Aleksey

Aleksey is the Russian form of Alexis, from the Greek Alexios, defender, and it belongs to tsars, saints, and Tolstoy characters alike. Saint Alexius of Rome wandered in voluntary poverty; Tsar Alexis presided over seventeenth-century Muscovy; Tolstoy himself was born Lev, but the name Aleksey runs through Anna Karenina as Vronsky and Karenin both. Three syllables with the stress on the second, soft and rolling, it carries the full weight of Russian naming tradition without stiffness. In everyday speech it shortens to Alyosha, warmer still. Aleksey reads strong and classical, a name with samovars and long winters behind it.