Vasily

Vasily is the Russian cousin of Basil, both descended from the Greek basileios, "royal, kingly." It was the name of three grand princes of Moscow and, in its diminutive form Vasya, belonged to countless literary uncles and village cobblers. The cathedral of Saint Basil on Red Square, with its candy-striped onion domes, anchors the name in the Russian imagination. Three syllables, the stress on the second, it carries the unhurried cadence of a proper old-world introduction. Rarely heard in English-speaking countries, it remains an everyday Russian classic, as familiar there as John is in London.