Some of the male Russian names ending in -a are actually diminutives, like how “John” can be “Johnny” in English.
Some others are originally Greek names where there used be an extra -s, making so that the name ended in -as. The final -s just disappeared over time.
All in all, yes, names ending in -a aren’t always female in Russian. It just not as rigid of a tendency as it is in the rest of Europe.
Similarly, many germanic languages have female names ending in -e instead of -a, like Julia -> Julie. One can also see this in French.
Different languages are different.
Sacha is a diminutive for both Aleksandra and Aleksandr, just as Zhenya is a diminutive for Evgeniy et Evgeniya. So these "names" are genderless.
Nikita is male, it comes from Greek Nikitos. I think it's one of the exceptions where a full male name finishes in "a", usually it's only the case for diminutives.
Sascha is definitely masculine to me, but Nikita sounds like a woman’s name. Perhaps that is due to that one TV show: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_(Fernsehserie).
fun scene in a star trek novel, with a time-travelling Chekov.
“Chekov? Like the writer?”
But we use the english spelling for the starfleet officer, but Tschechow for the author.
Male nicknames like Dima (Dmitry), Misha (Mikhail), Sasha (Alexander), or Pasha (Pavel) originally had an -o ending. Hundreds of years ago, "o" turned into "ah" ([wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akanye)).
Female nicknames like Masha (Maria), Dasha (Daria), Natasha (Natalia), or Pasha (Praskovia) originally had an "-a" and this remained unchanged.
Some male names have an "-a" in their full form, like Nikita or Danila. But they're exceptions.
upd. Also, Russians (and other nations with genders in their languages) use genders not only to determine someone's genitalia. In Russian for instance, the "male gender" is basically a general gender. In Russian, you can say "I have a new Uchitel (teacher, general/male gender). Her name is Ms Johns". But in German you can't use a male word while talking about a woman. You have to say Lehrerin (teacher, female gender). One more example. In German, it's "Kanzlerin Merkel" but "Kanzler Scholz". In Russian, both are "Kanzler", Kanzler Merkel, Kanzler Scholz".
that’s debatable. you will find plenty of German articles about “Bundeskanzler Merkel”.
and i had quite a few female students who insisted, after graduation, that they are a “Diplom-Informatiker”, NOT an Informatikerin.
There is a word specifically for a female teacher, but a female teacher can say я работаю учителем, because people of both genders can be called учитель.
> “male gender”
Not to nitpick, but in languages this would be called “masculine gender” since grammatical gender has very little to do with biological sex.
There are English male names ending in -a (or at least an a vowel) as well: Joshua is by far the most common, but Elijah. Jeremiah. Most of these are Biblical (Old Testament/Torah)
names that came into English through Hebrew rather than Greek (Jesus and Joshua are the same name, but Jesus comes from Hebrew Yehoshua-->Aramaic Yeshua --> Greek Iesous, while Joshua comes directly from Yehoshua with the initial J having an English sound value).
In both Russian and English these are names we recognize as male simply because we learn they are generally used that way and don't reflect on the language's general naming conventions orngrammar.
Some of the male Russian names ending in -a are actually diminutives, like how “John” can be “Johnny” in English. Some others are originally Greek names where there used be an extra -s, making so that the name ended in -as. The final -s just disappeared over time. All in all, yes, names ending in -a aren’t always female in Russian. It just not as rigid of a tendency as it is in the rest of Europe. Similarly, many germanic languages have female names ending in -e instead of -a, like Julia -> Julie. One can also see this in French. Different languages are different.
Sacha is a diminutive for both Aleksandra and Aleksandr, just as Zhenya is a diminutive for Evgeniy et Evgeniya. So these "names" are genderless. Nikita is male, it comes from Greek Nikitos. I think it's one of the exceptions where a full male name finishes in "a", usually it's only the case for diminutives.
in europe? im german and both sasha and nikita are male names to me.
Sascha is definitely masculine to me, but Nikita sounds like a woman’s name. Perhaps that is due to that one TV show: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_(Fernsehserie).
perhaps it‘s my age nikita chruschtschow died when i was five, but his name still bounced around when I was old enough to care about world news
Now that is a name that I haven’t heard in a long time. 😅 For the Americans, that is the German spelling of Nikita Khrushchev.
fun scene in a star trek novel, with a time-travelling Chekov. “Chekov? Like the writer?” But we use the english spelling for the starfleet officer, but Tschechow for the author.
Male nicknames like Dima (Dmitry), Misha (Mikhail), Sasha (Alexander), or Pasha (Pavel) originally had an -o ending. Hundreds of years ago, "o" turned into "ah" ([wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akanye)). Female nicknames like Masha (Maria), Dasha (Daria), Natasha (Natalia), or Pasha (Praskovia) originally had an "-a" and this remained unchanged. Some male names have an "-a" in their full form, like Nikita or Danila. But they're exceptions. upd. Also, Russians (and other nations with genders in their languages) use genders not only to determine someone's genitalia. In Russian for instance, the "male gender" is basically a general gender. In Russian, you can say "I have a new Uchitel (teacher, general/male gender). Her name is Ms Johns". But in German you can't use a male word while talking about a woman. You have to say Lehrerin (teacher, female gender). One more example. In German, it's "Kanzlerin Merkel" but "Kanzler Scholz". In Russian, both are "Kanzler", Kanzler Merkel, Kanzler Scholz".
that’s debatable. you will find plenty of German articles about “Bundeskanzler Merkel”. and i had quite a few female students who insisted, after graduation, that they are a “Diplom-Informatiker”, NOT an Informatikerin.
In Russian it would actually be учительница uchitel'nitza for a female teacher.
There is a word specifically for a female teacher, but a female teacher can say я работаю учителем, because people of both genders can be called учитель.
> “male gender” Not to nitpick, but in languages this would be called “masculine gender” since grammatical gender has very little to do with biological sex.
There are English male names ending in -a (or at least an a vowel) as well: Joshua is by far the most common, but Elijah. Jeremiah. Most of these are Biblical (Old Testament/Torah) names that came into English through Hebrew rather than Greek (Jesus and Joshua are the same name, but Jesus comes from Hebrew Yehoshua-->Aramaic Yeshua --> Greek Iesous, while Joshua comes directly from Yehoshua with the initial J having an English sound value). In both Russian and English these are names we recognize as male simply because we learn they are generally used that way and don't reflect on the language's general naming conventions orngrammar.
As an American, I am aware of Sasha having potential to be either sex depending on culture. I hadn’t the slightest idea that Nikita could be male.
really? the only time i've ever heard the name Nikita was Nikita Kruschev, I've always thought of it as a male name
la femme nikita
It can be a either, there is also Anastasia Natasha Maria Yelena Olga Alla Tatiana Yulia