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Names and cultural considerations


Emery.

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Yes, in the US at least, Nikita could certainly be perceived as feminine or masculine (feminine, for people familiar with Elton John's song, the movie/tv series, La Femme Nikita, or just that it looks feminine to us with the "a" ending and the general sound of the name; masculine, for people who remember Kruschev).

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Oh, I know where I got confused... it's a strictly masculine name in Russia, but has been used as a feminine given name in the West (like in Elton John's song). Sorry for the mix-up.

AFAIK, Elton John's lyrics were originally meant to address a male Nikita. Sure, the music video is confusing.

My BFF and my nephew are both called Nikita, and I know no Slavic woman with that name. There also are some women named Nika, which could have misled some people, as it is a diminutive of Veronica.

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Oh, I know where I got confused... it's a strictly masculine name in Russia, but has been used as a feminine given name in the West (like in Elton John's song). Sorry for the mix-up.

AFAIK, Elton John's lyrics were originally meant to address a male Nikita. Sure, the music video is confusing.

My BFF and my nephew are both called Nikita, and I know no Slavic woman with that name. There also are some women named Nika, which could have misled some people, as it is a diminutive of Veronica.

Is Nika a diminutive form of Veronika? I've always thought it's a separate name.

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Is Nika a diminutive form of Veronika? I've always thought it's a separate name.

Maybe in the West it is. Here in 99,9999% cases it is a diminutive.

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I just don't know any person who named Nika even online, nor in the West, neither in the Eastern Europe or CIS. So, I have no idea.

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Nika is a deminutive from Nicole and its translations, as far as I know. It can also be from Veronica, Dominica, Monica etc

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But, hey, why was Nikola Tesla named Nikola? Is it a male name in Russian? Like, a version of Nicholas?

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J. van Deijck

Woah someone mentions Tesla. :o

I have just one question. Sonia, or Sonya, is a Russian version of Sophie, right? I'm asking because in Poland we use Sonia and Zofia.

Btw Nika and Nikki, do they relate? :o

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What do you expect a physicist to be thinking about if not Tesla? ;)

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What would Russian form of Nicholas (Nikolai) have to do with Tesla who was Serbian?

Sonia/Sonya is actually an Eastern Slavic diminutive for Sophia.

As for Nika and Nikki, I have no idea. I guess, some people can also be called Nika after the mythological Nike? Would make sense. Nikki sounds like a diminutive too, but definitely not Eastern Slavic.

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What would Russian form of Nicholas (Nikolai) have to do with Tesla who was Serbian?

I'm sorry *facepalm* :redface: God.

It must be that I'm exhausted,.

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So, at least here on the west coast of Canada, having an English or Anglo-saxon preferred name would not at all be "odd" or considered culturally insensitive.

Even if your name is almost the same as its English version, and is pronounced almost the same? Say, like Anna and Anne? If my name was Anna and I asked everybody to call me Emery? With a surname that is, say, Kuznetzova (Russian Smith with a female ending)? Wouldn't that be odd?

Honestly? If you were in Vancouver, you'd probably have no problem with it, and no one would just assume it was a gender thing. People do this thing all the time, mostly because their preferred name is actually their middle name or something, so they type in their middle name in the preferred name slot.

I highly doubt anyone would even notice, of the TAs I know, if you happened to be a student of ours with a given name of Anna, and a preferred name of something else. I mean, we're not perfect; we often call people by their given names when we're marking their tests simply because that's how we typically look them up in the system. But when face-to-face with the students, handing things back, we have a whole system to make sure we call them by their preferred name instead. We ask them always to write their given names with their preferred names in brackets, so yours might be "Anna (Emery) Lastname", and we might call you Anna when marking, but we'd always say Emery when handing it back or interacting with you. In my head, what would happen is "Anna" would be linked with your mark and student number, but "Emery" would be linked with your face. So at worst, I'd have to look up your marks because I wouldn't necessarily have them on recall if you asked me face-to-face and I forgot which preferred name went with which official name.

TAs are human, and sometimes we gossip a little about students in the lunch room. But usually, it's "that guy in your section, he's always late!" or "One of my students drew me a pikachu on his final exam when he couldn't answer a question. He didn't get any marks, but it made my day!". I can't think of a single time we ever gossiped about preferred names, and like I said, there's been students with a preferred name very similar or from the same culture as their given name.

Having said all that, your mileage will vary greatly depending on where in the world you are, and even sometimes which business / university you're interacting with. Vancouver is great for that, but I can't vouch for the UK, I've only ever visited and never lived there...

TL;DR: TAs appreciate humour, but you won't get any marks for it ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, at least here on the west coast of Canada, having an English or Anglo-saxon preferred name would not at all be "odd" or considered culturally insensitive.

Even if your name is almost the same as its English version, and is pronounced almost the same? Say, like Anna and Anne? If my name was Anna and I asked everybody to call me Emery? With a surname that is, say, Kuznetzova (Russian Smith with a female ending)? Wouldn't that be odd?

Honestly? If you were in Vancouver, you'd probably have no problem with it, and no one would just assume it was a gender thing. People do this thing all the time, mostly because their preferred name is actually their middle name or something, so they type in their middle name in the preferred name slot.

I highly doubt anyone would even notice, of the TAs I know, if you happened to be a student of ours with a given name of Anna, and a preferred name of something else. I mean, we're not perfect; we often call people by their given names when we're marking their tests simply because that's how we typically look them up in the system. But when face-to-face with the students, handing things back, we have a whole system to make sure we call them by their preferred name instead. We ask them always to write their given names with their preferred names in brackets, so yours might be "Anna (Emery) Lastname", and we might call you Anna when marking, but we'd always say Emery when handing it back or interacting with you. In my head, what would happen is "Anna" would be linked with your mark and student number, but "Emery" would be linked with your face. So at worst, I'd have to look up your marks because I wouldn't necessarily have them on recall if you asked me face-to-face and I forgot which preferred name went with which official name.

TAs are human, and sometimes we gossip a little about students in the lunch room. But usually, it's "that guy in your section, he's always late!" or "One of my students drew me a pikachu on his final exam when he couldn't answer a question. He didn't get any marks, but it made my day!". I can't think of a single time we ever gossiped about preferred names, and like I said, there's been students with a preferred name very similar or from the same culture as their given name.

Having said all that, your mileage will vary greatly depending on where in the world you are, and even sometimes which business / university you're interacting with. Vancouver is great for that, but I can't vouch for the UK, I've only ever visited and never lived there...

TL;DR: TAs appreciate humour, but you won't get any marks for it ;)

Thank you Heart <3

So it isn't that much of a deal *cries out of happiness that her fears weren't real*

I wanted to reply something since you posted it, but I had no idea what. But never mind :)

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Did u move here recently? If so welcome!

I'm not sure what to say for the better, it's a debate for sure. I felt a twinge of guilt when I changed my name from insanely foreign and complicated to a more English sounding one, and bc I look white I guess people now assume I'm not at all foreign (mwuaha, stealth!) And I don't get hassle or comments over my name (still get mis spelling tho, srsly)

And yeah ok maybe I should have stuck to my heritage or whatever, kept the family name and all that, but I needed my own name. My choice.

Honestly I know ppl who change their names to hilarious things, and the stuff kids are getting called these days (if I'd been a kid now i wouldn't have stood out so much perhaps) so y'know. It's your name hun, you have to live with it.

Hope that helps! If you want a 'native' to throw some soil on you and proclaim it so I'm more than willing. (I jest. Or do I...) (yes I'm horrendous I know)

Good luck with it all! :)

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And I forgot to say the most important thing: I've found a couple of gender neutral names that can serve as shortenings of my birth name :D They're not exactly from my home country (which has no gender neutral names at all) and don't exactly derive from my birth name, but who cares :P

(I'm gonna reply, Jack, gimme a couple of hours)

edit a couple of hours later:

:) Yup, September/October. Thank you for sharing experience.

I dunno, maybe if I changed my name completely, (which I'm considering more and more strongly, bc nobody pronounced it properly so far and everybody feels troubled about my last name) it wouldn't be that easy to tell me apart from English people at first sight. I catch accents quickly, and quite a few people were surprised that I'm a foreigner already. But first let's see if I won't move to in yet another country in couple of years...

Anyways, good forecast for a nickname, then :)

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I hope things are nice for you ^_^

I think it really totally depends on what part of the country you are in as to how people are about names/ anything in general. :)

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