Thoughts on these girls’ names?

[AlackAlasAlackaday]

We’ve got twins (b and g) turning up later this year and are starting to kick around name ideas. What do people think of the following for a girl?

Alexandra (would be Sasha day to day)
Iris
Julia
Nina
Raya
Zoya

(If they sound like an odd selection it’s because we’re a Russian Jewish family living in London, so the name has to work in a couple of cultures.)

Surname is a typical Eastern European surname, M———a.

And other suggestions welcome!

I’m an Alexandra/Sasha! Also in London. It’s a bit of a pain tbh; it’s a weird diminutive for Brits to grasp, IME, and at uni sometimes people thought I was two different people.

Nina is my favourite girls name- so classic, elegant, easy but not boring. Adore it. I’d choose that!

Love Alexandra/Sasha. That is my favourite, but also like Nina .

Alexandra and Iris.

Also like. Tamara, Leonie, Eudoxia (Evdokia), Rivka, Noa, Micah, Michaela, Anya,

I like Alexandra and Zoya.

I love Zoya.

Raya is nice too.

Thanks all. Bit concerning that most people like Alex/Sasha except the person with that name! @Goostacean do people here ever shorten your name to Alex/Ali or whatever else? Or you introduce yourself as Sasha and it’s like “Huh, I was expecting Alexandra?”

Haha, I mean in fairness I like the flexibility and I could always choose not to use Sasha, I suppose. For example at uni or when starting work, I could have changed to Alex/Ali.

Sometimes people shorten it to Alex, which I hate as it’s always overly familiar. For short, professional interactions I just use Alexandra to save explaining (like, I dunno, dealing with estate agents/energy suppliers/quotes for things etc)- and I always think worse of the people who call me Alex out of nowhere, two mins into the conversation. I said Alexandra, don’t shorten it, ta.

At work it’s typically the other way around, people happily accept Sasha and then when they ask for my email address to forward a document, it’s all “oh, Alexandra? Okay?”.

I’m in London, so it’s pretty metropolitan, and even here it’s a surprise to most people. I did go through a phase of being fed up with explaining my life history to everyone, especially as I sound 100% Home Counties.

Tbh though Alexandra is a really lovely name, and Sasha has the advantage (in my job!) of being unisex in a lot of people’s minds, so I wouldn’t say don’t use it- at all! But it is trickier in the U.K. than something like Nina, which is very straightforward.

That’s the long answer!

Alexandra or Julia

I love all these names! Alexandra, Iris and Julia gorgeous, don't stand out as particularly Russian or Jewish and would fit in with British names easily. Raya and Zoya, also amazing, and do stand out more as a bit different. I'm partial to Nina (I have one) which I think straddles both worlds stands out as a bit Russian/European (I know a couple of Jewish Ninas as well), but it also fits in.

If Alexandra is going to be Sasha day to day why not call her Sasha now?

I’ve never heard of Sasha being a nickname for Alexandra

I think you need to see what goes best with the boys name too, as if you had two three syllable names it might be a bit much. But a two and a three would work

I’ve never heard of Sasha being a nickname for Alexandra

See!

In Russia Sasha isn’t a standalone name. Well, maybe it is now- but when I was being named and when my mum grew up it wasn’t. You wouldn’t put it on the BC, it’s a nickname.

It is like Sandy in Scotland, everyone knows that a Sandy will be Alexander.
Or Peggy and Margaret .

If Alexandra is going to be Sasha day to day why not call her Sasha now?

@AngelDelightUk I'll be perfectly honest - I don't even particularly like Sasha as a NN. I'm not the Russian parent and if we go with this name I expect I'll use something like Ally day to day, DH will use Sasha, and the poor thing will just have to cope. But generally Russian naming conventions are really much more rigid that Western ones. There are set diminutives for every name, so there isn't really a "Well her name's Maria so we'll call her Moo for short" or whatever. Alexander/ra will be called Sasha. And likewise, as goos says, it'd be seen as a bit odd to register a child as Sasha. (A bit like registering a child as "Bobby" or similar - people must do it I'm sure but it's not the norm.) Having said that Raya is a nickname - for Raisa - and here we are considering it as a full name, so go figure.

@Goostacean thank you for replying so thoroughly, it's interesting!

Thanks all. There's a Nina in the family, which sways me slightly, but I'm still not sure.

I know a Nuna and Sasha set of sisters (Alexandra is the full name of the Sasha) and I love them both as names and they are fab girls. I would go for them!

Diminutives sometimes take off. Sasha is a name in its own right in the U.K., so is Natasha which is the dim of Natalia and Tanya which is dim of Tatiana.