Fiction

Yelena Furman was born in what is now Kyiv, Ukraine. She holds a BA in feminist studies and English from Stanford and a doctorate in Slavic languages and literatures from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she teaches Russian literature. She lives in Los Angeles.

Naming

A Story

by Yelena Furman

I was in my early twenties when I discovered what my name was.

For the first twelve years of my life I was Sofia, and since almost every Russian name has a diminutive, used by family and friends, I was also Sonia, as well as Sonechka, an even more intimate variant. After my family left the Soviet Union and we’d been in America for a while, I changed my name to Sophie.

Changing your name isn’t as easy as it sounds. For one thing, you have to contend with loved ones who are none too thrilled with your decision since they gave you that name in the first place. The day I announced I wanted to be Sophie, at age thirteen, during dinner in the one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood that was our first home in America, my parents thought it was a joke and were stunned to realize I was serious.

“Why do you want to do this?” my mother asked. “Sofia is a very good name.”

“That’s not the point. I want a new one.”

“Sophie sounds kind of strange,” my father said.

“You think that only because it isn’t Russian,” I protested.

“Russkoe, ne russkoe, I don’t care, but tell me, please, who changes their name? What for?”

Want to read the rest?
Please login.
New to Narrative? sign up.
It's easy and free.
The password field is case sensitive. Account & Password Help.
Joining Narrative gives you FREE access to thousands of stories, poems and essays. It’s easy:
PLEASE ENTER A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS.
PLEASE NOTE: We are discontinuing our support of Microsoft-related addresses, including msn.com, live.com, outlook.com, and hotmail.com, and we ask that you use an alternative address, such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, fastmail.com, comcast.net, verizon.com, icloud.com, or other.

We have found Microsoft-related email addresses to be sometimes inconsistent in terms of delivering messages, and we want to make sure that you can access your account and reliably receive messages that you have requested.
Email Preferences
Email Preferences