Hello, class. Today I would like to tell you why “Yasha” is not a good thing for you to call Bucky in fic while he is the Winter Soldier.

It’s not “James” in Russian. It’s not. “Yasha” is the diminutive of “Yakov,” which is obviously Jacob. And yes, I know they have the same Aramaic? (I think) root, but like, here’s the deal – neither I (immigrated from the former Soviet Union as a child) nor my parents (lived in the Soviet Union for a good chunk of their lives) have ever met anyone named Yasha who wasn’t Jewish.

Don’t come at me with some exception you found on the internet – it’s a name that carries strong signifiers of Eastern European Jewishness. And we all know how the Soviets felt about Eastern European Jews (in case you don’t know – hint: really fuckin’ not great). It’s really unlikely that they would give a name with those signifiers to their super-weapon, especially in order to give him a name that’s etymologically close to his given name.

Now, what should you call him instead? While no Russian person is likely to be named James, and the Russians showed zero inclination for leaving any part of Bucky’s identity intact, it does transliterate nicely. It looks like this: “Джеймс”, and is pronounced kind of like this: “Djeyms.” Since they do refer to him as “the American” at points in the comics, calling him this is a valid option.

If you would like the Winter Soldier to have a really Russian first name to use, I can throw out a couple of options for that also. (Note: you’re pretty much always going to want to use the diminutive version, with anyone who he’s training for Department X using his full name + a patronym). If they wanted to give him a heroic name, the hero of many a Russian folktale is “Vanya” (short for Ivan), and I think there’s a “Kolya” (short for Nikolai) somewhere in there, too.

Some really common Russian male names are Sasha (short for Alecksandr), Dima (short for Dmitry), Nikita (yes it’s a dude’s name), Oleg, Vova or Vlad (short for Vladimir). If you’re you’re attached to something that sounds kind of close to James, try Djenya (short for Yevgeniy). If you’d like to see what any of those look like in Russian, feel free to shoot me a message.

This has been a post about Russian names by tumblr user caughtinanocean, age 22 ½.