# 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:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/21 "2012-01-27T18:57:17Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > 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! It’s interesting the opposite way, too. For the Czech translations of the Harry Potter books, for instance, the author is given as “J. K. Rowlingova”. See here for a picture of a cover: > **[Harry Potter in Czech](http://multilingualbooks.com/harrypotter-czech.html)** > > Harry Potter in 42 languages - now your children and you can read the best-selling, fly-off-the-bookshelf Harry Potter series in the language of your choice! ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/22 "2012-01-27T22:00:19Z")
As noted above, this is a common practice in many Slavic languages. For example, Martina Navratilova (who is Czech) was the step-daughter of Miroslav Navratil. ---
**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 28, 2012, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/23 "2012-01-28T04:46:59Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > It’s interesting the opposite way, too. For the Czech translations of the Harry Potter books, for instance, the author is given as “J. K. Rowlingova”. See here for a picture of a cover: > > [Harry Potter in Czech](http://multilingualbooks.com/harrypotter-czech.html) Ironic since the whole reason she used initials in the first place was to disguse her gender. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/24 "2012-01-28T14:44:28Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > 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. Because those names were famous. It’s like a movie actor of the 30s changing his name to become know; they nearly always kept their stage name. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/25 "2012-01-28T19:53:49Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > It’s interesting the opposite way, too. For the Czech translations of the Harry Potter books, for instance, the author is given as “J. K. Rowlingova”. See here for a picture of a cover: > > [Harry Potter in Czech](http://multilingualbooks.com/harrypotter-czech.html) Actually, it’s “J. K. Rowlingová”–note the acute accent. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787/26 "2012-01-28T21:10:24Z")
Indeed. Rowlingova is the feminine form of Rowlingův, which means “Rowling’s”, eg _Rowlingova kniha_, Rowling’s book. This is a possessive adjective which is the same form as Russian names ending in -ov/-ev as well as -in/-yn. Because they are not normal adjectives, feminine forms of those Russian names get -a; for the names that are like normal adjectives, (ie the ones that end in -yj or -ij, the feminine becomes -aya (or possibly -yaya). So Putin, Putina, Medvedev, Medvedeva, Trotskyj, Trotskaya. In the Czech case, the masculine last names are mostly nouns, and are declined as such, whereas the feminine names are adjectives and follow adjectival declension. Some men’s names are adjectival, such as Krátký; here, there is no special need for adjectivization by adding ová, the adjective just takes the appropriate feminine ending á and becomes Krátká. Some names are undeclinable because they come in the form of a genitive plural, such as Bártů. These names don’t change. Other names are adjectival in form but don’t have a separate feminine form, because they end in -í, such as Kočí. The Czechs do this for all foreign names, including the Russian ones, which means that when they talk about someone called ‘Sharapova’, it becomes “Šarapovová”, because it is the feminine form of Sharapov. Foreign names that end in an i sound, like perry or St-Exupéry, are treated as adjectives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-russian-women-get-married/610787.md?page=1)