My new name.

[A.A.K]

So, my last name is 'Dik'.
I've been bullied up till year 11 and for the most part it was verbal and physical.
I may be becoming a cop soon, and I have yet to kick start life and put my name down in 40 different companies, so at the moment all I have is my passport, medicare and Uni.

I'll be changing my name within the next 3-4 months and so I've been thinking about what to change it too.

Here's the dilemma, I want to change it to something slavic/russian.
I'm learning the language, with the eventual goal of being fluent in speaking, reading and writing. I plan on living in russia for a little while, and I've studied a far bit of the history, at least in the last...400 or so years.

The issue? I'm not born Russian. My family is Germanic and Syrian, and the Syrian part was Syrian for 400 or so years, before then we can't trace it, we just know it's slavic.
So my family are saying that to change my name to something russian would be disrespectful.

What's your opinion Escapist?

Challenge: Try and think of an insult with 'Dik' that I haven't heard of before. Try. I dare you

Captcha: little bird told me
A LITTLE BIRD TOLD YOU WHAT!?

 

[TheIronRuler]

Vladimir, Dmitri, Michael, Alexander, Arcadi, Leonid, Mark, Gregori. These are off the top of my head.

Major influences - The Bible (Michael), The Church (Gregori), Communist Revolution (Mark).

I wish you luck. My family comes from the region and the most common names I've heard were Alexander, Vladimir and Mark. You should look for a name that can be shortened to one or two syllables in Russian like Alexander - Alex, Vladimir - Vlad. They're very common.
BTW Vladimir is an area in Russia, a duchy I think. Gregori is a popular name mostly after the pope. I do advise you to stick with more traditional names since some that are "hip" nowadays won't gel with the fact that you're an adult and when you were born the name wasn't popular or known at all.

Good luck man.

 

[JoJo]

I disagree with your family, your name is something personal and it isn't disrespectful to use a name from another culture, heck lots of East Asians use English nicknames, Christian Africans often adopt Western versions of Biblical names, Filipinos will use anything as a nickname and it's common for Muslim converts to take on a traditionally Muslim name, even if they're of European descent. Just four examples of cross-cultural naming, I'm sure there are many more. If anything it's a sign of respect and friendship to adopt a Russian-based name. They're probably a little sore that you're changing your name to something different from theirs.

Eh, I don't know enough about Russian names to go beyond IronRuler's suggestions really except Boris... because Boris Johnson.