Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A transliteration of the pet form of the Russian male given name Иван.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Romanization of Russian Ваня (Vánja, "Johnny"), a diminutive of Иван (Iván, "John")

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Examples

  • Vanya reached America young enough to become truly bilingual, quickly learning to speak English without a foreign accent, and taking to the way Americans pronounced his name -- 'van instead of Iv-n -- * eye*-vun instead of ee-*vahn* -- so readily that it was soon the name he used for himself, with _Vanya_ surviving only as his family's nickname for him.

    Enchantment Card, Orson Scott 1999

  • Uncle Vanya is thematically preoccupied with what might sentimentally be called the wasted life.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Jonathan Aquino 2009

  • Uncle Vanya is thematically preoccupied with what might sentimentally be called the wasted life.

    Capsule Summaries of the Great Books of the Western World Jonathan Aquino 2009

  • Speaking of divans, there is a Russian "folk" song called "Sidyel' Vanya" which plays on the name Vanya and the word "divan" if you will forgive my rotten Russian transliteration -- I do not know what the standard is -- and inability to enter Cyrillic:

    languagehat.com: DIVAN. 2005

  • Her descriptions of a conference of 25 international Tolstoy scholars at Yasnaya Polyana and a field trip to Chekhov's estate with an incontinent elderly professor called Vanya achieve the sublime silliness of Tom Stoppard's

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • Like its predecessors, this "Vanya" is a flawed enterprise whose defects arise from what I assume to be a specifically directorial decision: The acting is jarringly contemporary, the décor unabashedly traditional.

    In the Land of Nightmares 2009

  • Hers is the only performance in this "Vanya" that would make as much sense in a more conventional production, and it adds to my fast-growing conviction that Ms. Gummer is one of the most exciting young stage actresses in town.

    In the Land of Nightmares 2009

  • Considering Stephen's strained credibility in his comments pictured above link to his site here, I'll just go out on a crazy limb and suggest that Stephen Dodson is masquerading as "Vanya" and other names.

    The Language Hat caper solved -- Fraud 2008

  • Considering Stephen's strained credibility in his comments pictured above link to his site here, I'll just go out on a crazy limb and suggest that Stephen Dodson is masquerading as "Vanya" and other names.

    Archive 2008-02-01 2008

  • The groom in "Vanya" inspired the first of many eccentric O'Toole interpretations.

    &Quot;There Is A Legend. And To Protest Is Daft.& 2007

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