Officials in Tajikistan Not Happy About Resurgence of Russian Names

One official says the trend is a sign of a "low level of national and patriotic identity of the younger generation"

The spelling of one's name was once a point of patriotic pride in Tajikistan, where people rushed to drop Russian-style suffixes just a few years ago. 

After the country's president, in a nod to Tajik identity, dropped his Russified name Emomali Sharifovich Rahmonov for Emomali Rahmon in 2007, name endings like "-ov," "-ev," and "-ovich" began to disappear.