Greek Female Names in Medieval Rus'

The works of B. A. Uspensky, A. F. Litvina, F. B. Uspensky, A. A. Gippius, O. V. Loseva, I. E. Kleinenberg, E. A. Melnikova, E. V. Pchelova, S. V. Sazonov, V. K. Chichagov are devoted to the naming in princely and noble families in medieval Rus' . However, female names of Russian middle ages are still not properly researched. One of the reasons is the "insufficiency" of names in any chronicle sources – as it is known, women were often referred to by their father or husband. In this paper I tried to present the corpus of Greek female names, based on the Laurentian, Ipatiev and Novgorod I Codexes (cases of dynastic naming), as well as the Novgorod birch bark letters (cases of non-dynastic naming). As the Greek sources we used the Byzantine Chronicles: "The History" by George Acropolites, "Alexiada" by Anna Komnenos, "The Chronographia" by Michael Psellos and "The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus" by John Kinnamos. How independent was the female naming in pre-Mongol Rus' against the background of the Byzantine cultural imports? The chosen time period (X – the first half of the XIII centuries) is characterized by the especially strong political, religious and cultural Byzantine influence. Under the "Greek names" I mean the names used in the Byzantine Empire, which might be not always Greek etymologically, like the Semitic "Anna" and "Maria".