Daniel Kaiser (Grinnell College, USA), Name Frequencies in Early Eighteenth-Century Russian Towns
Names, semioticians tell us, are significant social signs, indicators of social states or processes. Sometimes, the changes can be abrupt, and result in names without any parallel in earlier name banks. On the heels of 1917, for example, parents in a revolutionary era used names to celebrate the Revolution and its heroes. At other times the process moves more slowly, reflecting long-term cultural change. An example of this more measured pace comes from early Rus' which, despite Christianization, long resisted the full absorption of the Christian naming system. For example, about a third of all names registered in the Novgorod birchbark charters do not derive from the Christian name universe, and numerous documents from Muscovy confirm that even in the sixteenth century Christian names were far from universal. Instead, Muscovites might be named by birth order (Pervyi, Tret'iak, etc.), physical (Bol'shoi, Men'shoi, Sedoi, Krivoi, Gorbun, Dynia) or behavioural characteristics (Miasoed, Gordei, Neustroi, Domashnei), or parental attitudes toward the child (Nezhdan). Other children were likened to objects, living and handmade (Voronets, Bulat, Almaz); some names hint at personal misery: Bezson, Nekras, Nekhoroshka, Neliubov'.
But during the seventeenth century these names gradually disappear, yielding their places to Christian names celebrated in the annual church liturgical cycle. Censuses conducted by the Petrine government prior to the institution of the first reviziia confirm the victory of Christian names. Out of more than 38,000 names counted from ten central Russian cities, no more than a handful of non-Chrisdan names may be found. The names most usual in these towns were the same names popular among Christians earlier in Muscovy: Ivan was the dominant name by far, accounting for about 7.8% of the entire population and more than 16% of males. Vasilii, Fedor, and Petr followed close behind. Women's names showed more variability: Avdot'ia was slightly more usual than Anna, though each accounted for just over four percent of all names. Praskov'ia, Mar'ia, and Irina followed.
But despite the dominance of Christian names in these towns, the Christia naming system as a whole was evidently not fully victorious. The observe frequencies of names in these ten towns do not correspond very closely to the actual appearances of those names in the church calendar. Although Ivan (or Ioann) is the single most-often recalled name in the calendar, matching rather well the popularity of that name in the ten central Russian towns, other popular names match the church festivals more poorly. For example, among men Vasilii was not the second-most usual name in the calendar as it was among men in the ten focus towns;both Fedor and Petr were both recalled in the calendar much more often than Vasilii, yet Vasilii was the more usual name in early eighteenth-century Russia. Similarly, Avdot'ia (Evdokiia) was much less usual in the church liturgy than Anna, yet both names were almost equally popular among eighteenth-century Russian townswomen. The lack of correspondence indicates that in early modern Russia more than the church calendar helped determine a child's name.
Comparison with name frequencies from late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia suggests that, if in Muscovy different social layers depended upon the same names, by the eighteenth century social estates had begun to mark themselves by their names. Fekla, Akulina, and Pelageia had definitely become peasant names, while gentry women were more likely to wear names made popular by elites in the eighteenth century (Elizaveta, Ekaterina). Urban estates gradually sorted out a middle ground of names.
Of course, much further substantiation is required to demonstrate the thesis conclusively. Consultation of nominal records for four towns for the seventeenth century and eighteenth century, part of a new project devoted to a history of urban society in this period, should make it possible to determine whether in fact social order used names to mark off their status.