“Generación Y” names in Cuba: Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yuniesky

Havana-based blogger Yoani Sánchez (b. 1975) has become an unofficial spokesperson for Cuba’s young people via her blog Generación Y.

Here’s how Yoani describes her blog, and its title:

Generation Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start with or contain a “Y”. Born in Cuba in the ’70s and ’80s, marked by schools in the countryside, Russian cartoons, illegal emigration and frustration. So I invite, especially, Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yusimí, Yuniesky and others who carry their “Y’s” to read me and to write to me.

During the 1970s and ’80s, the Soviet Union was providing substantial financial aid to Cuba, so Cuban names were no doubt being influenced by Russian names — many of which (like Yuri and Yevgeni) began with Y.

Here’s how Yoani explained the inventive names being bestowed in Cuba toward the end of the Cold War:

For some decades, Cubans named their children with a freedom they could not experience in other spheres in life. The grayness that the ration market and state control spread over our existence vanished when you inscribed your newborn’s name in the civil register. The parents played with the language and created real tongue twisters, such as the famous baseball player’s name: “Vicyohandri.” A few even came up with the unusual composition “Yesdasí,” a mix of the English, Russian and Spanish words for “yes.”

She also noted that the times had since changed — that an “entire generation that had been named as if it were a laboratory experiment, now prefers to go back to the old ways” (i.e., more traditional names). She summed it up this way: “Sanity has returned to the act of naming children.”

Sources:

• Generación Y
  • Naming the Children | Generation Y
• Contreras, Joe. “Cuba: Isle of Failed Promises.” Newsweek 23 Feb. 2008.
• “From inside Cuba, a young Cuban blogs Castro’s exit.” Salon 20 Feb. 2008.
• Rosenberg, Eli. “Postales del Mundo: Yoenis, Yoani, Yúnior… cómo nombrar a un niño cubano.” New York Times en Español 10 Jun. 2016.

Image: Adapted from Oldtimers on Paseo de Marti, Havana, Cuba by kuhnmi under CC BY 2.0.

[Latest update: Apr. 2025]