# All Slavic languages: Foreign females name - gender transformation



## Jana337

Hello, 

I'd like you to tell me whether 
a) foreign female names are transformed in your language,
b) and (regardless of whether the answer to a) is yes or no) what you think about it.
Opinions of non-Slavic speakers are also welcome.

Explanation:
Exceptions (Jírů, Kočí) aside, Czech females do not bear the same names as the males of their family.
The most common mutation is *-ová*; Mr. Novák's wife is Mrs. Nováková and Martina Navrátilová's father was (is?) called Navrátil.
The female version of male names that end in *-ý* (they look like adjectives) has an ending -á. Some of you may remember another Czech tennis player - Jana Novotná. Her father's name is Novotný.
This internal issue has international implications . We tend to do the same to foreign females.
The US president's wife is called Laura Bushová, the German chancellor is Angela Merkelová etc. We add -ová to most foreign names.
If foreign names end in -ki, we treat them as if they ended in -ký: Monica Lewinská, Nastassja Kinská etc.
Some famous women are allowed to keep their names unchanged - Edith Piaf, Marylin Monroe, Greta Garbo, Agatha Christie (and I could add many contemporary pop-icons better known to their Czech fans from foreign than from Czech sources) - but they are exceptions.
And yes, Chinese and Korean names are usually, but not always, left alone as well (they are very funny if changed - Chinese names, for example, start with the last name, so we would tag our *-ová* on the first name ).
Interestingly, we do not spare Russian names either although they already have the female ending *-a* already. Mr. Ivanov's wife is Ivanovová and not Ivanova for us.
This practice is not uncontroversial, although the majority of the Czech population sticks to it. Its backers argue that the transformation is due to the internal logic of Czech, a highly inflected language. In Czech, *A killed B* can also mean *B killed A* thanks to the case endings. Similarly, we can say *Grafová porazila Selešovou* (Graf beat Seleš) and* Grafovou porazila Selešová* (Seleš beat Graf). If you said *Graf porazila Seleš*, we wouldn't know what you mean. Foreign female nouns are unfortunately invariant (male ones can be declined).

However, many (I dare say increasingly many) people are in favor of keeping foreign names unchanged. Some foreign names already have the female component built in, like some Slavic (mentioned above) or Icelandic (Jóns*son* - Jóns*dóttir*) ones. Angela Merkel is Angela Merkel and not Angela Merkelová, and we should call her Merkel out of respect. This is what they would do: *Der Spiegel published an interview with Angela Merkel. - Der Spiegel zveřejnil rozhovor s Angelou*(-ou is an ending of the instrumental case) *Merkel. 

* Personally, I don't find this argument very appealing because it is inconsistent in the first place. She is called Angela and not Angelou, and if we want to respect her this way, we should stop inflecting her first name, too (for the record, I have never heard anyone advocate the suspension of inflections of foreign first names).

As you can probably sense, I lean towards transforming foreign names. But here comes the problem: While I am in favor in principle, I find it very hard to change the names of my foreign female friends. 

Since I don't like being of two minds, I hope you can help me resolve the dilemma. Do you think our practice could offend foreigners?

Yours sincerely,

Jana -ová 

P.S. Some readings (in Czech):
Ludvík Vaculík - O tom našem přechylování
Petr Staníček - Stop přechylování (reader comments are worth reading as well)
Wikipedia - Discussion about the standard to be applied in articles 
Přemysl Jedlička - Skloňování a přechylování
Ústav pro jazyk český - vyjádření
Václav Jamek - Thatcherová žalující


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## slowik

In Polish foreign surnames are never changed, unless they let us change them - i.e. _Merkel _is always _Merkel_ but _Navratilova_ can be _Navratilovej in "Kolejny sukces Navratilovej" (Navratilova's another success) _depending on the case we need to use. We always change first names though.


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## Nanon

Slightly off-topic - feminisation of names gives interesting results when the name is transmitted to a male in another country and language.
For instance, here is a stub in the French Wikipedia about a Belgian poet named Eugène Savitzkaya. Literally Евгений Савицкая?!


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## echo chamber

In Macedonian, they are always written in the way they are pronounced(which I don`t like), but nothing else can be done, because we use a cyrillic alphabet and every single letter represents one voice.

Ex. Merkel - Меркел
     Navratilova - Навратилова
     Thierry Henry - Тиери Анри
     Friedrich Nietsche - Фридрих Ниче, etc.

 However, lately there has been a huge tendency, the names of the companies, bands, movies, etc., to be written authentically, in latin alphabet.

Ex. _Red Hot Chili Peppers_ утре ќе имаат концерт во Лондон. - Tomorrow, _Red Hot Chili Peppers_ will hold a concert in London. 

Regarding our surnames, we also have two forms (male/female surname). 

Ex. Ivano*vski*/Ivano*vska *
     There is also a big number of surnames having one form only.-*Mrs.Rudin/Mr.Rudin*, etc.

 I personally don`t think foreigners should be offended by this "change". It`s not our fault after all, we have been using our mother language since we were born. How can we suddenly change everything so fast?  We macedonians, mostly don`t have the problem of pronouncing foreign names, having nearly all the sounds and even more! 
Then again, I never feel offended or angry when a foreigner keeps mistaking macedonian names, for example. I know that it is difficilt for a non-macedonian(especially non-slavic) speaker to pronounce the letters _ѓ_ or _љ_ for example, because they have never come across them. Also, if the language has cases, the names change as well, but that`s the way it is, and no person should be offended by that, because that`s the way my language "tells" me to do. If you ask for my opinion though, NO, I don`t want it to be like that, but I would certainly never ever offend!
I hope that I got the point previously and that this is what Jana337 refers to.


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## Irbis

In Slovenian:

George Bush je prišel. (nominative)
Bush je prišel.
Gledam Georgea Busha. (accusative)
Gledam Busha.
Laura Bush je prišla.
Busheva je prišla. (this sounds a bit impolite to me and I would usually replaced with "Gospa Bush je prišla." or somethink like that if the first name cannot be used)
Gledam Lauro Bush.
Gledam Bushevo. (also a bit impolite, "Gledam gospo Bush." is better)

It is the same model with Slovenian surnames. The only exception (both for Slovenian and foreign) are surnames ending with -a, where you have declension also for women.

Ivana Kobilca je prišla.
Gledam Ivano Kobilco.

And there is no exception for Angela Markel. A sample of newspaper headline: Bush in Merklova za diplomatsko rešitev
With full names this would be:
George Bush in Angela Merkel za diplomatsko rešitev

Or with your sample:
Der Spiegel je objavil intervju z Angelo Merkel.
Der Spiegel je objavil intervju z Merklovo.


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## Athaulf

In Croatia, each family name has the same form for both men and women in nominative. The majority of family names are grammatically masculine, and those decline according to the normal masculine declensions when referring to men, but don't decline at all when referring to women. For example:

_N: Ivan *Jurić *-- Ivana *Jurić*__
G: Ivana *Jurića* -- Ivane *Jurić*
D: Ivanu *Juriću *-- Ivani *Jurić*
...
_
The same goes for those few family names that are grammatically neuter. It even holds for Slavic family names that end in clearly recognizable masculine adjectival suffixes such as -_ov_ or -_ski_ (however, as far as I know, all such family names in Croatia are of foreign origin; Croatian names are traditionally created using diminutive suffixes such as _-ić_ or _-ek_, rather than these possessive ones). 

Because of this, sentences in which a woman is mentioned only by her family name often sound awkward, but this is normally remedied by adding the first name or some title like _gospođa_ (= _Mrs._) in front of the family name. In everyday language, people often use suffixes to convert the family name into a feminine form, similar to what Czechs do (e.g. _Jurićka _or _Jurićeva_). However, this is improper in formal speech and writing, and it sounds disrespectful except when talking about close friends or relatives. 

On the other hand, those relatively few family names that are grammatically feminine always decline for men, but not always for women. This is actually a pretty obscure issue; some names intuitively sound better when declined, and others when not. If I'm not mistaken, declension is formally considered as optional in this case, and people normally use whichever option sounds better (usually the declined one). 

Now, when it comes to foreign names, they are not transcribed if the original language uses the Latin alphabet. The formal rules for their declension are unbelievably complicated and esoteric, and even the official experts are often contradicting each other there. They also sometimes result in things that make my language instinct scream in agony. However, foreign female surnames generally follow the same patterns as domestic ones, depending on what gender they naturally take when imported into Croatian (in the vast majority of cases, this means masculine). Interestingly, the separate female forms of Russian, Czech, and other foreign Slavic names are kept and declined as feminine, even though if these people actually migrated to Croatia, only the masculine version would be passed onto their offspring of either sex.



Jana337 said:


> In Czech, *A killed B* can also mean *B killed A* thanks to the case endings. Similarly, we can say *Grafová porazila Selešovou* (Graf beat Seleš) and* Grafovou porazila Selešová* (Seleš beat Graf). If you said *Graf porazila Seleš*, we wouldn't know what you mean. Foreign female nouns are unfortunately invariant (male ones can be declined).



But don't you have the exact same situation with neuter nouns? (I don't know much about Czech, but since it's Indo-European, I'd gladly bet a monthly salary that its neuter accusative is identical to nominative. ) In Croatian, we simply assume the subject-verb-object order if the cases are ambiguous. Whatever one might otherwise think about the issue, I don't think this is a very strong argument. 



> This is what they would do: *Der Spiegel published an interview with Angela Merkel. - Der Spiegel zveřejnil rozhovor s Angelou*(-ou is an ending of the instrumental case) *Merkel.
> *


Yes, this is exactly what we do:_ Der Spiegel je objavio intervju s *Angelom Merkel*__. 
_


> Personally, I don't find this argument very appealing because it is inconsistent in the first place. She is called Angela and not Angelou, and if we want to respect her this way, we should stop inflecting her first name, too (for the record, I have never heard anyone advocate the suspension of inflections of foreign first names).
> 
> As you can probably sense, I lean towards transforming foreign names. But here comes the problem: While I am in favor in principle, I find it very hard to change the names of my foreign female friends.
> 
> Since I don't like being of two minds, I hope you can help me resolve the dilemma. Do you think our practice could offend foreigners?


Well, realistically speaking, anyone's name will come out as a jumbled mess when pronounced by just about any foreigner anyway, so if people will get offended by their names getting changed in foreign languages, they might as well insist that they shouldn't be pronounced at all by anyone who doesn't speak their language and who doesn't put maximum effort into pronouncing them as close to the original as possible. And come to think of it, when speaking Croatian I still distort English names as hard as I did back when I didn't know any English at all, and so does just about anyone else I know (only about a half of English phonemes have equivalent sounds in Croatian). Furthermore, what should we then say when foreigners take our Croatian or Czech names, strip off the diacritic marks and happily go on to pronounce the mutilated remains according to their own spelling?  

Personally, I like the way Czechs handle the issue of awkward (non-)declensions of women's surnames. The fact that something similar exists in colloquial Croatian shows a real need for a solution like this. 

However, I wonder if anyone in the Czech Republic has yet made a case from a feminist perspective that women are degraded by naming them using the father's/husband's name plus a possessive suffix? Or are the PC winds still so weak over there?


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## Athaulf

Nanon said:


> Slightly off-topic - feminisation of names gives interesting results when the name is transmitted to a male in another country and language.
> For instance, here is a stub in the French Wikipedia about a Belgian poet named Eugène Savitzkaya. Literally Евгений Савицкая?!



I'd guess that in Poland, they're similarly laughing at all those Polish girls born here in Canada whose surnames end in _-ski_.


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## skoros

In Serbo-Croatian language there is no such distinction between "female" and "male" last names. The only time we would use similar suffixes is in the genitive form of a name to indicate possession. 

For example, John Smith and Sarah Smith would be 'Džon Smit' and 'Sara Smit'. They both still have the same last name without a suffix that indicates gender. In genitive case however:

with feminine noun 'glava' (head):
'John's head.' and 'Sarah's head.'
'Džonova glava.'  and 'Sarina glava.'

with neuter noun 'srce' (heart): 
'John's heart.' and 'Sarah's heart.' 
'Džonovo srce.' and 'Sarino srce.'

with masculine noun 'nos' (nose): 
'John's nose.' and 'Sarah's nose.'  
'Džonov nos.' and 'Sarin nos.'


I see Athauf responded while I was writing my response. The same rules apply here as well.


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## Q-cumber

In Russian, foreign female names/surnames are never transformed. <Well, perhaps "never" isn't the right word...there might be some exceptions >
...Ангела Меркель, Лаура Буш and so on 
And, as I just discovered, "male-type" female surnames aren't declined, in contradistinction to male surnames. 

*Я видел Джорджа Буша,* but *Я видел Лауру Буш.*
*Я написал письмо Адольфу Меркелю* <some imaginary person>, but *Я написал письмо Ангеле Меркель.*


As to Mrs.Rudin/Mr.Rudin, sampled by *echo chamber*, this surname is actually Russian. Г-н Рудин & г-жа Рудина



			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> Since I don't like being of two minds, I hope you can help me resolve the dilemma. Do you think our practice could offend foreigners?



Well, speaking generally, I think that a person's name is his/her property and it should be preserved as far as this is possible.  And, I afraid, such a practice could occasionally offend some foreigners, especially when a transformed name appears in personal documents.  
By the way, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities declares that:


> The Parties undertake to recognise that every person belonging to a national minority has the right to use his or her surname (patronym) and first names in the minority language and the right to official recognition of them, according to modalities provided for in their legal system.


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## jester.

What a coincidcence... It was just yesterday evening that I saw a report on TV about a Ukranian woman whose father's family name was Galina, if memory serves. Her own family name was Galianova (I think).

I thought this was maybe a genitive ending, because the woman is the daughter of the father. Am I on the right track here and does this also have something to do with the phenomenon Jana describes or is this just a coincidence?


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## Duya

Athaulf said:


> In everyday language, people often use suffixes to convert the family name into a feminine form, similar to what Czechs do (e.g. _Jurićka _or _Jurićeva_). However, this is improper in formal speech and writing, and it sounds disrespectful except when talking about close friends or relatives.



Are you sure? Serbian standard actually mandates "conversion into a possesive" when the first name is omitted: http://www.rastko.org.yu/filologija/odbor/odluka030.html
although this plausibly could be different in Croatian.



Athaulf said:


> On the other hand, those relatively few family names that are grammatically feminine always decline for men, but not always for women. This is actually a pretty obscure issue; some names intuitively sound better when declined, and others when not. If I'm not mistaken, declension is formally considered as optional in this case, and people normally use whichever option sounds better (usually the declined one).



Yes. Let me summarize the recommendations from the link above:

First names not ending in -a:
When there's a common equivalent name, decline it as a translated name. Generally, keep the nominative intact (although its conversion is possible as well):
Elisabeth -> Elizabet (n) or Elizabeta (n) -> Elizabete (g)
Susan -> Suzan (n) or Suzana (n) -> Suzane (g)
Otherwise, keep it indeclinable:
Ingrid -> Ingrid (n) -> Ingrid (g)
Kim -> Kim (n) -> Kim (g)
It's ugly for possesive: "Ingridin" might even work, but "Kimin" definitively wouldn't 
(Unlike Serbian, Croatian doesn't transcribe the original, but then they have problems with declination: attaching Slavic suffixes to foreign names doesn't always look nice)
Female family names are never declined when accompanied with first name anyway.

Female family names, when used alone:
Should generally be in possesive form: _Petrovićeva->Petrovićeve, Grafova__->Grafove__, Selešova, _etc.
If of Slavic origin (work as an adjective), they're not "mutilated" further (Russian ones usually have -я cut off): _Navratilova->Navratilove, Plisecka->Plisecke, Kurnjikova, Safina _etc.
However, it is acknowledged that those should be avoided in direct speech. There's always an option to accompany the surname with a qualificative: _sa gospođom Petrović_, _sa doktoricom Pavlović_, which sounds somewhat more polite.


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## echo chamber

Q-cumber said:


> this surname is actually Russian. Г-н Рудин & г-жа Рудина



 In Macedonia both the male and the female stay Рудин, no _a_ is added for the female version. This occurs in many surnames of this kind, actually, the ones that don`t end in *в/вски*. And it may be russian, I can`t argue this, because I am not sure myself either.  
 Both my name and surname are russian too. (I wonder where do I hail from...)


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## lavverats

Hi,
If we have an appropriate sound in Bulgarian, we never change the original sounding of the foreign names, but just transcribe them to cyrillic.
For example:
Laura Bush = Лора Буш (but with rolling “r”)
Angela Merkel = Ангела Меркел (but if Angela comes from English it would be “Анджела”)
Martina Hingis = Мартина Хингис, etc.
There are some problems with palatalized vowels (Russian for example): 
We write “Елена” and pronounce it like “Эльэна”, but not “Jeljena”
Another problemis “th” (English) or “θ” (Greek). It becomes “т (t)” or “д (d)”– we just don’t have such a sound in Bulgarian. (Athena Pallada = Атина Палада, but not “a θinə”), etc.
No problems with the inflexion of foreign names, because as you probably know there are no cases in Bulgarian language (excepting some remnants for possessive pronounces and Vocative case, but it is rarely used for female names).
Pozdravy,


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## Maroseika

jester. said:


> What a coincidcence... It was just yesterday evening that I saw a report on TV about a Ukranian woman whose father's family name was Galina, if memory serves. Her own family name was Galianova (I think).
> 
> I thought this was maybe a genitive ending, because the woman is the daughter of the father. Am I on the right track here and does this also have something to do with the phenomenon Jana describes or is this just a coincidence?


Golianova literally means a woman, belonging to Golian (musc. name). i.e. -ov-/-ev- is a possessive suffix, and -a is a fem. index.
However -a also may be an index of musc. genitive or accusative (only animated).
Therefore Golianova (fem. nominative) and Golianova (musc. genitive/accusative) are homonyms.


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> In Russian, foreign female names/surnames are never transformed.


I wonder, what would we do with the wife of Zbignev Brzezinski? Like all Polish surnames he is getting Russian ending - Бжезинский.
Therefore I suspect that his wife in Russian would be Бжезинская. 
The same happens with the feminine surnames of the first Russian emigration wave descendents, whose Russian surnames have been transformed according to the French rules: Mrs. Rybakoff would be Рыбакова in Russian, I guess. Or maybe not?


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## werrr

Athaulf said:


> However, I wonder if anyone in the Czech Republic has yet made a case from a feminist perspective that women are degraded by naming them using the father's/husband's name plus a possessive suffix? Or are the PC winds still so weak over there?


Yes, it happens sometime. But in the Czech Republic there is feminism  more derided than respectected .

And in addition, the argumentation is based on false assumption – the suffix “-ová” is standard adjectival suffix, the possessive suffix is “-ova”. Both are of genitive origin, but they are different:

N -ová  × -ova
G -ové  × -ovy
D -ové  × -ově
A -ovou × -ovu
V -ová  × -ova
L -ové  × -ově
I -ovou × -ovou

The suffix “-ová” is used in clearly non-possessive adjectives, like:

kovová   = (made) of metal
vodová   = (made) of water
oranžová = of orange color



			
				Q-cumber said:
			
		

> Well, speaking generally, I think that a person's name is his/her property and it should be preserved as far as this is possible. And, I afraid, such a practice could occasionally offend some foreigners, especially when a transformed name appears in personal documents.
> By the way, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities declares that:
> 
> 
> 
> The Parties undertake to recognise that every person belonging to a national minority has the right to use his or her surname (patronym) and first names in the minority language and the right to official recognition of them, according to modalities provided for in their legal system.
Click to expand...

The naming convention for legal purposes is different. It is more respectful to the original form.

But for common Czech, I think we have to decline the names (After all, Czech is inflective, isn’t?). And to decline a name, we have to fit it somehow into our declension models, right?

The purpose of language is communication. Using of gender transformation in Czech disables misunderstandings, not-using of it could, at the most, result in outburst of political correctness. 

I consider the declension of foreign names in Czech as offensive and politically incorrect as non-declension of Czech names in English.


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> I wonder, what would we do with the wife of Zbignev Brzezinski? Like all Polish surnames he is getting Russian ending - Бжезинский.
> Therefore I suspect that his wife in Russian would be Бжезинская.
> The same happens with the feminine surnames of the first Russian emigration wave descendents, whose Russian surnames have been transformed according to the French rules: Mrs. Rybakoff would be Рыбакова in Russian, I guess. Or maybe not?



I think in the event a foreign name appears somewhat "Russian-like", it becomes a subject of declension. Moreover, Slavic names, unlike non-slavic ones, might be occasionally transformed in Russian transcription. Expecially this is true for Polish surnames  ending with *-ski*.  But I don't agree this a rule or a predominant practice.
      Zbigniew Brzeziński's name is often spelled as Бжезински. 


> Публикуем перевод фрагментов книги известного американского журналиста Мэтью Бжезински «Казино Москва»...


A popular in Russia Polish actress Barbara Brylska is always Барбара Брыльска (not Брыльская) and so on. 



			
				werrr said:
			
		

> The naming convention for legal purposes is different. It is more respectful to the original form.



Hi *werrr*!

This was actually related to the name *transformations*, not the declensions...since the initial Jana's question was:


> I'd like you to tell me whether
> a) foreign female names are transformed in your language,
> b) and (regardless of whether the answer to a) is yes or no) what you think about it.


The only reason why I refered the document was that I suggested that such a sentence could be included, because some "offended foreigners" were complaining about transformations of their names.


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## werrr

Q-cumber said:


> Hi *werrr*!
> 
> This was actually related to the name *transformations*, not the declensions…


Yes, Q-cumber, I’m aware of the difference, see what I did write actually:



			
				werrr said:
			
		

> But for common Czech, I think we have to decline the names (After all, Czech is inflective, isn’t?). And to decline a name, we have to fit it somehow into our declension models, right?


By transforming “Merkel” to “Merkelová” we enable the declension of this name. Without it we can’t decline it, the name “Merkel” doesn’t fit Czech female declension models.


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> I think in the event a foreign name appears somewhat "Russian-like", it becomes a subject of declension. Moreover, Slavic names, unlike non-slavic ones, might be occasionally transformed in Russian transcription. Expecially this is true for Polish surnames ending with *-ski*. But I don't agree this a rule or a predominant practice.
> Zbigniew Brzeziński's name is often spelled as Бжезински.


Yes, you are right, very often. However Бжезинский is still used 15 times more often, accoridng to Google.
And anyway even Бжезински and Брыльска are declined as if ending on -ий/-ая, with the only exception for the latter in Gen./Acc (Брыльску is used as often as Брыльскую).
As for other declensions I even cannot imagine anything like Он показал Брыльске город or Он сделал Брыльска предложение.
We may conclude therefore that Polish surnames are usually declined as if ending like Russian surnames.
By the way, how Brylska is declined in Dative and Instrumental in Polish?


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## Q-cumber

werrr said:


> Yes, Q-cumber, I’m aware of the difference, see what I did write actually:
> 
> By transforming “Merkel” to “Merkelová” we enable the declension of this name. Without it we can’t decline it, the name “Merkel” doesn’t fit Czech female declension models.


OK, I see your point.



Maroseika said:


> Yes, you are right, very often. However Бжезинский is still used 15 times more often, accoridng to Google.
> We may conclude therefore that Polish surnames are usually declined as if ending like Russian surnames.
> By the way, how Brylska is declined in Dative and Instrumental in Polish?



Well, Zbigniew Brzeziński is a particular case. He is a public person; his name has "more standard" spelling in Russian (Бжезинский). And it seems like *all* the Google results refer to the very man only. Should we examine an "ordinary" Polish surname - for instance, Dabrowski/Дабровски/Дабровский - the results will be opposite. By the way, when analysing the Google results, we should keep in mind that these may include "adopted" Polish surnames. Many of them are used by Russians nowadays...



> And anyway even Бжезински and Брыльска are declined as if ending on -ий/-ая, with the only exception for the latter in Gen./Acc (Брыльску is used as often as Брыльскую).
> As for other declensions I even cannot imagine anything like Он показал Брыльске город or Он сделал Брыльска предложение.



Why not? As you know, there is a female deputy in the Russian parliament called *Любовь Слиска*...and her surname is always declined this way - *Он показал Любови Слиске город.* / *Он сделал Любови Слиске предложение. *Can you imagine anything like *Он показал Любови Слиской город.* ?


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## Athaulf

Duya said:


> Athaulf said:
> 
> 
> 
> In everyday language [in Croatia], people often use suffixes to convert the family name [of a woman] into a feminine form, similar to what Czechs do (e.g. _Jurićka _or _Jurićeva_). However, this is improper in formal speech and writing, and it sounds disrespectful except when talking about close friends or relatives.
> 
> 
> 
> Are you sure? Serbian standard actually mandates "conversion into a possesive" when the first name is omitted: http://www.rastko.org.yu/filologija/odbor/odluka030.html
> although this plausibly could be different in Croatian.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately, I don't know of any such systematic overview of the modern Croatian standard on the web, but as far as I remember, any source I've ever seen says that female surnames that aren't grammatically feminine should not be declined. I've never seen an explicit condemnation of such Czech-like transformations, but I've definitely never heard of them being mandated either. I would certainly never use them in formal writing, and even in everyday speech, they definitely have the feel of familiarity at best, and disrespect at worst. I'm actually pretty surprised by what I read on the above link. Is this some recent innovation, or was this the practice in Serbia even in the old days?

Googling for the topic, I found this interesting link with a discussion of the issue by a retired Croatian language professor (the link seems to be dead at the moment, but it's available cached). It pretty much confirms what I've written above:Maretićev prijedlog [iz 1924.] da se nesklanjanje uklanja dodavanjem _-ka_ i _-eva_, Petrovićka, Petrovićeva, nije prihvaćen. Prvi nije mogao biti jer su u hrvatskome književnome jeziku ženska prezimena na_ -ka_, Petrovićka, blaže ili jače podrugljivo obilježena kao što sam pokazao u Tvorbi riječi u § 845. i § 846.; drugi, Petrovićeva, nije jer se u praksi susreće veoma rijetko, katkada samo u športu, a ženska imena i prezimena kao Karmen, Ines, Mercedes, Petrović, Nikolić, Vidović... moraju biti ženskoga roda, a kako imenice ženskoga roda i-vrste: _stvar_, _stvari_ ne primaju više takve nove imenice, ne preostaje drugo, nego da se ne sklanjaju. Zato Hrvatski jezični savjetnik dobro savjetuje: "Ženska se imena na suglasnik, tj. ženska imena s ništičnim nastavkom (_Dagmar_, _Ines_, _Ingrid_, _Karmen_, _Manon_, _Mercedes_, _Nives_) ne sklanjaju." (str. 84.)

​


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## Athaulf

Duya said:


> (Unlike Serbian, Croatian doesn't transcribe the original, but then they have problems with declination *declension* _[I keep making the same mistake  -- A.]_: attaching Slavic suffixes to foreign names doesn't always look nice)



Yes, huge problems. The formal rules for attaching these suffixes make the C++ standard look simple and comprehensible in comparison. I'd frankly prefer if we just transliterated them as in Serbia.


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## Hal1fax

In Polish foreign names are declined if thats what the question was.


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> Well, Zbigniew Brzeziński is a particular case. He is a public person; his name has "more standard" spelling in Russian (Бжезинский). And it seems like *all* the Google results refer to the very man only. Should we examine an "ordinary" Polish surname - for instance, Dabrowski/Дабровски/Дабровский - the results will be opposite
> 
> 
> 
> Well, but I failed to find "Дабровске" or "Дабровску".
> I'd say russyfeing Polish surnames is rather old tradition - so old, that almost became the rule: Володыевский, Качиньский, Хмелевская, Ярузельский, Сикорский, etc., etc...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why not? As you know, there is a female deputy in Russian parlament called *Любовь Слиска*...and her surname is always being declined this way - *Он показал Любови Слиске город.* / *Он сделал Любови Слиске предложение. *Can you imagine anything like *Он показал Любови Слиской город.* ?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I'm far not sure Слиска is a good example. I don't think this surname is "polishified" Слиская.
Click to expand...


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## Nanon

Athaulf said:


> I'd guess that in Poland, they're similarly laughing at all those Polish girls born here in Canada whose surnames end in _-ski_.


I'd guess they should, but because most family names are transmitted by fathers, it's somehow more usual than the other way round... 
If, let's say, a girl of Polish ascent is born in France, Canada or in many other countries, I doubt she will ever be able to use the feminine form of her name.
There is also the famous "Cauchy-Kowalevski theorem" which does not sound very fair for women, however Софья Ковалевская herself seemed to use the masculine form of her name outside Russia. But it was quite a long time ago...


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## Q-cumber

Nanon said:


> I'd guess they should, but because most family names are transmitted by fathers, it's somehow more usual than the other way round...
> If, let's say, a girl of Polish ascent is born in France, Canada or in many other countries, I doubt she will ever be able to use the feminine form of her name.
> There is also the famous "Cauchy-Kowalevski theorem" which does not sound very fair for women, however Софья Ковалевская herself seemed to use the masculine form of her name outside Russia. But it was quite a long time ago...



The maiden name of Софья Ковалевская was Корвин-Круковская. *Ковалевский* was her husband's surname. I don't know whether ot not it was of Polish origin, but Владимир Ковалевский was born in Russia.


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## MagdaDH

Hal1fax said:


> In Polish foreign names are declined if thats what the question was.



Some are, some aren't. French names are often not declined, and names that don't lend themselves to being declined. So _*Bush, Busha, Bushowi*_; but _*Monroe, Monroe, Monroe. *_. It seems to me that female names (apart from Slavic ones) are less often declined than male names. So _*Powiedzial Panu Bushowi*_ but _*Powiedzial Pani Bush*_. I would hazard that names ending in "a" would be declined for males and females. Altoghether in the same manner as atypical Polish female names are not declined while the male counterparts are.

So, a woman called _Grabiec_, would not be declined (widzialem _Grabiec_, powedzialem _Grabiec_), but a male would be (widzialem _Grabca_, powiedzialem _Grabcowi_). This is obviously the result of the fact that traditionally, woman would not be called _Grabiec, _she would be either _Grabcowa _(if married& named after her husband) or _Grabcowna _(if unmarried and named after her father). This is becoming obsolete, thus the language adapts. 


I think, however, that the question was not whether they are declined but whether they are adapted, as in the example of _*Merkelova*_

Tha answer is, they are *NOT *adapted: Bush stays Bush and Merkel stays Merkel in Polish, and then they are declined (or not) as per above.


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## Hal1fax

Haha sorry yes that's true, I was thinking only really of English and when female's names end with a


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## kusurija

Hi all!
I just would like to underline the differences between _general use_ (publicity) adn _use by authorities_. I thing, that many gramatical "things" can be done to increase clear understanding in public; so if some  person becomes very widely known, his/her name/surname becomes little by little closer to original, with more politeness. Otherwise, some declension or other transformation (which is not too unpolite) is acceptable to increase understanding. 
On other side, I thing it is very unpolite from _official authorities_ to make official documents (e.g. passport, driving licence...) with transformations, fitting to their language. I don't understand, why in official documents needs be Jónsdóttirová instead of Jónsdóttir (Icelandic) or Landsbergyte*ová* and Landsbergiene*ová* instead of Landsberg*ytė* (*father* is Landsbergis, she is *unmaried* yet) and Landsbergi*enė* (*husband* is  Landsbergis) (Lithuanian) (e.g. for Czech authorities); why needs be Vacl*o*v*as* Klaus*as* instead of Václav Klaus (e.g. for Lithuanian authorities). 
(I thing, that literraly in *those* e.g. they wouldn't do so _as_ these persons or their relatives are _widely known_, but in others there are problems)...


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## Viperski

Every forieghn surnames stay as in their original form in Poland. For polish people surnames we only changes (depending on male or female version) those surnames that end with "_ski" "cki":_
Mister Brzeziński
Mrs. Brzezińska
Mr Sawicki
Mrs. Sawicka
Any other stay the same for males and females:
Mr/Mrs. Karda
Mr/Mrs. Gołąbek
Mr/Mrs. Kościuszko
Hovewer till IInd World War male and female surnames had different endings in most cases:
_"Mr Gołąbek"_ but "_Mrs. Gołąbkowa"_
This example above concers marreid women. For young lady the version _"Gołąbkówna_" should be used.


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## lordfrikk

I once saw Angelina Jolie as *Angelina Joliová*... So I'm totally against transformation of surnames, transformation of first names is completely fine with me.


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## Encolpius

Jana337 said:


> Hello,
> 
> I'd like you to tell me whether
> a) foreign female names are transformed in your language,
> b) and (regardless of whether the answer to a) is yes or no) what you think about it.
> Opinions of *non-Slavic speakers* are also welcome.
> ...



And... it is transformed in Slovak as well. 
Did I understand it correctly it is transformed in Slovenian as well?

My opinion is, Czech & Slovak names should follow the -ová example, but I find all transformed foreign names terrible and useless. But after all BSC transcribe most foreign names (?) and non-Latin script using languages transcribe all foreign names as well, e.g.. Виктор Гюго...


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