Aleksandr

Aleksandr is the Russian form of Alexander, from the Greek Alexandros, defender of men. Few names have carried more Russian weight: Pushkin the poet, Solzhenitsyn the novelist, Nevsky the warrior-prince, three tsars on the throne. The consonant cluster at the start, k-s, is a little thicket English speakers learn to walk through; on the other side, the -andr tails off into something almost tender. Three stressed syllables in the Russian, often softened to Sasha in the family circle, affectionate and unguarded. Aleksandr reads strong and classical, a name with imperial columns and birch forests both, epic without apology.