Russian boys' names

[Goostacean]

I'm looking for some options that reflect Russian heritage in the family. Really struggling to find anything that doesn't seem ugly in English and has a nice nickname/shortening.

Alexander, Nikolai and Andrei are all out for family reasons. I like Constantin, Valentin, Stepan, Stefan... But they don't have nice shortenings, IMO. Really like Leo, but it's too popular for my liking. Front runner is probably Anton.

Any ideas or opinions please?

Would Lev (rather than Leo) work? This thread includes (Russian) DH's name and the name of every male family member of his and co-worker... MN first for me!

Haha, it's a pretty particular segment of names, I suppose! The issue with Lev, and many of the others, IMO is that English speakers (and I am a native one!) massacre the pronunciation 😂 I imagine one would be forever telling people it's "Lyev", not "Lev" as in "levitate", and you lose that lovely soft Russian "L" sound...

To give an idea, for a girl I like Nina, Anna, Marina, Natalia... names that are easily pronounced in both languages. Boys' names seem so much harder on this front! Thank you for all the suggestions, I'm mulling them all over

Alexei
Arkady
Kazimir
Luka
Milan
Lazar
Artur
Roman
Viktor
Ruslan
Yuri
Anatoly

Love Valentin, one of my favs. I like Valya and Val as dims.

Also Dimitri (Mitya)

I was going to suggest Ludovic but it's not Russian. Has anyone suggested Oleg?

Oleg is my favourite comedy Russian name

Of course you couldn't seriously use it in a mainly English speaking family living in the UK. English speakers would pronounce it wrong ("OH-leg" instead of "a-LYEG").

That's exactly the issue! Mispronunciation... and our DS has a pronounceable but unusual Spanish name, so... Imagine, like, Diego and Vladimir?! Or Santiago and Kazimir?

It's so hard! Sadly DH has vetoed Kazimir and Stanislav, sadly. I think maybe my new front runner is Mikhail (Mee-HEIL): easy enough to say, shortens to the adorable Misha, or can just be Michael/Mike when older?

I know a Constantin whose nickname is Costa, it's a lovely name.

Casimir is nice.

Caspian?
Lenin?

Dennis, Vsevolod, Oleg, Yuriy, Mark, Tikhon, Timofey, Phillip, Dmitry

How about Alexander? Nickname Sasha or Aleksey.

Can't be Alexander, we have an immediate family member Sasha.

I think Lenin would raise some eyebrows! Denis is a nice one, but I don't think it wins out over Constantin, Mikhail or Anton.

Lenin?! Hopefully that one was a joke

Sorry but I don't think Mikhail is "easy enough to say".

Goostacean

Can't be Alexander, we have an immediate family member Sasha.

Why is that a problem? It's usually considered an honour to have someone name their kid after you. I have 4 named after me!

No... too outing to explain really, but not Alexander this time sadly!

Leo would have to be Lev.

Leon, Luka, I know a Radoslav who gets called Rad.