sons of Vladimir I was given the name Boris. As evidenced by the Rus' Primary Chronicle, Boris and Gleb were sons of Vladimir I, born to him by the Bulgarian princess. During Vladimir's reign in 988 the conversion of the Kievan Rus' to Christianity took place. In this conversion, both ordinary priests and prelates from Bulgaria played a significant part. Also, with the adoption of the Byzantine calendar and the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, the cult of St. Boris entered the Rus' Orthodox Church. In 1015, the princes Boris and Gleb were killed by their stepbrother Sviatopolk I of Kiev, who usurped the throne. Within a short time, Boris and Gleb were canonized and ever since, they have been the native soldier-saints most revered among the Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians. Spreading In addition to Kievan Rus the name Boris went over to other neighbours of Bulgaria as well. An example of this is the case of the Hungarian prince Boris Kalamanos (1112–1155), son of the Magyar king from his marriage with Euphtimia, daughter of the Kievan prince Vladimir II Monomakh. For a fairly long period men named Boris were found predominantly in the courts and among the nobility, but eventually the name became popular among all strata in the Russian Empire, including Siberia and Russian Alaska. Eventually the name spread internationally beginning in the mid-to-late 20th century. List of people with given name Boris Fictional characters Boris Badenov, the main antagonist in the 1960s animated cartoons The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show Boris Bushkin, a character in the cartoon M.A.S.K. (TV series) Boris Drubetskoy, an army officer in Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War And Peace Boris Grishenko, Russian hacker working for terrorists in the James Bond movie GoldenEye Boris Grushenko, the main character in the film Love and Death, played by Woody Allen Boris Kropotkin, Jewish character in the television show Rugrats Boris Pavlikovsky, character in Donna Tartt's 2013 novel The Goldfinch Boris the Animal, main antagonist character in the science fiction film Men in Black 3 Boris "the Blade" Yurinov, an arms dealer in the film Snatch "Boris the Spider", 1966 song by The Who Boris the wolf, a character from the episodic puzzle horror video game Bendy and the Ink Machine Boris, a redfish in the eponymous Italian TV series Boris, mightiest of the Warriors of Loathing in the Times of Old, from the internet game Kingdom of Loathing