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How to decline surnames ( difficult cases)

Source:N. A. Eskova. Difficulties in inflection of nouns. Teaching materials for practical training on the course "Language of modern press". USSR State Press Committee. All-Union Institute for Advanced Training of Press Workers. M., 1990.

13.0. The book by L. P. Kalakutskaya “Declination of surnames and personal names in Russian” is devoted to this issue. literary language". M., 1984. This fundamental research based on rich material. This section briefly discusses only the main issues, with attention focused on the most complex and controversial. Surnames and given names are considered separately.

13.1. Surname declension

13.1.1. The vast majority of Russian surnames have formal indicators - suffixes -ov- (-ev-), -in-, -sk-: Lermontov, Turgenev, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Kramskoy. All such surnames are inclined. At the same time, they form two correlative systems of forms - masculine and feminine, naming male and female persons, respectively. Corresponds to both systems one system plural forms.

Note. All this - with the exception of the absence of neuter forms - resembles the system of adjectival forms. Absolute regularity in the ratio
of male and female surnames, which has no analogies among common nouns, suggests whether surnames should not be considered a special type of “genitive” nouns.

13.1.2. Surnames with a formal indicator -sk- decline in masculine and feminine and in plural as adjectives: Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky..., Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky..., Dostoevsky, Dostoyevsky etc.

Russian surnames that decline as adjectives and do not have an indicator -sk-, relatively few; These include: Good, Tolstoy, Borovoy, Coastal, Lanovoy, Armored, Wild, Smooth, Transverse etc. (see the list of such surnames in the book: A. V. Superanskaya, A. V. Suslova. Modern Russian surnames. M., 1981. P. 120-122).

13.1.3. Surnames with indicators -ov- and -in- have a special declension in the masculine gender, which is not found either among personal names or among common nouns. It combines the endings of masculine second declension nouns and adjectives of the type fathers. From the declension of these nouns, the declension of surnames differs in the ending of the instrumental case (cf .: Koltsov-th, Nikitin-th - island-th, jug-th), from the declension of possessive adjectives - the end of the prepositional case (cf .: about Griboyedov, about Karamzin - about fathers, about mothers).

Correlative female surnames lean like possessive adjectives in the feminine form (cf. Rostov and father, Karenina and mother's).

The same must be said about the declension of surnames on -ov and -in in plural (Bazarovs, Rudins lean like fathers, mothers).

13.1.4. All others male surnames having bases on consonants and a zero ending in the nominative case (in writing they end with a consonant letter, b or d), except for the names -oh, -them, are declined as nouns of the second declension of the masculine gender, that is, they have the ending in the instrumental case -om, (-em): Herzen, Levitan, Gogol, Vrubel, Hemingway, Gaidai. Such surnames are perceived as "non-Russian".

Correlative female surnames do not decline: Natalia Alexandrovna Herzen, Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok, with Anna Magdalina Bach, with Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel, about Mary Hemingway, about Zoya Gaidai.

Note. The application of this rule requires knowledge of the gender of the bearer of the surname. The absence of such information puts the writer in a difficult position.

The form in which the surname appears informs about the gender of the person concerned. But if the author of the text did not have the necessary information, was unsteady in applying the grammatical rule, or simply careless, the reader receives false information. Let's take one example. In the weekly “Moscow Speaks and Shows”, the following program appeared in the radio programs on 9.3.84: “E. Mathis sings. The program includes songs by W. Mozart, K. Schuman, I. Brahms, R. Strauss. Who is K. Schumann? It can be assumed that the initial is incorrectly indicated: K. Instead of R. But it turns out that songs were performed in the program Clara Schumann(wife of Robert Schumann, who was not only a pianist, but also a composer). So grammar mistake disorients the reader.

In the plural, the surnames of the type in question are also declined as masculine nouns: visited the Herzens, the Vrubels, the Gaidaevs, wrote to the Bloks, the Hemingways etc.

Note. There are, however, special rules for stating such surnames in some cases in the inflected form of the plural, in others in the indeclinable form. These rules, more related to syntax than to morphology, are developed in some detail by D. E. Rosenthal (see: Spelling and Literary Editing Handbook. M., 1989. S. 191-192, § 149, p. 10) . According to these rules, it is recommended: with Thomas and Heinrich Mann, but with Robert and Clara Schumann, with father and son Oistrakh, but father and daughter Gilels. This material is not considered here.

13.1.5. The simple rule laid down in the previous paragraph for declension of surnames into consonants that do not have formal indicators -in-, -ov-, turns out to be difficult to apply for some "outlandish" surnames, for example, for those that are homonymous with common nouns or geographical names inflected according to the third declension. So, in the grammatical appendix to the "Reference book of personal names of the peoples of the RSFSR" there are difficulties that arise when it is necessary to decline such surnames as Sadness, Love, Astrakhan.

The same manual states that for some surnames, only the formation of the plural is associated with difficulties (surnames Moustache, Gay, Finger, Runner, Sleep and etc.).

The declension of a number of surnames (both in the singular and in the plural) turns out to be difficult due to the ambiguity of whether they should retain vowel fluency according to the model of common nouns that are homonymous or similar in appearance (Kravets or Kravets - from Kravets, Zhuravel or Crane - from Zhuravel, Mazurok or Mazurka - from Mazurok etc.).

The resolution of such difficulties cannot be provided by rules; for this, a dictionary of surnames is needed, giving regulatory advice for every word.

13.1.6. A special type are Russian surnames on -s (-s), giving out their origin from the form of the genitive (and prepositional) case of the plural of adjectives: White, Black, Twisted, Curly, Long, Red. According to the strict norms of the literary language, such surnames are not inclined: Chernykh's lectures, Sedykh's novel, Kruchenykh's work etc.

Note. At ease colloquial speech there is a tendency to inflect such surnames when they belong to men, the stronger the closer the communication with the bearer of the surname. So, in the now defunct Moscow City Pedagogical Institute. Potemkin students of the forties and fifties listened to lectures Chernykha, passed exams and tests Chernykh etc. (It never occurred to anyone to say otherwise). If this colloquial trend won, the surnames on -oh, -them would cease to differ from other surnames by consonants, which were mentioned in clause 13.1.4.

13.1.7. There are cases when the original form of the surname can be perceived ambiguously from the point of view of its morphological structure. These cases are not numerous, but are interesting both linguistically and from the point of view of practical difficulties that may be associated with them.

There is a problem of distinguishing between "Russian" and "non-Russian" surnames on -ov and -in; The latter include, for example, Fleets(German composer) Gutskov(German writer) Cronin(English writer) Darwin, Franklin etc. From a morphological point of view, “Russianness” or “non-Russianness” is expressed in whether a formal indicator is distinguished or not distinguished in the surname ( -ov- or -in-). If such an indicator stands out, then the instrumental case has an ending -th, and the correlative female surname is inclined (Fonvizin, Fonvizina), if it does not stand out, the instrumental case is formed with the ending -om, and the female surname does not decline (Virchow, with Anna Virchow). Wed "homonyms": Charles Spencer Chaplin, Hannah Chaplin and Nikolai Pavlovich Chaplin, with Vera Chaplina.

Note. As the material of L.P. Kalakutskaya shows, in some cases correlative male and female surnames are morphologically inconsistent (for example, instrumental case Zeitlin can be combined with indeclinable shape Zeitlin female surname). Full ordering here can only be achieved if there is a special dictionary of surnames containing grammatical indications. However, the editor must ensure that morphologically contradictory forms do not meet at least within the same text.

There are non-Russian (mostly German) surnames in -them: Argerich, Dietrich, Freundlich, Erlich etc. Regardless of the touch of “foreign language” characteristic of them, they cannot be mistaken for Russian surnames in -them because in Russian surnames before the element -them there are practically no soft consonants with hard pairs, since there are few adjectives in Russian with such stems (i.e. such adjectives as blue; and is there a surname blue and others like her?).

But if the end -them the surname is preceded by a hissing or back palate consonant, its belonging to the indeclinable type will be undeniable only if it is correlated with the basis of the adjective (for example, Walking., Smooth); in the absence of this condition, such surnames can be perceived morphologically ambiguously; these include, for example, Khakhachikh, Tovchikh, Gritsky. Despite the rarity of such cases, this fundamental possibility should be borne in mind.

In very rare cases, surnames can be perceived ambiguously, the original forms of which end in iot (in the letter j) with preceding vowels and or about. For example, names like Topchy, Pobozhiy, Boky, Ore can be perceived as having endings -oh, -oh and hence inflected as adjectives (Topchy, Topchy..., in the feminine Topchaya, Topchaya) and as having a null ending with a noun-like declension (Topchia, Topchia..., feminine invariant form Topchy). To resolve such perplexities, again, a dictionary of surnames is needed.

13.1.8. The declension of surnames ending in vowels in the original form does not depend on whether they are male or female.

Note. The material of L. P. Kalakutskaya shows that there is a tendency to extend the ratio, which is natural for surnames to consonants, to surnames with a final a, i.e. incline male surnames without inclining female ones. Editors should do their best to eliminate this practice.

Consider surnames for vowels, based on their letter appearance.

13.1.9. Surnames spelled with e, e, i, s, u, u at the end, can only be indeclinable. These are the surnames: Daudet, Musset, Lansere, Fourier, Meillet, Chabrier, Goethe, Nobile, Caragiale, Tarle, Ordzhonikidze, Artmane, Maigret, Bossuet, Gretry, Lully, Debussy, Navoi, Modigliani, Gramsci, Galsworthy, Shelley, Rustaveli, Chabukiani, Gandhi, Jusoity, Neyedly, Lanu, Amadou, Shaw, Manzu, Nehru, Enescu, Camus, Cornu etc.

13.1.10. Surnames with final about also indestructible; these are the names Hugo, Clemenceau, La Rochefoucauld, Milhaud, Picasso, Marlo, Chamisso, Caruso, Leoncavallo, Longfellow, Craft, Dolivo, Durnovo, Khitrovo, Burago, Mertvago.

According to the strict norms of the literary language, this also applies to surnames of Ukrainian origin with the final -ko(of which there are many -enko): Korolenko, Makarenko, Franko, Kvitko, Shepitko, Bondarso, Semashko, Gorbatko, Gromyko.

Note. It is known that in the literary language of the last century, such surnames could be inclined according to the first declension: Korolenki, Korolenka, Korolenka. Now it is not considered normative.

13.1.11. The most complex picture is presented by surnames with the final a. In contrast to the previous cases, it is essential here whether a after a vowel or after a consonant, whether this vowel is stressed and (in certain cases) what is the origin of the surname.

All last names ending in a, preceded by vowels (most often at or and), indeclinable: Galois, Morua, Delacroix, Moravia, Eria, Heredia, Gulia.

All surnames ending in unstressed a after consonants, decline according to the first declension: Ribera - Ribera, Ribera, Ribera, Ribera, Seneca - Seneca etc.; also lean Kafka, Spinoza, Smetana, Petrarch, Kurosava, Glinka, Deineka, Gulyga, Olesha, Nagnibed, Okudzhava and others. All such surnames, regardless of origin, are morphologically segmented in Russian, i.e., the ending is distinguished in them -a.

Among surnames with stress á after consonants, there are both morphologically segmented and non-segmented, i.e., indeclinable.

Indeclinable surnames of French origin: Dumas, Thomas, Degas, Lucas, Farm, Gamarra, Petipa and etc.

Surnames of a different origin (Slavic, from Eastern languages) are inclined according to the first declension, i.e., the stressed ending is singled out in them -a: Mitta - Mitta, Mitte, Mittu, Mitta; these include: Frying pan, Poker, Kvasha, Tsadasa, Hamza and etc.

13.1.12. Declination-indeclination of surnames spelled with a letter I at the end, depends only on the place of stress and the origin of the surname.

Indeclinable surnames of French origin with an accent on the end: Zola, Troyat.

All other surnames I inclined; these are Smut, Zozulya, Syrokomlya, Gamaleya, Goya, Shengelaya, Danelia, Beria.

Note. Surnames with the final letter I preceded by a vowel, unlike such surnames on a, are divided into a stem ending in the consonant yot, and the ending -a (Gamaleya - Gamaleya "j-a).

Georgian surnames turn out to be inflected or indeclinable, depending on the form in which a particular surname is borrowed into Russian: surnames in -and I declinable (Danelia), on the -ia - inflexible (Gulia).

13.1.13. Of interest is the question of the formation of the plural from inflected surnames on -and I). In the grammatical appendix to the “Handbook of Personal Names of the Peoples of the RSFSR”, such surnames are qualified as non-standard and it is recommended for them to use the plural for all cases of a form that is consistent with the original. Surnames taken as samples Winter and Zoya. Recommended: Ivan Petrovich Zima, with Semyon Semenovich Zoya, Anna Ivanovna Zima, Elena Sergeevna Zoya etc., and for the plural - forms Winter, Zoya in all cases.

Imagine the declension in the plural of surnames Winter, Zoya really difficult. But what about other surnames that are inclined according to the first declension, for example, such as Glinka, Deineka, Gulyga, Okudzhava, Olesha, Zozulya, Gamaleya? Is there any certainty that for them it is necessary to recommend the use of the plural form in all cases, coinciding with the original one? How to say: to your beloved Glinka or to your beloved Glinkas?; met with Deineka or met with the Deineks?; remembered all Okudzhava or remembered all the Okudzhavas? The use of inflected forms in these cases is not excluded.

It is more difficult to imagine the declension in the plural of surnames with a stressed ending -á - Shulga, Mitta, Hamza, especially in genitive case (all * Shulg, * Mitt, * Hamz?). Here we run into a linguistic difficulty (see above, 7.6.). Since such facts are rare and not studied by linguists, in such cases it is advisable for the editor to minimally interfere with the author's text.

13.2. Declension of personal names

13.2.1. Personal names do not have significant morphological differences from common nouns. They are not "generic" (clearly, cases like Alexander and Alexandra, Eugene and Evgenia, Valery and Valeria not related to this event). Among personal names there are no words with a special declension (cf. what was said above about surnames in -ov and -in). The only feature of personal names is the absence of neuter words among them, but it should be noted that even among animate common nouns, the neuter gender is represented very little.

13.2.2. Among personal names there is a noun of the third declension. This is also a feature that brings them morphologically closer to common nouns and different from family names. According to the third declension, they steadily decline: Love(with forms love, about Love), Adele, Giselle and names biblical origin Hagar, Rachel, Ruth, Shulamith, Esther, Judith. Other names of this type - Lucille, Cecile, Aigul, Gazelle(borrowed from different languages), Ninel(neoplasm Soviet era), Assol(made up name) - fluctuate between the third declension and indeclination (with Cecily and at Cecile's, with Ninel and with Ninel).

Note. Women's surnames in soft consonants (written in b) how clear from what has been said above (see 13.1.4), are just as indeclinable as female surnames into hard consonants. The fundamentally existing possibility of a parallel change of nouns into soft consonants in two different declensions for grammatical expression differences by gender remains unrealized in the Russian language. Wed theoretically possible ratios: Vrubel, Vrubel, Vrubel(declension of male surname) - * Vrubel, * Vrubel(declension of female surname), *trot, *trot, *trot(declension of male name) - lynx, trot(declension of the name of the female). However, in the famous folklore Swans this opportunity is partly realized!

13.2.3. Female names into solid consonants can only be indeclinable (not different from surnames of this kind). These include: Elisabeth, Irene, Catherine, Gretchen, Liv, Solveig, Marlene, Jacqueline etc. There are common nouns of this type, but they are few and practically non-replenishable. (Madame, Miss, Mrs., Mistress, Fraulein, Freken), there are many personal names and their replenishment (by borrowing) is not limited in any way.

13.2.4. Male names into hard and soft consonants (in writing into consonants, and and b), are declined as common nouns of the same appearance. These include Ivan, Konstantin, Makar, Arthur, Robert, Ernst, Claude, Richard, Andrei, Vasily, Julius, Amadeus, Igor, Emil, Charles etc. In rare cases of “homonymy” of male and female names, they are correlated (in terms of declension) as male and female surnames: Michelle, Michelle(male name), Michelle indeclinable ( woman's name; there is a French violinist Michel Auclair).

13.2.5. Everything that has been said about the inclination-non-inclination of surnames into vowels also applies to personal names.

Names do not decline: Rene, Roger, Honore, Jose, Ditte, Oze, Pantalone, Henri, Louis, Lisi, Betsy, Giovanni, Mary, Eteri, Givi, Pierrot, Leo, Amadeo, Romeo, Carlo, Laszlo, Bruno, Hugo, Danko, Francois, Nana, Atala, Colomba etc.

Names decline: Francoise, Juliet, Suzanne, Abdullah, Mirza, Musa, Caste, Emilia, Ophelia, Jamila etc.

13.2.6. The plural of inflected personal names is formed freely, if this: the need arises: Ivana, Igori, Emily, Helena, Emily etc. Morphological restrictions here arise in the same cases as for common nouns (for example, for the genitive plural from Abdullah, Mirza, Costa; cf. 7.6). On the variant formation of the genitive plural from type names Petya, Valya, Seryozha see 7.4.4 note.

13.3 Features of the formation of indirect, cases from some combinations of names and surnames

In Russian, a tradition has developed to use the names of a number of foreign figures (mainly writers) in combination with the names: Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Mine Reed, Conan Doyle, Bret Harte, Oscar Wilde, Romain Rolland; cf. also literary characters: Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Nat Pinkerton. The use of these surnames separately, without names, is not very common (this is especially true for monosyllabic surnames; it is unlikely that anyone read in childhood Verne, Reid, Doyle and Scott!).

The consequence of such a close unity of the name and surname is the declension in oblique cases of only the surname: Walter Scott, Jules Vernou, with Mine Reed, about Robin Hood etc. This phenomenon, which is characteristic of relaxed oral speech, is also reflected in writing, which can be confirmed by the following examples from fairly authoritative authors.

Show yourself like a wonderful beast,
He is now going to Petropolis /.../
With the terrible book of Gizot,
With a notebook of evil cartoons,
With a new novel Walter Scott...
(Pushkin. Count Nulin)

And gets up
alive
Fenimore country
Cooper
and Mine Reed.

(Mayakovsky. Mexico)

In the evenings quick-eyed Chamois
Vanya and Lyalya reads Jules Verne.

(Chukovsky. Crocodile)

(Hyphenated spellings emphasize the close unity of the name and surname).

Non-declension of the name in such combinations is condemned by modern normative manuals. So, D. E. Rosenthal says: “... novels Jules Verne(not: "Jules Verne")..." (op. cit. p. 189. §149, n. 2).

The wind whistled in Vova's ear
And he took the sombrero off his head!
Waves-mountains run one after another,
Jump like maned lions.
Here with a hiss one rolled -
And Jules Verne picked up from the stern!

(Volgina T. Summer wanders along the paths. Kyiv. 1968. S. 38-39).

Such editing in verse is, of course, completely unacceptable. But even in a prose text that conveys casual colloquial speech, there is no need to replace Jules Verne, Mine Reed, Bret Garth, Conan Doyle etc. strictly normative combinations with inflected forms of names. The editor should be flexible in such cases.

Surnames ending in -ov / ev, -in / yn, -sky / skoy, -tsky / tskoy, make up the bulk of Russian surnames. Their declension usually does not raise questions and occurs with the addition of endings according to the following rules:

Table 1. Surnames beginning with -ov/-ova
case	case question	Male surname	Female surname	Plural
			Ivanova	Ivanovs
			Ivanova	Ivanov
				Ivanovs
		Ivanov	Ivanova	Ivanovs
		about Ivanov	about Ivanova	about the Ivanovs

Table 2. Surnames in -sky/-sky
case	case question	Male surname	Female surname	Plural
		Akhtyrsky	Akhtyrskaya	Akhtyrsky
		Akhtyrsky	Akhtyrskaya	Akhtyrsky
		Akhtyrsky	Akhtyrskaya	Akhtyrsky
		Akhtyrsky	Akhtyrskaya	Akhtyrsky
		Akhtyrsky	Akhtyrskaya	Akhtyrsky
		about Akhtyrsky	about Akhtyrskaya	about the Akhtyrsky

2. Surnames consonant with adjectives are declined in accordance with the declension of masculine and feminine adjectives and in the plural: Dashing, Tolstaya, White, Great.

Table 3. Surnames consonant with adjectives
case	case question	Male surname	Female surname	Plural
	who? what / what?
	whom? what / what?
	to whom? to what/what?
	whom? what/which one?
	by whom? what / what?
	about whom? about what/about what?

3. Surnames consonant with a noun are declined according to gender, grammatical gender does not affect declension. Including foreign-language ones without stress on the last syllable. Examples of surnames: Melnik, Guitar, Bull, Crow, Chernous, Shcherba, Kafka. Masculine surnames (Melnik, Coward) are declined in men according to the rule of declension of masculine nouns, in women and in the plural they are not declined. Feminine surnames (Guitar, Friday) for men and women are declined according to the rules of declension of feminine nouns, in the plural the surname has the form of the nominative case for men and does not decline by cases.

Table 5. Surnames consonant with feminine nouns
case	case question	Male surname	Female surname	Plural

Note 1. It is worth clarifying the stress in surnames ending in -a, since the ending of the instrumental case depends on this. Compare: Lefty - Lefty, Lefty - Lefty. Note 2. French surnames with accent ending -a, -i, do not bow: Emile Zola, Pierre Broca, about Alexandre Dumas.

Surnames coinciding with nouns with a fluent vowel are also declined with a drop in vowel. Examples: Hare - Hare, Forehead - Forehead, Leo - Leo. However, family traditions may dictate an exception, the vowel is not dropped. For example: Bast shoes - Bast shoes (instead of Bast shoes).

Russian surnames of the middle gender ending in -o, Ukrainian surnames in -ko, as well as foreign-language surnames in -o, -e, -i, -u, -yu are not inclined. Examples: Swamp, Zoloto, Petrenko, Timoshenko, Zhivago, Dali, Ordzhonikidze, Gandhi.

Surnames formed from the genitive case of a personal name, nickname or family are not declined . Their genus has not been determined. They end in -in, -them/s. Examples: Khitrovo, Gray-haired, Small.

7. In double surnames, each part is declined by cases separately in accordance with the rules described above.

Often in an ordinary conversation, during a discussion of certain familiar people, we incline their surnames, not really thinking about whether they incline at all. And if in a friendly conversation this is not so important, then, for example, in business documentation, it is simply necessary to pay attention to such nuances. There are certain rules for declension of surnames in Russian.

In order not to get confused, it is worth remembering the school curriculum of the Russian language, which includes the study of cases. Let's take as an example the standard Russian surname Sidorov and decline it both in the masculine and in the feminine:

Nominative (who?) - Sidorov (m.r.), Sidorova (female);

Genitive (of whom?) - Sidorova (m.r.), Sidorova (female);

Dative (to whom?) - Sidorov (m.r.), Sidorova (female);

Accusative (of whom?) - Sidorov (m.r.), Sidorov (female);

Creative (by whom?) - Sidorov (m.r.), Sidorova (female);

Prepositional (about whom?) - about Sidorov (m.r.), about Sidorova (female).

Surnames like the one above are the easiest to decline. But there are surnames in which there is no suffix, for example, Koshevoy, Lanovoy, Tolstoy, Armored.

The rules for declension of surnames of this type are the same as for adjectives, that is, it will be correct to write like this: Lanovoy, Lanovoy, Lanovoy, Lanovoy, Lanovoy, about Lanovoy. In the feminine gender, the surname will sound like Lanovaya, Tolstaya, Armored, etc. Like names and surnames ending in -sky, -tsky, -sky, -tsky, -ev, -in, -yn, -ov.

If among your acquaintances there is a person by the name of Gladkikh, Cheremny, Maly, etc., then remember that this is the surname of a frozen form that does not decline. Also, the rules prohibit inflecting surnames of foreign origin ending in -i, -i, -i, -i. Do not decline and those that end in -yago, -ago. Simply put, typical surnames of Russian origin should be declined as adjectives, and atypical and foreign ones as nouns.

However, there are surnames ending in -o. For example, Shevchenko, Prikhodko, Gusko, Makarenko. In this case, the rules for declension of male surnames, as well as female surnames with such an ending, state that such surnames are not inclined either in the singular or in. Also, female surnames ending in -y, -b or This and such surnames can be inclined only if they belong to a man. For example: “Give this to Vladimir Vlasyuk” and “Give this to Natalya Vlasyuk”, or “Call Sergei Matskevich” and “Invite Veronika Matskevich”.

If a male surname ends in -а or -я (Skovoroda, Golovnya, Mayboroda), then the rules for declension of surnames allow you to change the endings. For example, Vasya Soroka, Vasya Soroka, Vasya Soroka, Vasya Soroka, etc. Foreign surnames that end in a vowel (Dumas, Hugo, Stradivari, Rossini) cannot be declined. Also, the rules for declension of surnames do not allow changing them if they are dissonant, cause inappropriate associations, or are consonant with a geographical name or a personal name. For example, such surnames as Varenik, Gordey, Donets, Gus, remain unchanged in any case, regardless of whether they belong to a man or a woman.

I repeat: the Russian language is peculiar declension of surnames in general, including foreign and foreign speakers.
And not just names...

And now let's consider a completely different question, although it also concerns names and surnames.

Do they lean foreign names and last names?

They are usually declined if they refer to males and end in a consonant. We say: “the tragedy of William Shakespeare”, “the fable of Jean La Fontaine”, “the ballad of Friedrich Schiller”, “the opera of Richard Wagner”, etc. (And if we say “the novel by George Sand”, it is because “George Sand "- the pseudonym of the woman Aurora Dudevant.)

The same rule applies to contemporaries. Therefore - contrary to the opinion of some - one should say "Paul Robeson concert" (and not "Paul Robeson" and not "Paul Robeson") and "songs of Yves Montand" (and not "Yves Montand").

Until now, we have been talking about personalities famous or well-known. But what about ordinary citizens living among us? How, for example, should the address be written: “Karl Ivanovich Muller” or “Karl Ivanovich Muller”? (I'm not talking about the completely illiterate "Karl Ivanovich Muller ...")

Of course, only in the first form - "Muller". You can write in the dative case "Muller" only to his wife, say, "Maria Robertovna Muller."

But what about foreign surnames that also belong to men, but end in a vowel?

They usually don't bend.

Indeed. We say: "Dumas' novel", "Goethe's poem", "Verdi's opera", "Hugo's drama", "Sardou's comedy", "Goya's painting", etc. It is absolutely impossible to say about the writer Dumas, the artist Degas, the architect Brenn "Duma's novel", the painting "Degas", the architecture of "Brenna"...

After writing this, I thought: why do we say “Petrarch's sonnet”, “Casanova's memoirs”, “Canova's statue”? Yes, and about the picture of Goya, after all, you can say "a picture of Goya."

From this we can conclude: the Russian language is characterized by the declension of surnames in general, including foreign ones. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that some foreign surnames ending in one vowel are easily reduced to this vowel, after which they are easily declined, that is, they are made convenient for declension.

So, the great Italian poet Dante has long sounded in Russian as "Dante". Suffice it to recall Pushkin's:

"Severe Dante did not despise the sonnet..."

The same thing happened with the name of another famous Italian poet Tasso, who began to sound in Russian "Tass". (I do not cite as an example the transformation of the Italian surname "Bonaparte" into "Bonaparte": before it was thus "Russified", it was "Frenchized" - and above all by Napoleon himself.)

The same phenomenon - the desire for declension - can be seen in the fact that sometimes French surnames that end when pronounced with a vowel and therefore indeclinable (Guizot, Diderot, Beranger, etc.) in Russian turn into inflected by using their French transcription and turning unpronounceable letters into pronounceable.

Let us recall how Pushkin's Count Nulin travels from Paris "to Petropolis":

"With the terrible book of Guizot..."

"With the last song of Beranger..."

But Pushkin knew French very well.

Perhaps someone will object to me: “Well, this is poetic liberty, probably caused by the need to preserve the size or find a suitable rhyme ...” But now we are opening Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov” and in the second chapter we read the words of Fyodor Pavlovich :

“Excuse me, I just added the last thing about the baptism of Diderot ...”

But what about Slavic surnames (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech) if they end in a vowel? Are they inclined or not?

Yes, they usually do. But with some reservations.

From the questions received by the “Information Bureau” of “Gramoty.ru”:

• Hello, my surname is Ossa, the emphasis is on O, they wrote Osse in my diploma, and now I have to do an examination, which costs a lot of money to prove that the surname is not inclined.
• My last name is Pogrebnyak. It's a Ukrainian surname, and they don't seem to bow. Some people decline my last name, write Pogrebnyak, Pogrebnyak, Pogrebnyak. Is it possible?
• My surname is Eroshevich, she is of Polish origin (this is known for sure). I'm interested in the following question: is my surname declined? My relative (male) was issued a certificate in which the surname was declined. And with this certificate, they did not take him anywhere. They said that the surname does not decline. Teachers also say that they do not incline, but on your website it says that they incline. I am confused!

Such questions are not uncommon in the "Help Desk" of our portal. Most often they are asked in May-June and at the very beginning of September. This is due, of course, to the fact that at the end of the school year, graduates of schools and universities receive certificates and diplomas, and in September, children go to school and begin to sign notebooks. The certificate and diploma will definitely say to whom it was issued (i.e., surname in the dative case), and on the cover of the notebook - whose it is (i.e., surname in the genitive case). And in cases where the student's last name does not end in -ov(s), -in (-yn) or - sky (-sky)(i.e., it does not belong to the so-called standard ones), the question almost always arises: is it necessary to incline the surname and, if so, how exactly to incline? It is with him that native speakers turn to linguists for help. And this question is often followed by another: “How to prove that the surname is inclined?” or “How to defend the right to not decline the surname?”. The question "To incline or not to incline the surname?" often goes beyond the language, causing fierce disputes and leading to serious conflicts.

Of course, such questions come not only from students, their parents and teachers, they are asked throughout the year, but the peaks of calls to linguists are in May-June and September, due to the aggravation of this problem in schools and universities. This is no coincidence: after all, in educational institution many native speakers have their first meeting with a specialist - a teacher of the Russian language, and the teacher's requirement to change the surname in cases, which in the family has always been considered unchanged, surprises, annoys and rebuffs. Similar difficulties are experienced office workers(secretaries, clerks) who are faced with the categorical demands of the leadership not to inflect inflected surnames.

The experience of our "Information Bureau" shows that the laws of declension of surnames are really unknown to a large number of native speakers (and even to some philologists), although they are given in many reference books on the Russian language, including widely available ones. Among these manuals - "Handbook of Spelling and Literary Editing" by D. E. Rosenthal, stylistic vocabulary variants of L. K. Graudina, V. A. Itskovich, L. P. Katlinskaya " grammatical correctness Russian speech” (3rd edition – under the heading “Dictionary of grammatical variants of the Russian language”), “Dictionary of Russian personal names” by A.V. Superanskaya, research by L.P. Kalakutskaya “Surnames. Names. Patronymic. Writing and their declension” and many other sources. A study of Internet user requests and monitoring of the blogosphere allow us to conclude that there are many misconceptions among native speakers regarding the rules for declension of surnames. Here are the main ones: the decisive factor is the linguistic origin of the surname (“Georgian, Armenian, Polish surnames, etc. are not inclined”); in all cases, the declension of the surname depends on the gender of the carrier; surnames that match common nouns (Thunderstorm, Beetle, Stick) are not inclined. A considerable number of native speakers are convinced that there are so many rules for declension of surnames that it is not possible to remember them.

To show that all these ideas are not true, we present the basic rules for declension of surnames. They are taken from the sources listed above and formulated by us in the form step by step instructions, a kind of algorithm with which you can quickly find the answer to the question: "Does the surname decline?".

Here is the algorithm.

1. As stated above, declension of surnames ending in -ov (-ev,), -in (-yn), -sky (-tsky), i.e., the so-called standard surnames, does not cause difficulties for native speakers. You just need to remember two important rules.

A. Borrowed surnames on -ov, -in, which belong foreigners, in the instrumental form have the ending -ohm(as nouns of the second school declension, for example table, table): the theory was proposed by Darwin, the film was directed by Chaplin, the book was written by Cronin.(Interestingly, the pseudonym is also inclined Green, owned by a Russian writer: the book is written Green.) Homonymous Russian surnames have an ending - th in instrumental form: with Chaplin(from dialect word chaplya"heron"), with Cronin(from crown).

B. Female surnames on - ina type Currant, Pearl inclined in two ways, depending on the declension of the male surname ( Irina Zhemchuzhina and Irina Zhemchuzhina, Zoe Smorodina and Zoya Smorodina). If the male surname is Zhemchuzhin, then it is correct: arrival Irina Zhemchuzhina. If the male surname is Pearl, then it is correct: arrival Irina Zhemchuzhina(surname is declined as a common noun pearl).

2. Now we go directly to the so-called non-standard surnames. The first thing to remember is that, contrary to popular misconception, the gender of the bearer of a surname does not always affect inclination / non-inclination. Even less often, this is influenced by the origin of the surname. First of all, it matters what sound the surname ends with - a consonant or a vowel..

3. We will immediately describe several groups of indeclinable surnames. In modern Russian literary language do not bow Russian surnames, ending in -s, -ih (type Black, Long), as well as all surnames, ending in vowels e, i, o, u, s, e, u .

Examples: notebooks by Irina Chernykh, Lydia Meie, Roman Grymau; the diploma was given to Victor Dolgikh, Andrey Gretry, Nikolay Shtanenko, Maya Lee; meeting with Nikolai Kruchenykh and Alexander Minadze.

Note. In colloquial speech and in the language of fiction, reflecting oral speech, it is considered acceptable to decline male surnames on - uh, -ih (in Chernykh's scenario, meeting with Ryzhykh), as well as the declension of surnames of Ukrainian origin into -ko, -enko according to the declension of feminine nouns -a: go to Semashka, visiting Ustimenka. Note that Ukrainian surnames of this type were consistently declined in the artistic literature XIX century ( at Shevchenko; Nalivaika's confession; poem dedicated to Rodzyanka).

4. If last name ends in a consonant(except for surnames on -oh, -them, which were mentioned above), then here - and only here! - the gender of the bearer of the surname matters. All male surnames ending in a consonant are inclined - this is the law of Russian grammar. All female surnames ending in a consonant are not declined. In this case, the linguistic origin of the surname does not matter. Men's surnames are also declined, coinciding with common nouns.
Examples: Mikhail Bock's notebook, diplomas issued to Alexander Krug and Konstantin Korol, meeting with Igor Shipelevich, visiting Andrey Martynyuk, daughter of Ilya Skalozub, work of Isaac Akopyan; notebook of Anna Bock, diplomas issued to Natalia Krug and Lydia Korol, meeting with Yulia Shipelevich, visiting Ekaterina Martynyuk, daughter of Svetlana Skalozub, work of Marina Akopyan.

Note 1. Male surnames of East Slavic origin, having a fluent vowel during declension, can be inclined in two ways - with and without loss of a vowel: Mikhail Zayats and Mikhail Zayets, with Alexander Zhuravel and Alexander Zhuravl, Igor Gritsevets and Igor Gritsevets. In a number of sources, declension without dropping a vowel is recognized as preferable (i.e. Hare, Crane, Gritsevets), because surnames also perform a legal function. But the final choice is up to the bearer of the surname. It is important to adhere to the chosen type of declension in all documents.

Note 2. Separately, it is necessary to say about surnames ending in a consonant th. If preceded by a vowel and(less often about), the surname can be inclined in two ways. Surnames such as Topchy, Pobozhiy, Boky, Ore, can be perceived as having endings -oh, -oh and inflect as adjectives ( Topchy, Topchy, feminine Topchaya, Topchaya), and it is possible - as having a zero ending with a declension similar to nouns ( Topchia, Topchia, feminine invariant form Topchy). If consonant th at the end of the surname preceded by any other vowel, the surname is subordinate general rules (Igor Shakhrai, Nikolai Adzhubey, but Inne Shakhrai, Alexandre Adjubey).

5. If last name ends in a vowel -я preceded by another vowel (ex: Shengelaya, Breaking, Rhea, Beria, Danelia), she is bows down.
Examples: notebook by Inna Shengelai, diploma issued to Nikolay Lomaya, meeting with Anna Rhea; crimes of Lavrenty Beria, meeting with George Danelia.

6. If last name ends in a vowel -a preceded by another vowel (ex.: Galois, Morois, Delacroix, Moravia, Eria, Heredia, Gulia), she is does not bow.
Examples: notebook Nicholas Galua, diploma issued to Irina Eria, meeting with Igor Gulia.

7. And the last group of surnames - ending in -а, -я, preceded by a consonant . Here - and only here! - the origin of the surname and the place of stress in it matter. There are only two exceptions to keep in mind:

BUT. Don't bow down French surnames with an accent on the last syllable: books by Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola and Anna Gavalda, aphorisms by Jacques Derrida, goals by Diarra and Drogba.

B. Predominantly do not bow Finnish surnames ending in - a unstressed: meeting with Mauno Pekkala(although in a number of sources it is recommended to incline them too).

All other surnames (Slavic, Eastern and others; ending in stressed and unstressed -and I) bow down. Contrary to a common misconception, surnames that coincide with common nouns are also declined.
Examples: Irina Groza's notebook, Nikolay Mukha's diploma, Elena Kara-Murza's lecture, Bulat Okudzhava's songs, Igor Kvasha's roles, Akira Kurosawa's films.

Note. There used to be fluctuations in the declension of Japanese surnames, but reference books note that in recent times such surnames are consistently declined, and in the “Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language” by A. A. Zaliznyak, an indeclinable version at Akutagawa along with the inflexible near Okudzhava, called "gross violation of the norm" .

Here, in fact, are all the main rules; As you can see, there aren't too many of them. Now we can refute the misconceptions listed above related to the declension of surnames. So, contrary to popular belief: a) there is no rule “all Armenian, Georgian, Polish, etc. surnames do not decline” - the declension of surnames obeys the laws of the grammar of the language, and if the final element of the surname lends itself to Russian inflection, it declines; b) the rule “male surnames decline, female ones do not” does not apply to all surnames, but only to those that end in a consonant; c) the coincidence of the surname in form with common nouns is not an obstacle to their declension.

It is important to remember: the surname is word and, like all words, it must obey the grammatical laws of the language. In this sense, there is no difference between sentences Certificate issued to Hunger Ivan(instead of correct Hunger Ivan) and The villagers were suffering from hunger.(instead of suffered from hunger), there is a grammatical error in both sentences.

It is also important to follow the rules of declension of surnames because the refusal to change the cases of the declined surname can lead to misunderstandings and incidents, and disorient the addressee of the speech. In fact, imagine the situation: a person with the surname Thunderstorm signed his work: article by Nikolai Groz. According to the laws of Russian grammar, a male surname ending in the genitive singular. numbers on - a, is restored in its original form, in the nominative case, with zero ending, so the reader will make an unambiguous conclusion: the author's name is Nicholas Groz. Submitted to the dean's office work A. Pogrebnyak will lead to the search for a student (Anna? Antonina? Alice?) Pogrebnyak, and the student Alexander Pogrebnyak's belonging to her will still have to be proved. It is necessary to follow the rules of declension of surnames for the same reason that it is necessary to follow the rules of spelling, otherwise a situation arises similar to the famous “opteka” described by L. Uspensky in “Word about words”. The authors of the "Dictionary of grammatical variants of the Russian language" L. K. Graudina, V. A. Itskovich, L. P. Katlinskaya indicate: case of a surname from its oblique cases.

Therefore, we suggest that you remember the elementary truth number 8.

ABC Truth No. 8. The declension of surnames obeys the laws of the grammar of the Russian language. There is no rule "all Armenian, Georgian, Polish, etc. surnames are not bowed." The declension of the surname depends primarily on what sound the surname ends with - a consonant or a vowel. The rule "male surnames decline, female ones do not" does not apply to all surnames, but only to those that end in consonant. The coincidence of the surname in form with common nouns (Fly, Hare, Stick etc.) is not an obstacle to their declination.

Literature:

1. Ageenko F. L. Dictionary of proper names of the Russian language. M., 2010.
2. Graudina L. K., Itskovich V. A., Katlinskaya L. P. Dictionary of grammatical variants of the Russian language. -3rd ed., ster. M., 2008.
3. Zaliznyak A. A. Grammatical Dictionary of the Russian Language. - 5th ed., Rev. M., 2008.
4. Kalakutskaya L.P. Surnames. Names. Patronymic. Writing and declension. M., 1994.
5. Rosenthal D. E. Handbook of spelling and literary editing. - 8th ed., Rev. and additional M., 2003.
6. Superanskaya A.V. Dictionary of Russian personal names. M., 2004.

V. M. Pakhomov,
Candidate of Philology,
editor-in-chief of the Gramota.ru portal