Social Chamber Official Calls for Limiting Parental Choice of Names for Children

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 17 – Since the first years of Soviet power, officials and parents have been locked in a battle over how wide the choice of names for children should be, with officials typically wanting to limit the choice so as to avoid problems for the children and parents insisting on their rights to name their children whatever they like.

            In the 1980s, a major debate was provoked by a Literaturnaya Gazeta article which appealed to parents “not to name their children ‘Tractor.’” And in 2017, the Duma passed a law prohibiting naming children with numbers, abbreviations, curse words, or titles. Now, this debate appears likely to take off again.

            Sergey Rybalchenko, who heads the Social Chamber’s Commission on Demography and Traditional Values, has setting up a list of approved names and not allowing the registration of any others lest the children involved later have a hard time (nemoskva.net/2025/08/17/v-rossii-planiruyut-zapretit-neblagozvuchnye-imena-detej/).

            He says that the list should be compiled by representatives of the Orthodox Church and others who know the history of Russian names and warns that unless such a list is created soon, a generation of Russians with absurd and offensive names are likely to appear, something that in itself is an offense to Russian traditions.

            It isn’t clear that Rybalchenko’s proposal will be approved. But it may be given that it is couched as a defense of traditional values and that other ideas, equally ridiculous, have been. But if his idea is realized, many Russian parents will be offended at yet another intervention into what they have come to view as both their right and something deeply personal.