Sonya

name

name ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A female given name from Russian Соня (Sonja).

    "It was Valery who had named her firstborn Sonya, after the figure skater Sonja Henie. "She moves through space so smoothly! She has such freedom!" she explained to Ray, the child's father. "Anything you want, honey," he replied, with a half-smile."

Example

More examples

"Some translators changed Alice's name to Sonya or Anya, even though Alisa is a widespread Russian name."

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian and Ukrainian Со́ня (Sónja), an informal pet form of Со́фья (Sófʹja), Софі́я (Sofíja) or Софи́я (Sofíja, “Sofia, Sophia”), from the Ancient Greek σοφία (sophía, “wisdom”). It was introduced into English through 19th century Russian literature and taken into general use in early twentieth century.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.