My first name in English is Paul.
This transliterates as пол in Russian. Is this actually a Russian name or does it sound strange?
Would павел be better?
As a priest I would be interested to know what Russians call Saint Paul and go with that!
Saint Paul is апостол Павел (Paul the Apostle). For this check Wikipedia and go to "languages" tab on the left. It is a very usfeul tool for such things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle
Similarly, if you try an article "Paul (name)" - you will find that in Russian it is Пол.
Пол is how we normally transcribe English name Paul. It is familiar to everyone!
When you wrote it with a lower-case initial, of course I thought about two otehr meanings (1. gender/sex 2. floor) but I never think of that when I hear Пол:)
Was there a single occasion in your life when hearing about Пол Маккартни you thought of "floor"?
No, I don't think that "Пол" sounds strange for most of the people nowadays. Your name is easy to pronounce, so it's not a problem either. Yes, in Russian, "пол" = "floor" or "sex" (male/female, this type of sex, no sexual connotations), but it strikes me as odd when somebody really puts this much thought into it: normally, we're used to homonyms and don't analyse others' names too much - unless it's a "funny sounding" name which is not the case with "Пол", imo. I really had to think about the "translations" before coming up with them.
But yes, Saint Paul = святой Павел. Why? Because there was a tradition to "translate" names from the Bible and names of monarchs (I think it's called "linguistic transposition" but I'm not sure). For example, King James is король Яков in Russian (=King Jacob), and Queen Elizabeth is королева Елизавета (not королева Элизабет). Moreover, Russian monarchs really changed their names when converting to Orthodoxy (e.g., Catherine the Great, born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst), but that's another story. Since you're not a monarch, you don't have to do it, I suppose. Being a priest, however... well, maybe it makes sense. Not sure about it. Anyway, both "Пол" and "Павел" sound fine to me.
or worse:
John Lennon is "Джон",
John the Baptist, John the Apostle and other "Biblical" Johns are "Иоанн"
common Russian male name analogous to "John" and derived from "Иоанн" is "Иван"
P.S. But Joshua (from Book of Joshua) is "Иисус Навин". "Навин" ([son] of Nun) is added to distinguish him from Christ (Иисус Христос).
- When put in Russian context, e.g. if you say "Пол Иванович Семёнов" - that is actually used as a Russian name, with a clearly Russian surname and patronimic - Paul can look odd.
And may be make you think of 'floor' or 'half' (in compound words пол- can mean half). It is very uncommon for Russians to give English names to their kids.
- Eveyone is familiar with English "Paul".
We all, educated or not, read novels, watch TV-series and films and also news, football etc.
Really many of those novels (classic and modern) and TV-series are foreign and were tranlated to Russian. Most of them, actually!!! And you can imagine, there are news about USA, there are British football players, there are English speaking musitians...
And all the British, Irish, American, Australian and so on Pauls are Пол's there. It is impossible not to have familiarized yourself with "Пол" if you are 10 y.o. and Russian.
- Nevertheless, if you try Павел it won't sound odd. It is unusual, may be some people will think your have Russian roots or ask you why...but it is not odd or weird in any way.
Пол and Павел still have some similarity in spelling and pronunciation. I think, many people are aware that it is the same name:)
