Russian Girl Names: 138 Names With Meanings and Cyrillic

Russian girl names include classics such as Anastasia, Yekaterina, Olga and Tatyana, Slavic word names such as Vera (“faith”) and Nadezhda (“hope”), and familiar short forms such as Masha, Sasha and Natasha; this list gives 138 names with the Cyrillic spelling and the meaning for each.

Popular Russian girl names such as Sofiya, Polina, Alisa, Darya and Kira sit beside older saints’ names and Slavic word names. Most Russian names came from Greek, Latin or Hebrew through the Orthodox Church, and every full name has affectionate short forms used at home.

We checked every name against its own Behind the Name entry. You will find classics, names that work in English, diminutives, Slavic names, saints’ names and unique picks, plus a plain guide to patronymics, surnames and English spellings.

Russian Girl Names at a Glance

Every name on this page has its own Behind the Name entry with Russian among its usages and a feminine gender. We looked up all of them in October 2026. The Cyrillic spelling in each table is the Russian spelling that entry gives, and the meaning is the entry’s own wording, shortened. When an entry only says “Russian form of X”, we looked up X too and added its meaning.

Russian names are a mix of three sources. Some are Slavic words, such as Vera and Nadezhda. Many are Greek, Latin or Hebrew names that came in with Christianity, such as Irina (from Irene, “peace”) and Sofiya (from Sophia, “wisdom”). A few are modern literary creations. On top of that, nearly every full name has a set of diminutives that families use every day.

If you are building a wider list, our baby girl names guide covers names from many languages, and our same-day Korean girl names list follows the same checked approach.

Classic Russian Girl Names and Meanings

These are the long-standing full names you meet across Russian literature and family trees. Most began as Greek or Latin saints’ names. The table gives the main Russian entry; we cover common Western spellings of the same names further down.

A few notes from the entries themselves. Yekaterina is the name the German princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst took in 1744; she ruled as the empress known in English as Catherine the Great. Saint Olga, who gives Olga its Christian history, was a 10th-century ruler of Kievan Rus. Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, became the first woman to visit space in 1963. Alla is one of the few classics whose meaning is unknown.

Classic does not have to mean heavy. Many of these names have soft everyday forms (Katya, Lena, Olya, Tanya), so a formal name on the birth certificate can still sound gentle at home.

Popular Russian Girl Names Families Use in the U.S.

Some Russian girl names already feel at home in English. These entries list Russian among several usages, and most are spelled the way English speakers expect.

We do not rank these names, because we did not read an official Russian or U.S. ranking for them. The only current U.S. figures we use are the Social Security Administration’s top 10 girls’ names for babies born in 2025: Olivia, Charlotte, Emma, Amelia, Sophia, Mia, Isabella, Evelyn, Sofia and Eliana. Sofia is in that list, and it is also a Russian name: София in Cyrillic.

Two of these names have a story in English. Behind the Name notes that Tanya began to be used in the English-speaking world in the 1930s, and that Natasha has been used there only since the 20th century. Anna is the heroine of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina (1877).

Want something you can shorten? Pair this list with our nicknames for girls guide.

Russian Diminutives and Nicknames for Girls

This is the part of Russian naming that surprises most English speakers. A Russian full name is often used only on paper and in polite settings; with family and friends, people use a diminutive. Middlebury College’s guide to Russian names puts it simply: Russians also use a shortened form of the first name, a diminutive, to show a greater level of familiarity.

Many diminutives now have their own Behind the Name entries, and some are used as given names on their own, in Russia and abroad. Here is what each entry says the name is short for.

• One name, many short forms: Mariya alone gives Masha and Marusya. Aleksandra gives Sasha and Shura.
• Endings you will hear: many pet forms end in -sha, -ya, -ochka or -ushka: Natasha, Katya, Verochka, Annushka. These are affectionate, so they can sound very cozy to a Russian speaker.
• Unisex short forms: Sasha, Shura, Zhenya and Valya are listed for both girls and boys, because the full names they come from have masculine and feminine versions.
• Name tags in English: Sasha, Natasha, Tanya, Sonya and Anya are all listed with English as well as Russian usage, so they travel easily.

If you love one of these, a common approach is to choose the full name for the birth certificate and use the diminutive at home, which leaves your daughter room to choose later.

Russian Girl Names From Slavic Roots

These names are built from Slavic words rather than borrowed through Greek or Latin. Several share a few building blocks: milŭ (“gracious, dear”), slava (“glory”) and mirŭ (“peace, world”).

Vera, Nadezhda and Lyubov are a set: “faith”, “hope” and “love” in Russian (Lyubov through the Slavic element for love). Svetlana is Russian too, from svet, “light, world”; if you like that theme, our names that mean light list collects names from other languages.

The -slava names (Yaroslava, Miroslava, Vladislava, Stanislava, Bronislava) are feminine forms of men’s names, and most are shared with Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian or Bulgarian. Vlada is listed for both genders: its entry says it is typically masculine in Serbia and feminine elsewhere.

Saint and Orthodox-Tradition Russian Girl Names

Many traditional Russian names reached Russia through the Eastern Orthodox Church. The notes below say only what each entry says about a saint or the Church; they are not a full calendar of name days.

Names marked rare or archaic carry that label on Behind the Name. Inna and Rimma have an unusual history: both entries describe early male saints, said to be disciples of Saint Andrew, and Rimma’s entry adds that it is now used mainly as a feminine name in Russia.

Several of these names come from the same Greek and Latin roots as names in our biblical girl names guide, and older forms such as Marfa and Praskovya fit beside our old-fashioned girl names.

Unique Russian Girl Names

These names are less familiar in English-speaking countries. That is our impression, not a statistic: we did not read birth data that would let us call any name rare, unless the entry itself labels it rare.

Two of these come from 20th-century books. Aelita is the Martian princess in Aleksey Tolstoy’s 1923 novel, and Assol is the heroine of Alexander Grin’s Scarlet Sails, adapted into a 1961 Soviet film.

For more less-common ideas from many cultures, see our unique girl names list. Liliya and Anfisa (from the Greek word for flower) also pair well with our flower names.

How Russian Names Work: First Name, Patronymic and Surname

If you are naming a child with Russian family roots, the structure matters as much as the name. Here is what the sources we read say.

• Three parts: Middlebury College’s Russian guide says Russians generally have three names: the given name (imya), the patronymic (otchestvo) and the family name.
• The patronymic: Cornell University’s Russian grammar pages explain that the middle name is called the patronymic because it is derived from the father’s first name.
• Patronymic endings: Middlebury’s guide adds that a man’s patronymic ends in -ovich or -evich and a woman’s ends in -ovna or -evna.
• Polite address: Cornell’s page says the polite form is first name plus patronymic, roughly like Mr. or Ms., and that the full name with the surname is used mainly in writing. It adds that a patronymic is normally not used for small children and teenagers.
• Surnames by gender: a 2016 guide from Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest, published under the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, for registering students notes that Russian men’s and women’s last names typically have different endings, with examples such as Medvedeva and Tereshkova, and that some families give the masculine ending to their daughters.
• On U.S. forms: the same guide says the patronymic usually goes in the middle-name field unless the parents say otherwise, and that some Russian first names are hyphenated, joining two given names.

For a family in the U.S., that gives you choices. Some parents use a Russian given name with an English middle name; others use the father’s name to build a patronymic-style middle name. Our middle names guide has ideas for both.

How to Choose a Russian Girl Name: Spelling and Pronunciation

Russian is written in Cyrillic, so every name has to be transliterated into the Latin alphabet, and there is more than one system. The Library of Congress romanization table, for example, writes Е as e and Ж as zh, so Елена comes out as Elena. Behind the Name uses Yelena as the main entry and lists Elena as an alternate transcription. Both are correct; they just follow different rules.

• Pick one spelling and keep it: use the same transliteration on the birth certificate, passport and school forms. U.S. paperwork does not always carry accents or special characters, and it never carries Cyrillic, so the Latin spelling you choose is the one that will follow your daughter.
• Y or no Y: Yelena, Yekaterina and Yevgeniya start with a Y sound in Russian. Spelling it with a Y helps English speakers say it closer to the Russian; Elena and Ekaterina look more familiar on paper.
• Listen for the stress: stress is not shown in normal Russian spelling. From the entries’ pronunciation guides: Tatyana is stressed on the second syllable (ta-TYA-na), Svetlana on the second (svet-LA-na), Polina on the second (po-LEE-na) and Alyona on the second, where the Cyrillic ё sounds like “yo” (a-LYO-na).
• Say it with your surname: try the full name out loud with your last name, and check the initials.
• Ask family: if you have Russian-speaking relatives, ask them which diminutive they would use. The pet name may end up being the name your daughter hears most.

Short, easy crossovers such as Nina, Vera, Mila, Lana and Kira are spelled the same way in most systems, which makes them simple choices if you want a name that needs no explaining. For more names that start the same way, browse our girl names that start with A list, which suits Anastasia, Alisa, Alina and Arina.

A Calmer First Year Starts With Sleep

Once the name is settled, sleep tends to be the next big question. Betteroo’s free sleep quiz gives you a plan built around your baby’s age and routine, so the first months feel a little more rested.

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The Bottom Line

Russian girl names give you a lot to choose from: Greek and Latin saints’ names such as Anastasia, Yekaterina and Kseniya; Slavic word names such as Vera, Nadezhda and Lyubov; modern literary names such as Aelita; and a whole layer of warm diminutives. Pick the full name you love, decide on one English spelling, and think about which pet form your family will use.

Every meaning on this page is the one its Behind the Name entry gives, so you can trust the history you pass on. When an entry says a meaning is unknown, as with Alla, Inna or Faina, we say so too.

Frequently Asked Questions

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