Elem

This name was created by Communist parents who were eager to reject traditional names. It is usually a combination of the surnames Энгельс (Engels), Ленин (Lenin) and Маркс (Marks), which refer to Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) and Karl Marx (1818-1883). As such, one could say that the name is intended to commemorate the creation of the former Soviet state, since the aforementioned men had a profound influence on its establishment, despite the fact that two of them were long dead by the time the state came to be.

However, there have been cases where there is a different etymology behind the name. In these cases, the name was either derived from French elle aime meaning "she loves" or inspired by Elam Harnish (see Elam), the protagonist of the novel Burning Daylight (1910) written by the American author Jack London (1876-1916). The late Russian film director Elem Klimov (1933-2003) is said to be among the people whose name came from the latter.

Possibly a short form of Suelem.