Ukrainian boy names
Volodymyr is not a spelling of Vladimir. It is the Ukrainian name, it is what Ukrainians are called, and the two have been diverging for eight hundred years. Ukrainian and Russian names overlap at the edges and differ in the middle: the same saints reached both languages, and Ukrainian did different things to them. None of the names here is in the current U.S. top 100, and most are ordinary in Ukraine.
Where Ukrainian says h and Russian says g
This is the single most useful thing to know. Somewhere around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the inherited Slavic g softened into a breathy h across Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech and Slovak. Russian and Polish kept the hard g. The change was not selective, so it shows up in every name that had one — and in ordinary words too, Ukrainian hora against Russian gora for a mountain.
- Bohdanbohh-DAHNUkrainian
Given by God — a native Slavic compound rather than a borrowing. Russian writes Bogdan. Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the Cossack uprising of 1648.
- Hryhoriyhrih-HO-riyUkrainian
Watchful, vigilant. Russian Grigory. Hryhoriy Skovoroda, the wandering philosopher-poet, is on the five-hundred-hryvnia note.
- IhorEE-horUkrainian
Ing's warrior, from Norse Ingvarr; Russian Igor. The medieval Tale of Ihor's Campaign is the oldest epic of the Rus.
- Oleho-LEHUkrainian
Holy, blessed, from Old Norse Helgi; Russian Oleg. Oleh the Wise took Kyiv around 882 and made it the seat of the Rus.
- Serhiyser-HEEUkrainian
From the Roman clan name Sergius, of unrecoverable meaning; Russian Sergei.
- Yevhenyev-HENUkrainian
Well-born, noble; Russian Yevgeny. The h is doing all the work.
Traditional names
The everyday stock: saints from the Byzantine calendar, worn into Ukrainian shapes over a thousand years. Several look almost like their Russian cousins and are pronounced nothing like them.
- Andriyahn-DREEUkrainian
Manly, courageous. St Andrew is said to have raised a cross on the hills where Kyiv now stands.
- Artemar-TEMUkrainian
Safe and sound; belonging to Artemis. Year after year one of the commonest names registered in Ukraine.
- Danyloda-NY-loUkrainian
God is my judge. Danylo of Halych was crowned king of Rus in 1253 and founded Lviv, naming it for his son.
- Denysdeh-NYSUkrainian
Devoted to Dionysus — a wine god's name that the church calendar quietly absorbed.
- Dmytrodmih-TROHUkrainian
Of Demeter, the harvest goddess. Russian Dmitri; the Ukrainian form ends in a clean o.
- Illiaeel-LYAUkrainian
My God is Yahweh — the prophet Elijah, whose feast day in Ukrainian folk reckoning marks the end of swimming weather.
- Maksymmak-SYMUkrainian
The greatest, from Latin maximus, by way of a Greek-speaking church.
- Mykhailomih-KHY-loUkrainian
Who is like God. The Archangel Michael is the patron of Kyiv and stands, sword drawn, on the city's coat of arms.
- Mykolamy-ko-LAUkrainian
Victory of the people. In Ukraine it is St Mykolay, not a red-suited stranger, who leaves presents for children in December.
- Oleksandro-lek-SANDRUkrainian
Defender of men. The Ukrainian form keeps a vowel where Russian Aleksandr does not; Sashko and Oles are the short forms.
- Ostapos-TAPUkrainian
Well-standing, steadfast, from Greek Eustathios. Gogol gave the name to Taras Bulba's elder son.
- PavloPAV-loUkrainian
Small, humble. Pavlo Tychyna's early verse is some of the finest in the language.
- PetroPET-roUkrainian
Stone, rock. Petro Doroshenko and Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny were both Cossack hetmans.
- Stepanstee-PAHNUkrainian
Crown — a wreath twisted from leaves. One of the handful of names spelled identically in Ukrainian and Russian.
- Vasylva-SYLUkrainian
Royal, kingly, from Greek basileus. The poet Vasyl Stus died in a Soviet labour camp in 1985.
- Zakharzuh-KHARUkrainian
The Lord has remembered. Another of the genuinely shared names.
Princes, Cossacks and the national poet
The heaviest names in the language. Three come from the princes of Kyivan Rus, one from the poet who made modern Ukrainian a literary language, and one from a Turkic word that Pushkin, of all people, put into circulation.
- Volodymyrvo-lo-DIH-mihrUkrainian
Great ruler; ruler of the world. Volodymyr the Great accepted Christianity in 988 and baptised Rus in the Dnipro. Russian says Vladimir, and it is a different name in a different language.
- Yaroslavyah-ruh-SLAHFSlavic compound
Fierce glory: yaro- fierce plus -slav glory. Yaroslav the Wise, Volodymyr's son, raised St Sophia in Kyiv and married his daughters into half of Europe.
- Sviatoslavsvya-to-SLAVSlavic compound
Holy glory. Sviatoslav the Brave campaigned from the Volga to the Danube and, by the chronicler's account, slept on the ground with his saddle for a pillow.
- Tarastah-RAHSUkrainian
From the Greek Tarasios; the underlying sense is uncertain. Taras Shevchenko, born a serf, is the national poet, and the name is inseparable from him.
- Ruslanroos-LAHNTurkic root
Lion, from Turkic arslan. Genuinely shared across the whole post-Soviet space, and common in Ukraine.
How Ukrainian naming works
A Ukrainian is registered with three names: given name, patronymic and surname. The patronymic suffixes are -ovych and -yovych for men — the son of Petro is Petrovych — and they look close enough to the Russian -ovich that outsiders miss the difference, which is a fair summary of the whole relationship. What Ukrainian has that Russian lost is the vocative case: a separate form of the name used when you speak to someone. Andriy becomes Andriyu, Petro becomes Petre, Oleh becomes Olezhe. Russian dropped its vocative centuries ago and only keeps fossils of it. Ukrainian teaches it in school and expects it.
The rest is politics, and there is no honest way around it. Under the Russian Empire and again under the Soviet Union, Ukrainian names were routinely written into official registers in their Russian forms — Mykhailo entered as Mikhail, Mykola as Nikolai — so a great many people carried one name at home and another on their passport. Independence in 1991 began the correction, and it accelerated sharply after 2014 and again after 2022; the same is true of place names, which is why English style guides now write Kyiv rather than Kiev. Only a small number of names are genuinely common to both stocks: Ruslan, Stepan, Yaroslav and Zakhar. For everything else, the Ukrainian form is the name.