Origin: Siberian

Transliteration of Russian Ле́нин (Lénin), probably due to the use of a passport of the friend, Nikolay Lenin, whose surname originated from the Siberian Lena river. It is commonly believed that the Lena derives its name from the original Even-Evenk name Elyu-Ene, which means "the Large River". By surface analysis, Lena + -in, "the man from the Lena". Another street name of a fellow Old Bolshevik conspirator, Stalin (“the man of steel”), is comparable as an alias based on an alleged attribute; and Bukharin is morphologically comparable as "a person from said place" (Bukhara + -in) but was Nikolai Bukharin's real surname rather than a street name.

Etymology: Wiktionary (CC-BY-SA)