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In the name day tradition children are named after a patron saint according to their birthdays. A boy born in Russia on or near the feast day of some Saint Joseph might thus be named Iosif.

Osip is a Russian derived form of Iosif. I can identify no Saint Osip. Does the name Osip suggest a patron Saint Joseph?

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    This question would be better suited on the Russian Language SE site. – Ken Graham Nov 13 '18 at 3:12
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    Yes, it does, given parent are following the tradition. – arrowd Nov 14 '18 at 7:43
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In Russian tradition a man is named after some concrete saint. His name day is then not the day when some saint named the same is celebrated, but only that one, after which he was named. So, if someone's saint is Joseph of Astrakhan', then the celebration of Joseph of Optina isn't his name day.

Otherwise, popular names like Dmitry or Andrew would be having name days for a whole year.

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  • I agree that only one saint applies per person, but is Osip plausibly a saint's name? – Aaron Brick Nov 13 '18 at 16:38
  • Osip is just a "russification" of Joseph, just like Ivan to John. However, in "church speech" old names are traditionally used, that's why Ivans become Johns after canonicalization. – arrowd Nov 13 '18 at 18:49
  • I did some more background reading and have attempted to clarify the question. – Aaron Brick Nov 14 '18 at 5:29
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A boy born in Russia on or near the feast day of some Saint Joseph might thus be named Iosif.

Does the name Osip suggest a patron Saint Joseph?

Yes, but which Joseph exactly? Let's see some rules, which can be applied on this.

Rules

Russian namegiving tradition includes upto three ways of naming:

  1. The first and most spreaded currently tradition, is to give a previously selected by parents name to a child, with selection of his patron with the same name, first saint (excluding Virgin Mary) with a celebration his memory day, "on the" or right after the child's birthday, according the calendary of the country of you are using. I mean Julian or Neo-Julian (Gregorian for Finland) calendary. And of course if the day contains more than one saint with that name, all of then can be selected as patrons. Example 09/12 with name of Alexander.

  2. The second tradition, is to give a previously selected by parents name to a child, with selection of his patron with the same name, any saint, which is celebrating his memory day within three weeks before the child's birthday.

  3. Mostly used in past before October putch in 1917. The parent gave a name to their child according the child's birth day, of the list of names of saints that celebrate theis memories in that day. I know that is also used in modern.

In all three cases rules of local calendary styles are applied.

Application

Let's see how to apply the rules to name of Joseph. Imagine that baby was born on 11/09 (i.e. ninth november). Then we apply that rules to the birthday:

  1. The nearest saint with name Joseph on and after 11/09.

  2. One of saints within three weeks before:

  3. Just select the name of Joseph with patron on the same day in Julian C. Joseph (Sczensnovicz) of Kupavna, russian neomartir.

NOTE: That date change for the church calendaries is about 16:00 o'clock, just right the vespers begin.

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  • Thank you for the fine details. I see that I'll need to do some research on which tradition dominated at the time and place of my subject's birth. What is the significance of the measure of three weeks? – Aaron Brick Nov 16 '18 at 16:47
  • @AaronBrick I don't know the source of that three weeks tradition... – Малъ Скрылевъ Nov 17 '18 at 7:35

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