Complete list of Yugoslav names and their meanings. Serbian male names and meanings - choosing the best name for a boy

This is already the second article about the names of the South Slavs (and it will not be the last one, materials about the names of the inhabitants of the Republic of Slovenia are in the process of preparation).The first, posted on our website on 09/06/2016,was called “Names in the Slavic countries. Croatia".

So Serbia. The population of the country is approaching 7.5 million people (Kosovo is not included in this figure). National composition motley countries - Serbs 83% (6 million people), Hungarians 4% (250 thousand people), Bosnians 2% (150 thousand people), Croats 1%, in total almost 30 ethnic groups (Romanians, Rusyns , Bulgarians, Bunevtsy, Albanians, Gypsies, etc.). More than 90% of the population consider themselves Christians, of which 85% are Orthodox (Serbs), Catholics - 6% (Hungarians, Croats), Protestants - 1% (Slovaks). Muslims are about 3% (these are mainly Bosnians).

The official language is Serbian. This is the only language in Europe with active "digraphy", that is, with the simultaneous use of two alphabets (!) - Cyrillic and Latin. This phenomenon is interesting, so let's pay a little attention to it.

The languages ​​spoken by Serbs and Croats are not much different. And until recently in Yugoslavia - country built on a federal basis as a single literary language for the peoples living in it (Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosnians), the “Serbo-Croatian language” was used. The written language for this language was created 200 years ago, and in two versions at once: “vukovitsa” (based on the Cyrillic alphabet) and “gaevitsa” (based on the Latin alphabet).

Distribution area of ​​the Serbo-Croatian language

Vukovica was “invented” in 1814 by the Serbian philologist Vuk Karadzic (Vuk Karasti).In this alphabet, unlike the Russian one, there are no letters Yo, Yy, Shch, b, Yy, b, Ee, Yuyu, Yaya, but six “special” ones are used - dzh, d, l, n, soft h, j:

A b, B b, C c, D d, D e, Ђ ђ (jj), E e, F w, Z s, I and, Jj(d), K k, L l, Љ љ (l), M m, H n, Њ њ (n), Oo, Pp, Rp, Ss, Tt, Ћ ћ(soft h) , Uu, Ff, Xx, Ts, Hh, P џ(j), Shsh.The female names Luba, Lerka, Zelka and Stefania, for example, look like this on vukovice: Љuba, Љerka, Zheљka, Shepaniћa, and the name of the famous Yugoslav (Serbian) singer George Marjanović is Ђorje Marjanoviћ.

In 1835, the "Gay" was created ( gajica)- Latinized version of the wukovica.This was done by a Croatian writer and linguistLjudevit Guy (Ljudevit Gaj). There are no letters Q, W, X, Y in Gajewic, but there are eight "special" letters- h hard, h soft, j, jj, l, n, w, w:

A a , Bb, Cc, Č č (h solid), Ć ć (h soft), Dd, Dž dž (j), Đ đ (j), Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Lj lj (l), Mm, Nn, Nj nj (ny), Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Š š (w), Tt, Uu, Vv, Zz, Ž ž (w).The female names Lyuba, Lerka, Zelka and Shtefania, for example, are written in Gaevice like this: Ljuba, Ljerka, Ž eljka, Š tefanija , and George Marjanovic - Đ or đ e Marjanovi ć.

For many years, both versions of writing were used on an equal footing, until the collapse of Yugoslavia happened. Already in 1991, Croatia completely abandoned the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, and Serbia, in accordance with the Constitution adopted in 2006, banned the use of the Latin alphabet in official documents. public institutions. However, this ban does not yet affect other areas of life - book publishing, the media, commercial activities, business and personal correspondence, etc. It is interesting to note that during the 2014 opinion poll, 47% of the population preferred the Latin alphabet, and only 36% spoke in favor of the Cyrillic alphabet (17% was undecided).

The "Serbo-Croatian language" is gradually becoming a thing of the past. We currently have two independent language: Serbian and Croatian (and every year they diverge more and more), as well as two scripts - “Serbian and Croatian Latin” (hrvatska i srpska latinica, gajica) and"Serbian Cyrillic" (Srpska Cyrillic or Vukovica).

The most popular names for newborn boys in Serbia (2011-2015)

Naјshћa fly names koјa su are written in matichne kњige roђenikh

The most popular names for newborn girls in Serbia (2011-2015)

Naјshћa female names koјa su are written in matichne kњige roђenikh

What are the names of today's adults? For illustration, we userating "200 most influential women in Serbia" (200 najmoćnijih žena u Srbiji), published on December 18, 2014 in the daily newspaper Blic. This list includes the brightest representatives of all spheres of Serbian society (politics, business and finance, education, culture and art, sports) aged 20 to 60 years.

Afrodita, Aleksandra (5), Alisa, Ana (6), Andrea (2), Anja, Biljana, Branislava (2), Branka, Brankica, Dalila, Danica (4), Danijela, Desanka, Diana, Dijana, Dragana (6 ), Dragica (3), Dragijana, Draginja, Dušica (2), Gordana (4), Gorica, Irena, Isidora, Irena, Jadranka (2), Jasmina (2), Jasminka, Jasna (8), Jelena (7) , Jelisaveta (2), Jorgovanka, Jovanka, Katarina (4), Kori, Latinka, Lepa, Ljerka, Ljiljana (3), Maja (5), Manja, Marija (5), Marijana (2), Marina (2), Milena (2), Milica (4), Mira (2), Mirjana (3), Nada (4), Nadežda, Natalija (2), Nataša (4), Nevena, Olja, Rada, Radoljupka, Ranka, Roksanda (2 ), Ružica (2), Sanda (2), Sandra (2), Sanja (2), Slađana, Slavica (4), Slavka, Snežana (6), Sonja (4), Stanislava, Suzana (2), Svetlana ( 6), Tamara, Tanja (3), Tatjana (2), Tijana, Vera (3), Verica (2), Vesna (5), Vidosava, Violeta, Zagorka, Zorana (3), Zorica

Aleksa, Aleksandar (10), Andreja, Andrija, Boban, Bozhidar, Bozhin, Bojan, Boris (5), Boshko, Branislav (2), Branko (3), Vladan, Vladimir (5), Vladislav, Vlado, Vuk (3 ), Gavrilo, Goјko (2), Goran (2), Gordan (2), Darko (2), Dejan (6), Dimitrije, Dragan (4), Drago љub, Dragoslav, Dragutin, Drashko, Dushan (2) , Dushko, Ђ op ђ e (3), Zhe љ ko (3), Zhivorad, Zoran (3), Ivan (7), Igor (5), Ilya (2), Janko, Jagosh, Jovan (2), J sheep (2), Konstantin (2), Costa, Lepomir,Љ killing, Љ killing, Љ Ubodrag, Marko (3), Milan (5), Milenko, Milivoje, Milorad, Milos (10), Miodrag (5), Mirko, Miroslav, Mihailo (2), Mikhało, Mladen, Nebojša (4), Nemaњ a (2), Nenad (7), Nikola (6), Pavle, Petar, Predrag (7), Radovan, Radojko, Radosh, Ranko, Sasha, Svetislav, Sveto, Svetozar (2), Sinisha (2), Slavko ( 2), Slobodan (2), Wedђ en (3), Stevan, Stefan, Tanasiye, Tikhomir, Urosh, Chedomir

Ada, Alexandra (5), Ana (8), Anastasia, Anђ ela, An ђ tree (2), Bi љ ana, Bozhana (4), Brankica (2), Valentina (1), Vaњ a (2), Veritsa (2), Spring, Victoryја, В ј era (2), Goran, Gordana (3), Daliјa, Daniela, Daniela (3), Dejan (2), Dina, Dobrila, Dragana (3), Drina, Dubravka, Dushanka (2), Oregano, Dushka, Eva, Elizabeta, Zheka, Zorica (2), Zlatia, Zorana (2), Ivana (10), Ivanka, Ines, Iva, Јadranka, Јasmina (4), Јasna, Јelena (7), Јovana (3), Јovanka, Kalina, Katarina (2), Lena, Lydia (3), Љiљana, Љubica, Љupka, Maја (5), Margareta, Mariјa (5), Marina (2), Masha (2), Mila, Milena (2), Milica (4), Miља, Mina (2), Mirzhana (5 ), Nada (2), Nadezhda, Natalia, Natasha (9), Nevena, Nela, Olga (3), Olivera (3), Oља, Radmila, Ruzhitsa, Sandra, Saњ a (3), Svetlana (3), Seine, Silvia, Slavenka, Sloboda, Smi љana (2), Snezhana (2), S њ ezhana, Soњ a (3), Sofia (2), Stela, Suzana (3), Tamara (7), Tatiana (6), Theodora , Tiana (2)

Pravoslavats - tsrkveni calendar

Naјshћa names and presimen. Podatsi on opshtinam and gradovim. Republic of Serbia. Republicki Zavod for Statistics, Beograd, 2012, 196 pages, pdf, 3.5 Mb

Milica Grkoviћ: Riverman personal names code Srba, "Vuk Karadzic", Beograd, 1977, 166 pages, link pdf, 64 Mb

Militsa Hrkoviћ: Register of personal names of the establishment of the region Brankoviћ 1455. year. Internet publishing house: July, 2016.Publisher: SANU - Clothes for friendly scienceglasnik". Beograd, 2001. Pp. 687-746. (total 61 pages), link pdf, 2 Mb

Militsa Hrkoviћ: The names of the Dečany chrysovuљma.Institute for South Slavic Jesik,Novi Sad, 1983, 117 pages,

Serbian female names impress with their diversity. They not only sound beautiful: each female name is filled with a special meaning and has several abbreviated versions. A feature of Serbian names is the ability to indicate any version of them in documents.

pagan origin

Serbs often gave the child a name that carried the function of "protection". It was a superstitious people, and the parents tried to protect the baby from evil spirits, calling him in a special way.

Serbian female names of that time and their meaning: Gordana (proud), Tiyana (peace), Bojdena, Boyana (battle). Girls were also called according to their personal character traits, they were given names denoting animals, plants, berries: Senka (shadow), Dzhegoda (strawberry, berry), Srebryanka (silver), Milica (sweet), Slavitsa (glorious), Vedrana (funny) , Deyana (enterprising).

Christian background

In the second half of the 19th century, Christianity came to Serbia from Byzantium. From that time on, residents had to call their children at birth only by canonical names that had a church purpose. In origin, they were mostly ancient Greek or Roman of the early Christian era.

The girls began to be called: Sofia (wisdom), Natalia, Natasha (church Christmas), Jovana (good God), Angela (angel), Militsa (sweet), Iva (from the Slavs “willow tree”), Slavna (magnificent), Valeria (strong), Snezhana (woman of snow), Yana (pardoned by God), Anna (God's mercy), and so on.

Canonical names are pretty for a long time took root among the Serbs, who are accustomed to naming children in their native language.

After 1945, the choice of names became free. This was facilitated by the establishment of socialism throughout Serbia. At this time, names appear based on their own vocabulary.

Features of education

Serbian female names in 20% of cases are formed using the suffix "ka". In Russian, this suffix gives the word a derogatory connotation, but in Serbia it does not carry any lexical load: Zhivka, Slavyanka, Zdravka, Milinka. In female names, there are also suffixes "ina", "ana", "itsa" (Snezhana, Yasmina, Slavitsa, Lilyana, Zoritsa). All Serbian female names end in "a".

Girls who were born in noble families were given names consisting of two roots - Dregoslav, Radmila, Negoslav, Negomir. But they were rare, since the compound name was given mainly to a man.

Modernity

The most common beautiful Serbian female names in our time: Teodora, Jovana, Iva, Yana, Tatiana, Sarah, Katarina, Sofia, Maria, Angela. Some of them are borrowed when naming daughters in other countries.

Serbian female names consist of ancient names with Slavic roots and borrowed foreign names of various origins: Greek, Jewish, Roman, Arabic, etc. Traditional Slavic names pre-Christian era had folk character and formed from various phenomena environment or came from some feature of a newborn child, the time of birth (Bilyan - "grass", Vedrana - "cheerful", Ranka - "born at dawn").

In the ancient Slavic name-book of the Serbs, there are many names-wishes. It was believed that a personal name is a sign on which a person's life, his fate and character depend. Therefore, Serbian names for girls were chosen with meaning, parents wanted to give the child a wish of love, kindness, beauty, and other feminine virtues along with the name: Divna - “wonderful”, Milinka - “grace”, Miryana - “beloved”, Dobracha - “kind ". The main wish was life and health - the first child in a family where there were no children for a long time often received the name Zhivka - "alive".

In the second half of the 9th century, the Serbs adopt Christianity, the national name book is replenished by an impressive group of Orthodox names of Greek, Roman, Jewish origin. The church later forbade the use of non-canonical names. Names from the holy calendar, the old and new testaments have firmly entered Serbian culture and have not lost their relevance for many centuries. New Serbian names originated from church names. For example, the name Jovan, popular today, is female version Hebrew male name John - "God's mercy."

A significant part of the list of Serbian female names are borrowed names of various origins: Greek, Arabic, Russian, Western European. Arabic names came to Serbian culture during the reign Ottoman Empire, currently used by Muslim Serbs or in international families (Yasmina, Nadia, Fatima). After 1945, when the country became socialist, the Serbs began to actively use foreign names, including Russian and European. Until now, Serbo-Croatian names are in use, which are equally popular both in Serbia and in Croatia and other Balkan countries - Slovenia, Montenegro: for example, the name Vesna came to the Serbs from Croats and Slovenes and is equally popular among all three peoples.

New names

In the middle of the 20th century, neologism names and names of personalities popular in that era - political leaders, cosmonauts, artists (Jacqueline, Valentina, Dayana) penetrate Serbia. Tributes to the era were exotic names: for example, Petoletka (five-year-old).

Beautiful and unusual Serbian female names

The national name book of the people contains great amount beautiful Serbian names for girls. Among them there are ancient Slavic compound names: Radmila - "sweet joy", Negomira - "tenderness of the world", Bratislava - "fight". Many Serbian names with Slavic roots not only sound beautiful, but also emphasize feminine charm, tenderness: Lubica - "violet", Slavana - "magnificent", Milena - "gentle, affectionate", Snezhana - "snow woman". The wishes of beauty were the names formed from the names of flowers, fruits - Rouge (Rose), Treshnya (Cherry), Willow (Yew tree).

Sometimes beautiful Serbian female names were formed without morphemes, the name was simply a noun - the name of an object. Such names sound rather unusual - Cherry, Berry, Ela. A ruddy girl could originally be called Rumenka for her complexion, and a girl born on Christmas Day - Goddess.

Popular Serbian female names

The most popular Serbian girl names in Lately– traditional christian names: Maria, Ana (Serbian form of the name Anna), Sofia, Sarah, Tamara. For many years, the most frequent national Serbian name has been the name Milica - "sweetheart", as well as Nevena - "calendula", Tiyana - "goddess". Among foreign names, common European ones are common (Dina, Angela, Daniela), Bulgarian - (Nikolina), Greek (Teodora, Christina). Russian names are in demand, which are used both in full and in an abbreviated version - Elena, Tatyana, Natasha. The name Ivana, derived from the Russian male name Ivan (from the Hebrew John), became popular.

Modern traditions

Recently, among the female names of the Serbs, foreign ones are increasingly common, European names of various origins. Serbian Orthodox female names, which have become traditional for this country, are most in demand. Originally national variants are less common, but do not lose their relevance.

SERBIAN NAMES

Serbian belongs to the South Slavic subgroup of the Slavic branch of languages. It is very close to the Croatian and Bosnian languages ​​and for a long time (1850 - II half of the XX century) united with them into a single literary language, known as Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian. All three languages ​​are mutually intelligible.

In the Serbian language, two alphabets are used in parallel: the Cyrillic "Vukovica" and the Latin "Gaevica". And although in Serbia now only "vukovica" is considered the official alphabet, in everyday life "gaevica" is used almost as often as the Cyrillic alphabet.

Serbian names

In the Serbian nomenclature, a huge place is occupied by names of Slavic origin: Radovan, Milos,Dushan,Dragan,Slobodan, Militsa, Milan, Milena, Zorana, Snezhana. Like the Bulgarians, the Serbs have no fundamental difference between full and pet name- both of them can quite officially act as independent names. Therefore, for example, guess the "passport" name of a Serb who introduced himself to you as Milko, is fundamentally impossible: it can appear in documents and how Milan, And How Miloslav, And How Milos and just like Milko. Actually, the origin of such names is not completely clear: historically, they could be formed both directly from the common Slavic root "mil-", and as short forms from more complex names ( Miloslav,Milodrag, Miladin, Milovan).

Serbs also actively use names from Orthodox calendar: Nikola,Luke, Marco, Jovan, Petar (Feather), Maria,Elena, Sofia, Natalie. There are also hybrid two-part names, "glued" from a borrowed calendar name and a purely Slavic component: Petroslav, Marislav, Nikoslav.

However, even for believing Serbs, the presence or absence of a name in Orthodox saints doesn't play a big role. "If in Russia it is customary to celebrate name days - the day of the heavenly patron of each person, then in Serbia, although someone has a personal "imendan" (that is, name day) it happens, but "glory" is celebrated much more often - the memory of the patron saint of the whole family, and moreover, the whole family. Usually such a patron was chosen by the saint in whose honor the first Christian in the family was baptized. I think that more than half of Serbian families celebrate the glory on the day of St. Nicholas of Myra. Very many honor the holy Great Martyr George the Victorious. But I also know cases when glory is celebrated in memory of Alexander Nevsky. It is difficult to say when the veneration of this Russian saint reached Serbia, but, most likely, it came late - with Russian soldiers during one of the Balkan campaigns. The question then is whether the first Christian in the family lived in the 19th or early XX century? The answer is this: the Serbs have always fought a lot. Accordingly, there were many orphans, and a person simply could not know his glory. And if, suppose, a child was saved by Russian soldiers, then he, becoming the head of the family, could take her in gratitude patron saint of a Russian saint" ( from an interview with Hieromonk Ignatius (Shestakov), editor of the "Local Churches" section of the Pravoslavie.ru website, to the journal "Neskuchny Sad").

About the list of Serbian names posted on this site

The names in the list are given in two spellings (vukovitsa and gaevitsa). The list is sorted by the Cyrillic variant (vukovica). Also given various options name spellings ( Milena,miena), diminutive forms, description of origin and meaning, Russian transcription.

Since this section is dedicated specifically to Serbian (and not Croatian or Bosnian) names, the list does not include names of the Catholic and Muslim spectrum, with the exception of popular foreign names borrowed in relatively recent times.

In the description of the meanings of names of Slavic origin, for convenience, Russian variants of common Slavic lexemes are given.

Used abbreviations:
reduce - diminutive
prod. - derivative
medieval - medieval
modern - modern
church - church
bibl. - biblical
ist. - historical
evang. - gospel
common slav. - Common Slavonic
ancient German. - Old Germanic
other Hebrew - Hebrew
lat. - latin
Serbian - Serbian
Turkic - Turkic
tour. - Turkish
Celtic - Celtic, belonging to the Celtic group of languages
ancient Greek - Ancient Greek
Old Norse - Old Norse
norman. - Norman
fr. - French

Many people like Serbian names - unusual, sonorous, "speaking". We feel in them closeness to the common Slavic origins, pagan strength, something almost lost in our culture. But times change, and language and culture change with them. What names are popular in Serbia today? Which Slavic Serbian names have withstood the onslaught of globalization? What do Serbs call children in early XXI century?

Historical Serbian names

It is known that in the past a name was often given to a newborn in order to further protect him. To weak child survived, he was often given the name Vuk (“Wolf”), since it was believed that witches eat children, and they would not dare to attack a wolf. Protective nature in ancient times had names with the basis "alive": Dabizhiv (let him be alive), Zhivan, Zhivana, Zhivko. Vuk Karadzic writes that "Zhivko" was often used in conversation to refer to any boy at all. For example, regardless of the name of the child, his mother could be asked at a meeting “How is your Zhivko?”

Names from the verb "stati" (stand up, stop) Stanimir, Stanislav, Stanoye, Stana in the past were given so that children in big family not born again, that's enough.

A large number of names with the basis "rad" (labor) - Radoslav, Radomir, Radoje, Radojica - and "mil" - Milos, Milan, Milica - shows which positive traits Serbs wanted to see in their children.

Popular male Serbian names

Now in Serbia, parents most often give their children Christian names. Thus, a study conducted in Kragujevac in the first decade of the 21st century showed that the most popular male names(in descending order of popularity):

• Nikola
• Lazar
• Stephen
• Aleksandar
• Marco
• Alexa
• Nemanja
• Jovan
• Philip
• velko
• Milos
• George
• Petar
• Mikhailo
• fiery
• Matia
• Dushan
• Bogdan
• David
• Paul
• Milan
• Strahinya

Of the Slavic names on this list, only Nemanja, Velko, Milos, Dusan, Bogda, Milan and Strakhinya.

Popular female Serbian names

The most popular female names in Serbia now are:

• Militsa
• Angela
• Jovana
• Maria
• Christina
• Anastasia
• Katarina
• Alexandra
• Theodora
• Nevena
• Tiyana
• Elena
• Sofia
• Tamara
• Emilia
• Ivana
• Nikolina
• Natalia
• Nadia (Nadja)

Except for the popular name The Slavic militia here are only Nevena and Tiyana. In addition to a purely Christian origin, the influence of the Russian language - Tamara and Nadia, or Western European languages ​​\u200b\u200b- Emilia is noticeable.

The weakening of the popularity of Slavic names is especially noticeable in two categories: among the popular names there are no Slavic names with two stems (Vladimir, Miroslav, etc.) and names with the stem "rad" (Radomir, Radoslav, etc.).

The popularity of names of Christian origin can be explained by two trends: firstly, the return of interest in Orthodox traditions and Serbian history, and secondly, by the fact that these names are international, which makes life easier in today's globalized society.