Eastern European names that translate well into English

[NatMoz]

What I mean by this is names like Olga, Ruslana, Stefka etc sound foreign to the unsuspecting English person

Names like John, Peter, Paul are not out of the ordinary for English people but also are common in Eastern Europe (Ivan, Petro, Pavlo).

I'm trying to think of names for both genders that would fit into this bracket and hopefully someone will be able to fling a few suggestions!

Thanks

Elena
Kate
Klaudia
Eva
Natasha
Sofia
Nina
Sasha

Max
Ivan
Alex
Lukas
Adam
Kasper

Olga works well on English in my experience.

Mila, Roman, Eva , Daniel , Raya

Emilia
Eva
Tomas

Tatiana/Tatjana
Anastasia
Oksana
Dasha
Aleksandra

Dimitri
Konstantin
Valentin
Misha (dim)
Pasha (dim)
Aleksandr
Kaspar

Are you EE or is your partner?

The EE I know have given their children names like Helena, Wiola and Oliwia.

Just pick a name you like. Ask on here for how they would say it.

I’d go for a name that has a good chance of being pronounced correctly in both places. Other than that, whatever you like the sound of.

Ana/Anna

Helena, Izabela, Greta, Karina, Joanna, Ela.

I know a Zosia and an Aniela who go by those names in English too, and a lady who is Kasia in Polish but Katya in English.

Karolina
Weronika
Justyna

Also Irene
Marianna

Just remembered the Boglarka thread. So I’d add ‘name that sounds nice in both languages’ to ‘name that’s easy to pronounce in both languages’. Lots of nice suggestions on this thread already.

Just to add to this.

The name given above - Dasha - is generally used as the diminutive for Daria.

Also:-

Alina
Alyona
Antonina (quite an old fashioned name though)
Irina
Kseniya
Marina
Nadezhda
Nina
Olesya
Svetlana

Alexei
Arkady
Vadim
Vlad
Gennady
Daniil
Dmitri
Evgeny
Ilia
Nikita (also Nikolai - a different name)
Oleg
Pavel (which is different from Pyotr - Peter)
Sergei
Stepan
Yuri

Pavel is Paul, Pyotr is Peter

Nikita and Nikolai have a similar meaning, but Nikita can be a girl's name in India.

There are lots of Polish children at my kids' school and I don't think people generally have trouble pronouncing their names (unless we are doing it wrong). Obviously the kids at school don't think of these as foreign names - they are people they met aged 3 and so are some of the first names they have known. Eg even though John is a common name in England, I know far more Dawids under 11. To my children I am pretty sure Dawid is a more common name than John.

I think most EE and Russian names are easy to pronounce in English- it's the spelling which might confuse people. I have no idea why Claus would be spelled Kavs.

Kasper
Maja
Anna
Julia
Ola
Olivia
Amelia
Anastasia
Erik
David

In DDs year there seem to be at least two in every class.

Krzysztof
Franciszek
Chwalibóg
Kryzysowa
Jerzey
Andzrej
Błażej

Yeah, really easy.

All those names are easy for me to pronounce if I hear them spoken, although some English people would struggle to say them out loud if they were reading them for the first time.

I would get Jerzy and Andzrej right but not the others. The Krzysztof I know goes by Kris.

Andzrej even

I considered katya and anya for DD.
Others I love
Tatiana
Anastasia
Agneska (sp)
Natalia
Ewelina

I've also remembered Dorota (Dorothy) and Zsuzsanna.

I've taught a huge number of children from Eastern European backgrounds and generally, other children have had no issue with using their names. Off the top of my head l, common ones have been:

Patrycja (Patti)
Oliwia
Ewelina
Helena
Daria
Paulina
Agnes

Jakub/Kuba
Dawid
Mateusz (Matti)
Pawel
Kacper
Szymon
Filip
Mikolaj (Mickey)

Kristina

Anastasia doesn’t work, because it is pronounced differently in Russian and English.

Mila
Iva
Katya
Ana
Ivan
Goran
Sasha