# When Russian Women Get Married **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787 "2012-01-26T23:54:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/1 "2012-01-26T23:54:41Z")
At work today, I ran across a file with a married couple with slightly different Russian names. The wife was Anya \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*ska, and the husband was Andrejz \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*ski. So is this a typo, or does a married Russian woman’s name end in -a (if her husband’s ends in -i)? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/2 "2012-01-27T00:00:59Z")
It’s not a typo: Russian surnames vary according to gender. In addition, it’s not just married women. For example, Joseph Stalin’s daughter was born as Svetlana Stalina. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/3 "2012-01-27T00:09:50Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It’s not a typo: Russian surnames vary according to gender. In addition, it’s not just married women. For example, Joseph Stalin’s daughter was born as Svetlana Stalina. Interesting. Do Russians living in other countries that don’t generally have this practice ever have trouble with local authorities when it comes to names? E.g. making sure that the bride is registered with the proper feminine form of her husband’s name, rather than the exact name itself, or making sure that girls are recorded with the proper name on their birth certificate (e.g. some busybody clerk who insists that the girl has to have her father’s last name spelt exactly the same way)? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/4 "2012-01-27T00:14:29Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It’s not a typo: Russian surnames vary according to gender. In addition, it’s not just married women. For example, Joseph Stalin’s daughter was born as Svetlana Stalina. I’ve always been curious why she wasn’t born as (the feminine version of) Jughashvili. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/5 "2012-01-27T00:30:38Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It’s not a typo: Russian surnames vary according to gender. . Russian last names are adjectives and act like normal adjectives, taking gender, number, and case. Another familiar example is Anna Karenina and her husband, Alexei Karenin. Not to be confused with patronyms, which are not family surnames, they name the person’s father. For example, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina shares a patronym with her brother, Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky. They are, respectively, the daughter and son of Arkady. Oblonsky’s female children will be known as [whatever] Stepanevna Oblanskaya ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/6 "2012-01-27T00:52:02Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Interesting. Do Russians living in other countries that don’t generally have this practice ever have trouble with local authorities when it comes to names? E.g. making sure that the bride is registered with the proper feminine form of her husband’s name, rather than the exact name itself, or making sure that girls are recorded with the proper name on their birth certificate (e.g. some busybody clerk who insists that the girl has to have her father’s last name spelt exactly the same way)? Yes, it’s a huge PITA, not just for Russian women, but for other speakers of Slavic languages that follow this naming system or similar ones. Because on top of the varying systems of transliteration from Cyrillic, for those languages that use Cyrillic, women then have to deal with clerks at the myriad government agencies who don’t understand the system and why all the documents don’t quite match up (driver’s license, passport, visa, green card, school records, etc.) And woe be to those who try to Americanize married names by sticking with the masculine suffix, for the sake of uniformity with the rest of the family! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/7 "2012-01-27T01:10:21Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I’ve always been curious why she wasn’t born as (the feminine version of) Jughashvili. That’s a Georgian name, btw, not Russian. I don’t know anything about gender in that language, but I do know it’s a language isolate (or, it and a few other closely related languages), not an Indo-European language. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/8 "2012-01-27T01:51:15Z")
Do Ukrainians do this? I knew a Uke woman whose last (unmarried) name was Lysenko. (No, not related to [that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko) Lysenko, she made sure to tell me.) ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/9 "2012-01-27T01:54:09Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Do Ukrainians do this? I knew a Uke woman whose last (unmarried) name was Lysenko. (No, not related to [that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko) Lysenko, she made sure to tell me.) Lysenko isn’t a masculine form, because -enko isn’t a masuline suffix, at least not if Russian behaves like Ukrainian; it’s neuter. (My Soviet roomie’s last name was Marchenko, and she was Ukrainian.) So it’s not because Ukrainians don’t do this, it’s because that particular suffix doesn’t work that way. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/10 "2012-01-27T02:01:55Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I’ve always been curious why she wasn’t born as (the feminine version of) Jughashvili. That’s Stalin’s birth name _as a Georgian_, in Kartvelian. It’s not even in the same language family; Bengali and Breton are more closely to each other or to Russian than any of them are to Kartvelian. In Russia, Yosip used the pseudonym Stalin for a surname (fem. Stalina), and after his death Svetlana used Alliluyeva as her surname of choice. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/11 "2012-01-27T04:53:22Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > That’s Stalin’s birth name _as a Georgian_, in Kartvelian. It’s not even in the same language family; Bengali and Breton are more closely to each other or to Russian than any of them are to Kartvelian. In Russia, Yosip used the pseudonym Stalin for a surname (fem. Stalina), and after his death Svetlana used Alliluyeva as her surname of choice. My question was why both Stalin and Lenin (you know, Steel and the Lena) kept their revolutionary pseudonyms long after they stopped caring whether people knew who they were. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/12 "2012-01-27T05:11:22Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > That’s Stalin’s birth name _as a Georgian_, in Kartvelian. It’s not even in the same language family; Bengali and Breton are more closely to each other or to Russian than any of them are to Kartvelian. In Russia, Yosip used the pseudonym Stalin for a surname (fem. Stalina), and after his death Svetlana used Alliluyeva as her surname of choice. She later became known as Lana Peters after imigrating to the US and marrying an American businessman. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/13 "2012-01-27T05:48:18Z")
The first person I thought of was tennis player Dinara Safina, sister of tennis player Marat Safin. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/14 "2012-01-27T05:56:37Z")
I’m obviously a hopeless nerd, but the first example I thought of was Susan Ivanova, daughter of Andrei Ivanov. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/15 "2012-01-27T13:09:09Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Interesting. Do Russians living in other countries that don’t generally have this practice ever have trouble with local authorities when it comes to names? The daughter of my (Polish-born) thesis advisor is named \ \-\ski, keeping with Quebec naming conventions instead of Polish ones. I asked him if they’d thought of going with \ska, but apparently it wasn’t an option. I don’t know what they’d have done if she’d been born in Poland, and I don’t know what they did during the year when the family was living there, with the kids going to school and everything. My advisor’s wife uses her birth name, as is common here, but apparently in Poland she sometimes goes with \ \ska to make it easier to understand. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/16 "2012-01-27T13:15:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a Georgian name, btw, not Russian. I don’t know anything about gender in that language, but I do know it’s a language isolate (or, it and a few other closely related languages), not an Indo-European language. It also has, by far, the coolest alphabet in the world. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/17 "2012-01-27T16:28:29Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > It also has, by far, the coolest alphabet in the world. It’s definitely not squiggle-deficient! [Link, for anyone who hasn’t seen it.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_alphabet) ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/18 "2012-01-27T16:46:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s definitely not squiggle-deficient! > > [Link, for anyone who hasn’t seen it.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_alphabet) I would advise care to those who would be tempted to pronounce or write those letters. If you haven’t mastered the craft, there’s no telling which spell you’ll cast. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/19 "2012-01-27T17:23:40Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > She later became known as Lana Peters after imigrating to the US and marrying an American businessman. And died just two months ago: [Svetlana Alliluyeva - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alliluyeva) ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/20 "2012-01-27T17:28:29Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > At work today, I ran across a file with a married couple with slightly different Russian names. The wife was Anya \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*ska, and the husband was Andrejz \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*ski. > > So is this a typo, or does a married Russian woman’s name end in -a (if her husband’s ends in -i)? By the way, if the ending is “ska” for a woman, the name is not Russian, but probably Polish. If Russian, it would be “skaya”. Combined with Andrejz - which is definitely not Russian, although not Polish either - it would be Andrei in Russian or Andrzej in Polish. Are you sure you spelled it correctly? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787.md?page=2)