Which hmm maybe could work if you're creative and willing to complicate things, but I'd suggest using a more traditional Russian patronymic (e.g Alexandrova) and then a seperate surname.

Good luck with the project, it sounds interesting :)

[mrsduryee.livejournal.com]

I have Greek heritage, and more than a few of my cousins and their relatives are Anastasia, prounounced Ah-na-stah-SEE-uh. So it sounds Greek to me.

I like the ballerina idea, but I was thinking that she might be more likely to succeed in Russia than here because if she's good enough, the government will pay for her to dance in Russian. That's what they always say about Russian Olympians.

Desvidania!
(Goodbye in Russian...spelled phonetically of course)

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Anastasia is one of the Russian names that they took from Greek, so either way is correct.

DV (Russian linguist)

[lavandersparkle.livejournal.com]

Hey, my mom was in Russian class and I asked her about these names she said that Anastasiya is very Russian but Roccanova isn't really.