About Ivan Il'ich Golovin

We know from the obituary announcement that the hero of our tale is named Ivan Il'ich Golovin (Иван Ильич Головин). I'm not at all an expert in the history and meaning of names, but some Googling and browsing in my reference works reveals the following:

• Iván: Ivan's first-name (Christian name, given name -- in Russian, imya имя) is the Russian variant of our Anglo-American John. Both names derive from the Greek Ἰωάννης, Iōannēs. (That "v" in Ivan isn't so strange when you think of the Italian version of John, Giovanni.) We in the English-speaking world got the name through the Romans (Johanne) who got it from the Greeks, but the Russians get it (and their religion) from the Greek (Byzantine) tradition. The name originates in Hebrew, Yôḥānān, "God is Gracious" or "God takes pity." As in English, Ivan is one of the more popular names in the Russian tradition. Russian, which has a very strong and elaborate nicknaming tradition, derives a number of variants from Ivan, some of which appear in the novel: Vanechka, Vaniusha, Vanyok, and Vanya (Ванечка, Ванёк, Ванюша, Ваня) being but a few. It's fairly important to point out, without in any way exaggerating the point, that Ivan is the stereotypical Russian first name -- like Tom for an Englishman or Fritz for a German of Pedro for a Mexican.
  
• Il'ích or Ilých: Russian patronymics (отчества) derive, fairly obviously, from the child's father's first name. Ivan's father's name was Il'ia (we could write it Il'ya, too) (Илья), or the name of the prophet Elijah, or Eliyahu, which means (probably) "my God is Yahu" (Yahu being one way to write the "unpronounceable name of God, aka Yahweh, aka the Judeo-Christian God"). Il'ya was and remains a very popular name for males.
  
• Golovín: Ivan's last name (family name, фамилия) is Golovín (Головин). Golova (голова) is "head" in Russian. Believe it or not, it was fairly common in Old Russian (say, seventh to the ninth century, in the area that now includes Belarus, Ukraine and Russia) to name your kids after parts of the body. There were names like Glaz (глаз eye), Ruka (рука arm), and Golova (голова head). Those first names eventually gave rise (like in English, with the name John) to family names, Golovin, Rukin, Glazov, (Головин, Рукин, Глазов), etc.
  

Now, Tolstoy wasn't one of those authors (like Dostoevsky) who gave his heroes representative names, names that indicated some essential quality. (Karamazov, for instance, means "stained" or "black" (карий, from Greek for black/brown) -- thus Dostoevsky's family is etymologically marked as sinners.) Nonetheless, at least in this case, Tolstoy's hero is aptly named -- he is the Russian Everyman (or just the Everyman). His challenge, like Elijah's, is bold and direct: "You have done evil in the sight of the Lord." And we get in his head, we gain access to his inner thoughts at that most intimate and personal, and universal and common, moment: Death.