RussianAmericanMormon
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User ID: 4365
RussianAmericanMormon
5d ago
While my name is only semi-common in Russia, the English cognate is actually one of the most generic names in existence, so I figure if I'm going to change my name, I might as well make it something a tad more colorful.
RussianAmericanMormon
5d ago
Changing a surname's suffix from -ov to -off has been a common practice among older émigrés, -off reads as a smoother spelling in the English language. It's no different from an Irishman changing his surname from "Ó Domhnaill" to "O'Donnell". Like I said earlier, I don't mind retaining a subtle hint of Russian heritage, just that my name will at least sound Russian-American instead of that of a person who could've arrived here straight from the Urals yesterday.
RussianAmericanMormon
5d ago
I wouldn't even say it's me being actively ashamed of it that drives me; I just feel like I'm wearing clothes that don't fit me. I grew up watching the same American movies and TV shows my peers did and wished I could have a WASPy name that actually fits my mannerisms, values, and disposition, which instead clashes with a name in the vein of Ivan Smirnov or Dimitri Makarov. Validation from others is the least of my concerns; I know I can still belong in America as an Ivan Smirnov, but I'd rather be a Randall Smirnoff which would feel more harmonious with my Reagan Bush '84 hat, gray polo, Ford F-150, Dr Pepper, and watching rally racing.
RussianAmericanMormon
5d ago
Regarding wearing it with pride, I'm not doing this for the validation of others; that's the least of my concerns. One of the many ways America is unique is that I can be whoever I please regardless of whether I'm in California or in Mississippi, which I've grown to appreciate as the same can't be said for the part of Europe where I'm temporarily based in. I'll share my response to birb_cromble explaining my rationale here.
Hmm, I get your sentiment, but my rationale is that I can still retain a subtle reminder of my heritage while changing the suffix of my surname from -ov to -off. I grew up watching the same American movies and TV shows my peers did, and always wished I could have a WASPier name, or at least an international one that isn't so aggressively Slavic. Rawhide Kobayashi is still descended from the Kobayashi family, even if he now goes by Rawhide.
I won't deny that aesthetics play a role. I know that in a large and diverse Sun Belt metro area, people will be nonplussed by some guy with a Russian name otherwise acting like an ordinary Southern man, but I just love the way Randy Smirnoff or Hank Smirnoff would sit on me as I wear my Reagan Bush '84 hat and drive my Ford F-150, as opposed to my current Ivan Smirnov (not my actual name, using another name that is as exceedingly Russian in order to demonstrate my point).
Hmm, I get your sentiment, but my rationale is that I can still retain a subtle reminder of my heritage while changing the suffix of my surname from -ov to -off. I grew up watching the same American movies and TV shows my peers did, and always wished I could have a WASPier name, or at least an international one that isn't so aggressively Slavic. Rawhide Kobayashi is still descended from the Kobayashi family, even if he now goes by Rawhide.
I won't deny that aesthetics play a role. I know that in a large and diverse Sun Belt metro area, people will be nonplussed by some guy with a Russian name otherwise acting like an ordinary Southern man, but I just love the way Randy Smirnoff or Hank Smirnoff would sit on me as I wear my Reagan Bush '84 hat and drive my Ford F-150, as opposed to my current Ivan Smirnov (not my actual name, using another name that is as exceedingly Russian in order to demonstrate my point).
Believe me, I'm not doing this to prove my Americanness to others; everybody who knows me is quick to see it from my values and disposition. I want to do it for myself, to wear a name that fits me.
RussianAmericanMormon
8d ago
This name has the negative connotation of XKCD author Randall Munroe. (But see also Antiplanner author Randal O'Toole.)
If I were to name myself Randall, it would be in honor of Randy Bachman and Randy Travis.
This name has the negative connotation of infamous white supremacist Richard Spencer.
These sound more like snooty English names than down-to-earth American names.
Spencer would be in honor of Spencer Kimball. It's a pretty common name in an upwardly mobile Sun Belt suburb while not being quite as snooty as Emory or Porter.
RussianAmericanMormon
8d ago
Because I'm an American of Russian descent and have no necessity to deny that, what I'm not is a Russian who just so happens to have found himself in America.
RussianAmericanMormon
9d ago
I currently have an egregiously Ruski name that I seek to do away with in favor of an all-American first name and an Americanized iteration of my surname that fits my identity as a Southerner who only so happens to be of Russian descent while not being remotely aligned with the Russian worldview. In many ways, I'm a real-life unironic Rawhide Kobayashi who aims to out-Southern my bloodline American counterparts; I rock jean jackets, camo Cabela's hats, Oakleys, and overalls with checkered shirts. I love me some Faulkner and my accent is as broad as Georgie Cooper's. I believe there's a distinction between my brand of Southern gentleman in a Hank Williams and brisket and peach cobbler sense as opposed to the Salt Life, Skoal, and Kid Rock brand of legitimate redneck.
Here's a list of names I am contemplating; let me know your thoughts as to which one would be the best fit:
- Randall
- Spencer
- Grant
- Lance
- Russell
- Hank
RussianAmericanMormon
15d ago
Ah screw me, I'm slow. Stayed up all night and it's 6AM here.
RussianAmericanMormon
23d ago
Hmm, with regards to activity and the people who post, I do think it depends on the sub-forum. Like many other forums, you have a select few crap-stirring regulars that make the experience less pleasant, and once you know which handles to ignore, it gets much easier to participate. There are some neighborhoods and suburbs that some people treat as the be-all and end-all, but I also do see healthy pushback to those kinds of sentiments by others. I appreciate that the people who post there tend to be more articulate and conscientious than Facebook or Reddit users, even if that bar is in hell. I would definitely consult CityData before a turboprogressive city sub if I wanted to solicit some relocation advice.
Personally, there's just something surreal about browsing through 2008 threads about the subdivision I grew up in, or one about a small town an American friend I've met here in Europe tells me he was raised in. You get to learn about the local chamber of commerce, gossip about municipal scandals, hidden gems such as an art gallery or a biking trail most people in the area don't know about, and the agreeable subdivisions of an otherwise poorly reputed suburb, etc. As a zoomer, I imagine this is the closest I'll get to living in the 2000s zeitgeist along with watching TV shows and listening to music from that time window.
RussianAmericanMormon
24d ago
Is there any overlap between this forum and development forums in the vein of SkyscraperCity and CityData? SkyscraperCity is an urbanist forum, and I find it intriguing to browse threads there to see what infrastructure projects various cities are undertaking, including my nearest city.
CityData was originally more of a real estate forum where people could start threads to inquire about life in various American suburbs and small towns, and it's quite fascinating to learn about the amenities and ins and outs of a random small town most people overlook in a state that I've never set foot in. It's branched out into different subforums for politics, philosophy, theology, and hobbies. In a sense, it is like a smaller Reddit that is substituted with conservative boomers. The caliber of discourse tends to be higher as you don't have stoned vegetables giving their dilettante conjectures, though it does have a few occasional trolls.
RussianAmericanMormon
26d ago
At the risk of doxing myself, O&G is all I'll divulge. Hence I'm in Norway.
Based on your preferences, you should probably pick a US based college where you blend in.
That is the plan, I will stick around in Europe for another year on logistical grounds, but I expect to transfer from there. BYU undergrad and Ivy postgrad/postdoc is the route I intend to take.
You do seem a little high strung
I've talked about this on the Wednesday Wellness thread before, I grew up in a very psychologically volatile household and had little to no avenues to socialize the first two years after relocating to this town, which has exacerbated my interpersonal paranoia. In recent years, thanks to my social life generally improving through church, my prowess in approaching women and asking engaging questions has improved considerably; it's just that I often find myself ruminating extensively post hoc on every exchange with women, but I don't believe it affects the exchanges themselves. I do have female friends outside of my immediate area who are part of a larger friend group, but so far it's just that with no ulterior motives.
Another thing I didn't include in my original message is that I've also had women turning me down because I'm too young for them, due to my preference for women 2-3 years older than me.
I've lived in small American towns, and didn't notice these sorts of behaviors, or not in a way that got on my nerves.
Well at this juncture, I am based in Europe. I truly believe White Americans possess higher levels of human capital than Europeans of the same class. I've had plenty of constructive conversations with individuals that many Bostonian elitists would write off as rednecks and country yokels. Some of the American missionaries in my church that I highly respect attend open admissions schools and are not rocket scientists, but nonetheless pleasant people to be around in a way that many of my classmates weren't. I was actually raised in an upper-middle-class pocket of a lower-middle-class Southern suburb, and on paper, that's the same variety of community I reside in in my current area, and yet it couldn't be any more different.
I attend municipal concerts, participate in volunteering initiatives, and even got involved in municipal politics for a brief period. I have met some upstanding people who are highly unlikely to share many of my hobbies, the problem is that those kinds of encounters tend to be sporadic and those people tend to be decades older than me.
Honestly, it seems like the reason you're struggling is because you hold everyone you interact with in contempt.
You're reading something into my message that simply isn't there, I believe your post contains many conjured assumptions that are not congruent with my actual situation. I have now repeatedly stated that there are several settings where I haven't experienced the issues that I currently do. I have specifically said that I don't expect a random individual on the street to have read the exact books that I have, so I fail to understand where you could've possibly read into me saying that I expect everybody to share my exact interests.
Edit: How that egregious misrepresentation of the grievances I've actually expressed garnered 10 upvotes is beyond me, but I digress.
Here is what I've actually said:
If you're not into soccer, Instagram Reels, or getting blackout drunk and then bragging about getting transported by paramedics, your options in this area are very limited. I want to date a peer, not be a babysitter. Back in my suburb of a large American metropolitan area, you had a culture of go-getters who were passionate about one thing or another; crochet, photography, floral design, dancing, w/e, which is substituted here with a pervasive unsophisticated bro-hella-dope culture.
At no point have I stated that I expect my social circle to consist entirely of people who participate in spaces like this. I treat everybody with fundamental dignity and have frequently been told that I'm charitable to a fault, though I simply don't draw conclusions about a person from one interaction when I'm not privy to their background, and always wish to assume well-intention among people I speak to. I have pals at church and former classmates with whom I can grab lunch, take a hike, or go to the beach and bond over shared experiences. I don't think I'm unreasonable in setting standards for whom I wish to develop a long-term friendship with. In my town, it is commonplace for people to make overtly sexual jokes around children, people prying into my political views at random right as I introduce myself, people at functions reaching for food in a communal bowl with their hands instead of using the spoon or tongs in it, people nudging me with their shopping carts or standing like deer in headlights instead of asking me to give way, people breathing on me through their mouth as they reach for some frozen pizza, etc. I'm not asking for a highly curated social circle, just that some baseline of social etiquette, curiosity, and open-mindedness exists.
When it comes to a dating partner, I am dating first and foremost with the desire to find a woman I can see myself living with together for eternity. I don't want her interests and background to be identical to mine as I want a relationship where we can mutually refine each other. I do want her to be decently ambitious and well-read.
RussianAmericanMormon
29d ago
I am somebody who is very much intrigued by 00s vBulletin forums and 90s Usenet newsgroups. I know that the rationalist movement was pioneered by Robin Hanson with the Overcoming Blog and Yudkowsky's Sequences around 2006. Where did the proto-rationalists hang out prior to that?
RussianAmericanMormon
29d ago
learn how to drop the "I'm not like all the other normies" mentality that you mentioned in other replies
I specifically said that I've fared perfectly fine in more affluent suburban settings. If that's where you were raised and have little exposure to what it's like being a bored high school kid in a small town where you don't fit the mold, you may surmise that the baseline quality of your peers is more or less universal anywhere, but that's not the case. I hate being the most intelligent person in a room exactly because I am well aware that I am far from a genius, and I actually want iron to sharpen iron because I gain no joy out of a petty dick-measuring contest and realize that I have not yet found the right tools to realize my full potential here. I live in a town that has a pervasive anti-intellectual culture, think a Norwegian equivalent of a rust belt town that has seen better days. I do believe that there is less of a disconnect between my peers and me in a more prosperous locale, which is why I'm more frustrated by the fact that I'm currently not in an environment where I am perfectly capable of thriving.
RussianAmericanMormon
30d ago
Not looking for hookups for obvious reasons, but sounds like a good idea otherwise.
RussianAmericanMormon
30d ago
I've read up on this subject before. The question that arises is, can't I weed out the more basic women by attending a school with selective admissions and look within my major? I'm not expecting to talk Wittgenstein and Krauthammer with a random girl I bump into on the street, but surely within a more curated environment, I can find women who have the curiosity and intellectual hardware I'm looking for?
RussianAmericanMormon
30d ago
Even at an Ivy League school, or a school with selective admissions?
RussianAmericanMormon
30d ago
Those are just common gender dynamics which I am well aware of. What I mean is I want to date a woman that is intellectually compatible with me (shouldn't be a big ask) with whom I can have profound conversations with, beyond reality TV programs and social media slop.
RussianAmericanMormon
1mo ago
What if I get plenty of women telling me I'm too tall?
See I'm a tad older than 17 and have been told by many people that once I find the right people in college, my situation will change drastically. I'm just venting about this right now, as that notion sounds so inconceivable to me, operating on my observations from the first 19 years of my life. I could and perhaps should wait another year to see what happens, but right now I feel suffocated.
RussianAmericanMormon
1mo ago
I've been told I'll bloom in college, which is just a couple of months away. I simply haven't lived long enough to see it and attest to it yet.
Well I'd still retain my surname. The issue is that my name translated into English is one of the most common Anglophone names in existence, up there with James, Michael, David, and John.
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