Monday, November 9, 2015

Russian Family Names

Many Russian family names have different forms for men and women. In fact, this is also true of other Slavic languages such as Polish, Czech and Slovak. Most Russian family names have a masculine and a feminine form.

In many cases, an -a is added to a name to make it feminine. For example, the feminine versions of the family names Alexeyev, Denisov, Kuznetsov, Safin and Semenov are Alexeyeva, Denisova, Kuznetsova, Safina and Semenova. Many Russian family names end with -ov and -ova.

Names which end in -ski change to -skaya. For example, the female version of Krasinski is Krasinskaya. In other cases, there is no change. For example, the names Chernykh, Pavliv and Petrenko are the same for both men and women. This is also true for foreign names.

Many Russian family names have different forms for men and women. To make a name feminine, an -a is usually added. With family names which end in -ski, the suffix becomes -skaya. However, some Russian family names are invariable.

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