Most of the characters in Fourteen Little Red Huts have what Russians call “speaking names.” I have tried to re-create these names, rather than simply transliterate them. Platonov’s names are often dense with possible meanings, and there is not always general agreement about which matter most. Here is a brief explanation of the names in the play, along with my reasons for translating them as I have.
Johann-Friedrich Bos: In the original his last name is Khoz. This evokes khozyain, a common word for “boss” or “master,” and khozyaistvo, among the meanings of which are “economy,” “household” and “farm.” The Russian for “collective farm”—kolkhoz—is an abbreviated form of kollektivnoe khozyaistvo.
Interhom: In the original, Intergom. In Russian transliterations of foreign proper names the letter g is usually substituted for h. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, is conventionally Russianized as Gamlet.
Futilla: In the original, Suenita. The most obvious derivation is sueta, meaning “trifle,” “bustle,” “vain activity.” The Russian for the biblical “vanity of vanities” is sueta suet.
Ksyusha is a diminutive of Ksenya, a common Russian name derived from the Greek xenos, meaning “stranger.” Her surname, Sekushcheva, may be derived from the verb sech’, meaning “to cut,” “to chop,” “to flog.”
Vershkov: Here I have simply transliterated, since I am unsure of the relevance of the Russian name. This is evidently derived from the noun vershok, an old unit of length equivalent to 1.75 inches but often used figuratively, with the sense of “a tiny distance” or ‘‘a tiny amount.” The plural form, vershki, has the figurative meaning of “superficial knowledge.”
Endov: In the original, Kontsov. Konets means “end.”
Garmalov: In the end we decided to leave this untranslated, though we considered “Ruov.” The name is derived from garmala, a common Russian name for Peganum harmala, a hardy drought-resistant perennial known in English as African rue, Syrian rue, and wild rue. In Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other countries in the region, dried capsules from this plant are strung and hung in homes to protect against the evil eye. The other Russian name for Peganum harmala is mogil’nik, which also means “cemetery” or “burial ground.”
Carbinov: In the original, Berdanshchik. The obsolete noun berdanka is the colloquial name for a rifle that was standard issue in the Russian army from 1870 to 1891.
More generally: A Russian has three names—a Christian name, a patronymic (derived from the Christian name of the father), and a family name. Thus, Ignat Nikanorovich is the son of a man whose first name is Nikanor, and Maria Ivanovna is the daughter of a man called Ivan. The first name and patronymic, used together, are the normal polite way of addressing or referring to a person; the family name is used less often. Close friends or relatives usually address one another by one of the many diminutive, or affectionate, forms of their first names. Masha, for example, is a diminutive of Maria, Tanya is a diminutive of Tatyana, and Antoshka is a diminutive of Anton. Less obviously, Ksyusha is a diminutive of Ksenya, and Mitya of Dmitry; still less obviously—since the paths for the formations of diminutives are complex—Dusya is a diminutive of Avdotya.
Robert Chandler