be sure of last names. no -adze (like Shevardnadze)- that is Georgian. no -skiy (Dostoyevski) as he may be Jewish, Polish, or Ukrainian. also -enko (as Chernyenko) would be Byelorussian or Ukrainian. no -vich as that is not Russian, either.
-ov (Kozlov- from goat), -in (Putin- our president), -ev are all safe, Russian name ends. Kuznetsov (derived from blacksmith) would be a good soccer-superhuman. Bezrukov (derived from armless) would be a joke on your non-Russian readers- who needs arms to play soccer anyway!!- except the goal keeper! Komarov is derived from mosquito, and Tarrakanov from cockroach. BE SURE if he has a wife, HER last name ends with "A". Kuznetsova. tennis great Sharapova has a father Sharapov.
AND! beware, middle names are not thrown about as in USA. Ivan's children all have the same middle name. Ivan Kuznetsov's sons are Vladimir Ivanovich Kuznetsov and Viktor Ivanovich K. their sisters would be Natasha Ivanovna K-a (Kuznetsova). and Maria Ivanovna K-a.
Mikhail, Aleksandr, Pyotr, Grigoriy, Andrey if you want his name to sound similar to English
Vadim, Artem, Bogdan, if you want his name to sound more exotic.
No middle name. The Russian full name includes a patronym instead but it's not always used especially by younger people. In any case, the patronym is formed by adding the suffix -ovich to the (father's) first name, for example, Ivanovich.
Strelkov, Pichugin, Konkin, Kuznetsov... as the last name
Something simple, easy to pronounce... Aleksandr maybe.
Ivan,
Мойша (Moisha). :-D
