My latest little task has been to learn all the names of the kids at the orphanage. I started by putting all their pictures into a slideshow, one face per a slide, and then went through and inserted all the names I knew. Next I had Daniel, Lexi, Meisha, and Doug go through and fill in any missing blanks. The end result was about 70 faces with names to study! The only problem is that there are around 130 kids, and so this is a work in progress.
The interesting thing about Ukrainian names is that there aren't a lot of them.
I use this little joke as as example:
If you're talking to a boy at the orphanage and you don't know his name, try Dima. If its not Dima, try Vova. If it's not Vova, try Sasha. If its not Sasha, you're not talking to a Ukrainian anymore and you don't have to worry!
Here's another little story to illustrate my point:
We were headed home after church at Safe Haven one day, and 4 of the boys and 1 girl happened to be leaving at the same time as us. As we were waiting for the metro, it dawned at me that 3 out of the 4 boys were named Vova!
Doug told me his cell phone contact list is hilarious, because his entries are like this: Sergei with the van, Sergei from KCA, Sergei that lives in Odessa, Sergei that likes peanut butter. I made most of that up, but you get the point! I'm sure my cell phone contact list will be looking like that in no time!
On another note, can you imagine trying to play CSI here?
Cop: "The victim's name was Vova. Agent, run a search and let's see if we can figure out who he is."
Agent: "3 million Vova's found."
Cop: " Abandon search. Let's go home."
So on one hand its easy to learn names, because there's not that many you have to know, but on the other hand, its difficult because you have to know which kids fit into which "name groups." As in, the Sasha group, the Oksana group, or the Vova group, etc.
If you're interested in the most common names here, I give you the top 10 (though not in order) for both boys and girls. As you might have gathered, almost all names have a shorter "pet name" variation. I have given both forms, to better your knowledge.
Girls
1. Oksana (no short name that I'm aware of)
2. Natasha
3. Yekaterina (Katya)
4. Yulia
5. Irina (Ira)
6. Lubov (Luba)
7. Anna (Anya)
8. Olga (Olya)
9. Yelena (Lena)
10. Alexandra (Sasha)
Boys
1. Sergei (Seruja)
2. Dmitry (Dima)
3. Vladimir (Vladya, Vova)
4. Andrei
5. Nikolai (Kolya)
6. Alexander (Sasha)
7. Victor (Vitya)
8. Bogdan (Bodya)
9. Vitalik (Vitaly) or it could be the reverse. Not sure which is the full name and which is the short name.
10. Zhenya
Now that you know these names, you are on a first name basis with most of the population of Ukraine!!!
The interesting thing about Ukrainian names is that there aren't a lot of them.
I use this little joke as as example:
If you're talking to a boy at the orphanage and you don't know his name, try Dima. If its not Dima, try Vova. If it's not Vova, try Sasha. If its not Sasha, you're not talking to a Ukrainian anymore and you don't have to worry!
Here's another little story to illustrate my point:
We were headed home after church at Safe Haven one day, and 4 of the boys and 1 girl happened to be leaving at the same time as us. As we were waiting for the metro, it dawned at me that 3 out of the 4 boys were named Vova!
Doug told me his cell phone contact list is hilarious, because his entries are like this: Sergei with the van, Sergei from KCA, Sergei that lives in Odessa, Sergei that likes peanut butter. I made most of that up, but you get the point! I'm sure my cell phone contact list will be looking like that in no time!
On another note, can you imagine trying to play CSI here?
Cop: "The victim's name was Vova. Agent, run a search and let's see if we can figure out who he is."
Agent: "3 million Vova's found."
Cop: " Abandon search. Let's go home."
So on one hand its easy to learn names, because there's not that many you have to know, but on the other hand, its difficult because you have to know which kids fit into which "name groups." As in, the Sasha group, the Oksana group, or the Vova group, etc.
If you're interested in the most common names here, I give you the top 10 (though not in order) for both boys and girls. As you might have gathered, almost all names have a shorter "pet name" variation. I have given both forms, to better your knowledge.
Girls
1. Oksana (no short name that I'm aware of)
2. Natasha
3. Yekaterina (Katya)
4. Yulia
5. Irina (Ira)
6. Lubov (Luba)
7. Anna (Anya)
8. Olga (Olya)
9. Yelena (Lena)
10. Alexandra (Sasha)
Boys
1. Sergei (Seruja)
2. Dmitry (Dima)
3. Vladimir (Vladya, Vova)
4. Andrei
5. Nikolai (Kolya)
6. Alexander (Sasha)
7. Victor (Vitya)
8. Bogdan (Bodya)
9. Vitalik (Vitaly) or it could be the reverse. Not sure which is the full name and which is the short name.
10. Zhenya
Now that you know these names, you are on a first name basis with most of the population of Ukraine!!!
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