Most of Russia's oblasts and krais take their names from their administrative center; while autonomous entities (republics, autonomous okrugs and autonomous oblast) received their names from the native peoples they was created for by the Soviet government in 1920s–30s.
Oblasts
All of the oblast names in Russian are based on the following model: "name of the central city" (with a few exceptions) + "-skaya" feminine adjective suffix.
The region of the city of Arkhangelsk, whose name the inhabitants traditionally associated with a monastery in the area dedicated to the Archangel Michael.
The region of the city of Astrakhan, whose name is a corruption of old Turkic Haji Tarkhan. Tarkhan is possibly a Turco-Mongolian title standing for "great khan," or "king", while haji or hajji is a title given to one who has made the Islamic requisite of pilgrimage to Mecca.
The region of the city of Chelyabinsk. The city (initially a Russian fortress Chelyaba) received its name after a Bashkir locality, whose etymology is disputed.
The city of Irkutsk was named after the Irkut River with -sk suffix used for names of the cities. Its name was derived from the Buryat word for "spinning," and was used as an ethnonym among local tribes, who were known as Yrkhu, Irkit, Irgit, and Irgyt.
The city of Ivanovo was previously known as Ivanovo-Voznesensk and was formed as a result of the merger of two settlements:
Ivanovo — from given name Ivan with typical -ovo suffix.
Voznesensk — from Voznesensky posad, a workers′ settlement named after the near Ascension Church (Russian: Вознесение, romanized: Vozneseniye). This part was discarded in 1932 during anti-religious campaign. According to another version, residents criticized the name for being too long.
From its center Kaliningrad (Kalinin-city), renamed in 1946 in memory of the recently deceased Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin. The region itself forms the northern part of former East Prussia.
The city of Kemerovo, region's capital, was named after the surname of the first settlers — Kemerov. The ending "ovo" suggests a toponymic transition through a personal name.
Another name of the Kemerovo oblast, Kuzbass, made official in 2020, is a short form of Kuznetsk Basin. This coal-mining region is called after Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range, which was named after Shors, a native people known archaically as Blacksmithing Tatars (Kuznetskiye Tatary), to distinguish these mountains from other Alataus.
The city of Kursk was named after Kur River. The name relates to a dialect word kur'ya ("long and narrow river bay"),[3] while city's coat of arms with three partridges shows a folk etymology version of the origin of the name (Russian: куропатка, romanized: kuropatka "perdix")
Murmansk, region's capital, is named for the Murman Coast (Murmanskiy bereg), which is in turn derived from an archaic term in Russian for "Norwegian".
Nizhny Novgorod literally means "Lower New Town". The prefix "lower" is used to distinguish it from Veliky Novgorod ("Great New Town") and Novhorod-Siverskyi ("New Town in Severia"). Russian name for this oblast is Nizhegorodskaya (literally "of Lower Town"), and not Nizhne(-)novgorodskaya as one might expect.
Literally "Region of New Town", after its capital Veliky Novgorod, which means "Great New Town" as stated above. Before 1999 was known as just Novgorod.
The city of Orenburg (Or River + German: Burg "castle") was founded near the meeting of the Or and Ural rivers, but was later moved down the Ural. The initial place of the fortress became known as Orsk.
The name of the main city, originally Pleskov (historic Russian spelling Плѣсковъ, Plěskov), may be loosely translated as "[the town] of purling waters".
The region was named after its capital, which was initially known as Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky and officially took the name of ancient city of Ryazan in 1778. The original Ryazan, the capital of medieval principality, was devastated by Mongols in 1237.
The name of the city is an Old Russian possessive adjective Рѣзань (Rězan′), related with archaic male given name Rezan, which is a short form of rezanny "[child] cutted from [the womb]"[10]
The city possibly retained its name after the surrounding region, which in the Middle Ages was allegedly "cut off" from another Rus' lands by dense forests and swamps.
This region received its name from its largest island, which name is supposed to originate from ManchuSaghalien ula anga hata "island in the mouth of Black River." Thus Sakhalin is "Black"
The name of the city of Tver is of Finno-Ugric origin, Tiheverä[16] while folk etymology traces it back to Old Russian tverd′ "fortress" (compare Polish twierdza)
In 1586, a fortress was constructed on the site of the former Siberian Tatar town of Chingi-Tura ("city of Chingis"), also known as Tyumen, from the Turkish and Mongol word for "ten thousand"[17] – tumen.
from the hypothetical Slavic personal name Voroneg[20]
from voron- (Proto-Slavicvorn) in the meaning of "black, dark" and the suffix -ezh(-azh, -ozh). In the 8th - 9th centuries it allegedly marked a vast territory covered with black forests (oak forests) and the main "city" of the early town-planning complex could repeat the name of the region.[21]
From Kamchatka River, which got its name from the 17th-century explorer Ivan Kamchaty.[22] His surname has derived from archaic name for silk — kamchataya tkan′. He was allegedly involved in collecting yasak from indigenous peoples and was later found dead along with his colleagues. Kamchaty's campaign gave birth to the legend among the Itelmens about the glorious warrior Konshat.
From dialectal kamchat "big beaver" (probably derived from Tatarkama ).[23]
From Yakutkhamsa/kamcha "smoking pipe" or kham-sat "to waver".[24]
From the city of Krasnoyarsk. It was founded as a fort and named Krasny Yar ('red steep-riverbank') a literal translation of Yarin (a dialect of Khakas) name of the place, Kyzyl Char.[25]
Literally "Transbaikal Region", despite modern Zabaykalsky Krai has no access to the lake in contrast with imperialTransbaikal Oblast. In 1934–2008 the region was known as Chita Oblast after its capital, Chita.
Forms the northern part of Ossetia, divided by Caucasus Mountains. Alternative name Alania was made official in 1994. The breakaway republic of South Ossetia did the same in 2017 to indicate its ethnic unity with the North.
Named by Emperor Peter the Great after his patron saint (German: Sankt "saint" and Burg "fortress"). Soviet-era name Leningrad is still retained in the name of the surrounding oblast.
^Мокшанско-русский словарь / НИИЯЛИЭ при Совете Министров Правительстве Республики Мордовия; Под редакцией Б. А. Серебрянникова, А. П. Феоктистова, О. Е. Полякова - Москва: Русский язык: Дигора, 1998.
^Воробьёва И. А. (I. A. Vorobyova) Язык Земли. О местных географических названиях Западной Сибири (The Language of Earth. About local geographical names of Western Siberia) — Западно-Сибирское книжное издательство, 1973, p. 15.
^Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG. Diocese of Tver. Künker Auktion 130 - The De Wit Collection of Medieval Coins, 1000 Years of European Coinage, Part II: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Silesia, Poland, Baltic States, Russia and the golden Horde. "Numismatischer Verlag Künker".
^E.M. Pospelov, Geograficheskie nazvaniya mira (Moscow: Russkie slovari, 1998), p. 427.
^Трапезников В. Н. Наш край. — Вологда: Издание Вологодского общества изучения Северного края, 1918. — С. 74.
^В. П. Загоровский. "Воронежская историческая энциклопедия". Воронеж, 1992
^П. А. Попов. "Комплексный подход в топонимических исследованиях в связи с историей русского градостроительства (на примере Центрального Черноземья)". Девятые всероссийские краеведческие чтения (Москва – Воронеж, 15–19 мая 2015 г.). Москва; Воронеж, 2016. Стр. 423–434.
^Б. П. Полевой. Новое об открытии Камчатки. Ч. 1. Петропавловск-Камчатский, 1997. Главы 4-5.
