Do male surnames bow in Russian? Do foreign male surnames decline?

Since school, many have learned the rule that when pronouncing and writing, female names are not inclined by cases, and male names, on the contrary, are similar to similar adjectives or nouns. Is everything so simple, and are male foreign surnames in Russian inclined - this article is devoted to this, based on the monograph of L.P. Kalakutskaya published in 1984.

Severity of the problem

There are many situations in which the correct spelling and correct pronunciation of surnames in different cases is very important:

• The child began to study at school, and he needs to correctly sign a notebook or diary.
• A young man or an adult male is awarded a diploma or a letter of thanks.
• At a serious event, a man with a complex surname is announcing an exit or performance. It is unpleasant if it is distorted.
• When preparing important documents (certificate, diploma) or preparing case materials for establishing family ties (in court, with a notary public).
• To know whether men's last names are inclined, it is necessary for people of many professions dealing with registration of personal files or other business papers.

Russian surnames

The most common surnames in Russia - with suffixes - sk (-sk), s (s), in (s) : Razumovsky, Slutsky, Ivanov, Turgenev, Mukhin, Sinitsyn. All of them are easily inclined, like ordinary adjectives, in both the feminine and masculine gender. An exception is the last names in -ov, -in , the ending of which in the prepositional case is somewhat different from the traditional one.

Foreign surnames with the suffix -in (-yn) also have a mismatch with the Russians in the instrumental case. Consider an example:

Do male surnames bow to the ith without the suffix - ck , which are also found in Russia (Tolstoy, Berezhnoy, Sukhoi)? Not numerous (in scientific works on philology there is a complete list of them), they can easily be changed in cases similar to adjectives with a similar ending.

Ukrainian last names

The most famous Ukrainian surnames are -enko and -ko : Bondarenko, Luchko, Molodyko. If you look at Russian literature, then in fiction (A.P. Chekhov, for example), writers are quite free to use their writing in the male version and in the plural: "Let's go to the Bondarenki."

This is not true, for official writing is different from fiction and colloquial speech. The answer to the question is whether Ukrainian male surnames tend to - enko and -ko , unequivocal - no. Example:

• I am writing a letter to Oleg Bondarenko.
• She has an affair with Ivan Luchko.

And this applies to all surnames of Ukrainian origin, even as rare as Alekhno, Rushailo, Soap, Tolokno. The names on -ago, -ovo, -iago : Vodolago, Durnovo, Dubyago never bow. And what about those ending in consonants?

Surname for consonant -to

Historically, the suffixes -uk (-yuk) indicated either kinship or semantic affiliation: Ivan's son, Ivanchuk, and the cooper's assistant, Bondarchuk. To a greater extent they are inherent in the western part of Ukraine, but are widespread among all Slavic peoples. Are male surnames inclined to - uk ?

According to the laws of the Russian language, women's surnames do not change according to cases, but men's names ending in a consonant (with the exception of the end of the s) are declined without fail:

• I wrote a letter to Olga Dimitryuk.
• I was invited to visit Igor Shevchuk.
• I recently saw Sergei Ignatyuk.

All surnames expressed by nouns: Mole, Wolf, Wind, Pillar are subject to change by cases. There is one subtlety here: if the surname is Slavic, then the existing fluent vowel in the root is not always preserved. In jurisdictions, prescribing is important, although many sources do not consider pronunciation to be incorrect without it. As an example, consider the surname Zayats. More often pronounced: "She called Ivan Hare." This is permissible, but more correct: "She called Ivan Zayats."

Common in Ukraine and last names are -ok, -ik : Pochinok, Gorelik. Knowing the rule that all masculine surnames with a consonant at the end change according to cases, it is easy to answer the question: do male surnames tend to -k:

• She came to the house of Ilya Pochinka (here the fluent vowel disappears).
• He knew Larisa Petrik well .

Exception to the rule

Slavs often have family endings in the s (s) : Chernykh, Ilyinsky. In the first half of the 20th century, male surnames with similar endings often changed in cases. According to the norms of the Russian language, this is wrong today.

The origin of these surnames from the adjective plural requires the preservation of their individuality:

• He greeted Peter Bela x.

Although there is a consonant sound at the end, this is an exception to the rule that you need to know about when answering the question whether male surnames are inclined.

Quite widespread is the ending for -ch : Stoikovich , Rabinovich, Gorbach. The general rule applies here:

• Waiting to visit Semyon Rabinovich.
• He really liked the exhibition of Anna Porhach.

Armenian last names

Armenia is a small country with a population of just over 3 million people. But about 8.5 million representatives of the diaspora live in other countries, therefore Armenian surnames are very widespread. They can often be identified by their traditional ending - an (-yan) : Avjan, Dzhigarkhanyan. In ancient times, there was a more archaic family form: -antz (-yants), -unts , which is still widespread in the south of Armenia: Kurants, Sargsyants, Tonunts. Does the Armenian male surname bow?

The rules of the Russian language, which were already mentioned in the article, apply to it. Male last names with a consonant at the end are subject to declension in cases:

• together with Armen Avjan ( at the same time "together with Anush Avjan");
• watched a film with Georg Tonunts ( with a "film with Lily Tonunts").

Vowel ending

Male surnames remain unchanged if they, regardless of origin and affiliation to a particular country, end in the following vowels: and, s, y, u, e, e. Example: Gandhi, Dzhusoity, Shoigu, Camus, Megre, Mane. In this case, it does not matter at all whether the stress is on the first or last syllable. This includes Moldovan, Indian, French, Georgian, Italian and Turkic surnames. Example: “ He recently read verses by Shota Rustaveli .” But do male names tend to - a (I) ?

Here both options are encountered, therefore it is better to present them in the table:

To consolidate the knowledge whether male names are inclined to - a , we offer you an algorithm that can always be at hand.

German surnames

The origin of Germanic surnames is similar to their history in other states: most are derived from personal names, geographical names, nicknames or occupations of their carriers.

German settlement of the Volga region in the 18th century led to the fact that their spelling in Russia was often carried out with errors, so there are many similar surnames with a difference in one or two letters. But in fact, all of them, with rare exceptions, end in a consonant, therefore, answering the question whether male German surnames are inclined, we can say with confidence: yes. Exceptions are: Goethe, Heine, Otto and others, with the ending in a vowel.

Since German surnames vary in cases, they should be distinguished from Slavic ones. In addition to the common ones, such as Muller, Hoffman, Wittgenstein, Wolf, there are endings in -i : Dietrich, Freindlich, Ulrich. In Russian surnames before - seldom there are soft consonants with solid pairs. This is due to the fact that adjectives with similar fundamentals are hardly found in the language. Slavic surnames, unlike German ones, are not inclined (Fifth, Borovsky).

If at the end

The rule according to which male surnames are inclined, having as a basis consonants without an ending, extends to those cases when -th or -th is put in the end. They vary in cases as nouns related to the second declension. However, in the instrumental case they have a special ending - om (em) . They are perceived as foreign. To answer the question whether male names are inclined to -th and -th, an example should be considered:

• Nominal (who?): Vrubel, Gaidai;
• Genitive (whom?): Vrubel, Gaidai;
• Dative (to whom?): Vrubel, Gaidai;
• Accusative (whom?): Vrubel, Gaidai;
• Creative (by whom?): Vrubel, Gaidai;
• Prepositional (about whom?): About Vrubel, about Gaidai.

There are exceptions to the rule. So, dissonant surnames (Pelmen), as well as coinciding with the geographical name (Uruguay, Taiwan) are not inclined. Even if the soft sign is after the hissing (Night, Mouse), the surname is inclined according to the male version.

Double and compound surnames

China, Vietnam and Korea are distinguished by the fact that their inhabitants have compound surnames consisting of several words. If they end in a consonant, then they are inclined according to general rules, but only their last part. Example:

• We listened to the speech of Kim Jong Il .

Russian double surnames are inclined in both parts according to the general rules:

• Petrov-Vodkin painting;
• Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater.

If the first part is not a surname, but serves as an integral part, it does not change in cases:

• Ter-Hovhannisyan's jump;
• work of Demut-Malinovsky .

Whether masculine surnames of other foreign countries bow, completely depends on the rules of Russian grammar, which were mentioned in the article. Unclear remained the question of the use of the plural or singular in the enumeration of two persons.

Singular and plural

In which cases the plural is used, and in which the singular, it is best to see from the table:

Masculine surnames, unlike feminine ones, are inclined, but there are many cases considered in the article when they are also not subject to change. The main criteria are the end of the word and the country of origin of the surname.