Czech name

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Czech names are composed of given names and surnames. Surnames used by women differ from the corresponding male surnames.

1 Given names
2 Surnames
- 2.1 Female surnames
3 Surnames in the plural
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Given names

In Czech names are known simply as jména ("names") or, when the context requires it, křestní jména ("Christian names"). The singluar form is jméno.

During the Communist era, parents needed special permission form to give a child a name that does not have a name day on the Czech calendar. Since 1989, parents have had the right to name their children as they wish, provided it is used somewhere in the world and is not insulting or demeaning. However, the common practice is that the most birth-record offices look for the name in the book "Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?" (How is your child going to be called?), ISBN 80-200-1349-0, the semi-official list of "allowed" names. If the name is not found there, offices are extremely unwilling to register the child's name.^[1]

Czech parents remain somewhat conservative in their choices of baby names. In January 2004, the most popular boy's names were Jan (John), Jakub (Jacob or James) and Tomáš (Thomas). The most popular girl's names were Tereza (Theresa), Kateřina (Katherine) and Eliška (Liz).^[2]

Names, like all nouns in the language, have grammatical cases; that is, they change depending on their role in the sentence. For example, one would say Jan kouše sendvič ("Jan bites a sandwich"), but Pes kouše Jana ("A dog bites Jan") and Pes dal Janovi vzteklinu ("The dog gave Jan rabies"). Unlike the very closely related Slovak language, Czech has a vocative case, a form of a word used only when calling or addressing someone. For instance, one would say, Tomáši, pozor pes! (Tomáš, watch out for the dog!).

[edit] Surnames

While Czechs share relatively few given names, there are tens of thousands of Czech surnames.

Czech surnames (singular and plural: příjmení) are similar in origin to English ones. Typically, they reflect a personal characteristic of someone's ancestor (such as Malý, "Small"); where he was from or where he lived (e.g. Polák, Polish person); what he did for a living (Kovář, "Blacksmith"); or the first name of a relative (Petr, "Peter"). Many Czech surnames, such as Sokol ("Falcon"), are the names of birds. What is not shared with English but is similar to North American native languages is the extremely colorful nature of Czech surnames. Koníček (Little Horse), Pospíšil (He Who Hurries), Kňourek (Purring Man), Kratochvíl (Rapid Man), and even Vražda (Mr. Murder), are normal names in Czech. The origin of such colorful names has yet to be fully documented.^{[citation needed]}

German surnames are also common in the Czech Republic; the country was part of the Austrian Empire before 1918 and had a large German population until World War II.

The most-common Czech surnames are Novák ("Newman"), Svoboda ("Freeman," literally "Freedom"), Novotný (same origin as Novák), Dvořák (from dvůr, "court") and Černý ("Black").^[3]

[edit] Female surnames

As in English-speaking countries, Czech females traditionally receive their father's surname at birth and take their husband's name when they marry. However, the names are not exactly the same; the endings differ to fit into the Czech language's system of gender. For example, if Martina Navrátilová were a man, her surname would be Navrátil.

Czech female surnames are almost always feminine adjectives. There are several ways of forming them, depending on their male counterpart.

If a male surname is a masculine adjective (ending in -ý), the female surname is simply the feminine equivalent. Thus, a girl whose father's surname is Novotný would have the surname Novotná .

If a male surname is a noun, the female surname takes the suffix -ová, making it a feminine adjective:

Novák becomes Nováková
Horáček becomes Horáčková
Svoboda becomes Svobodová

A few Czech surnames do not differ for men and women in the nominative case (the case used for the subject of a sentence. Those include surnames whose male form is genitive plural, (e.g. Jirků, Janků) and those whose male form is an adjective with the suffix -í (e.g. Tachecí, Jarní). Note that these are only identical in two of the seven grammatical cases; in the other five, the male and female forms differ, as per the soft adjective declension.

Because gender-marked suffixes are essential to Czech grammar, Czechs will usually add a feminine suffix to the surnames of foreign as well as Czech women. Thus, American first lady Laura Bush is referred to as Laura Bushová in the Czech press. This phenomenon is not universal, however.

Until 2004, every woman who married in the Czech Republic and wanted to change her name had to adopt a feminine surname, unless her husband was a foreigner whose name ended in a vowel or she was a registered member of a Czech minority group, such as the Germans. A law passed in 2004 allows all foreign women, and Czech women who marry foreign men, to adopt their husband's exact surname.^[4]

As in English-speaking countries, some Czech women decide to keep their maiden name after marriage or adopt a double surname. A couple can also agree to both adopt the woman's surname, with the husband using the masculine form.

[edit] Surnames in the plural

Surnames that are nouns in the masculine singular:

Novákovi - the Nováks
rodina Novákova - the Novák family
bratři Novákovi - the brothers Novák
sestry Novákovy - the sisters Novák

All forms of the surname Novák are possessive adjectives in the plural; their endings depend on the gender and case.

Surnames that are adjectives in the masculine singular:

Novotní - the Novotnýs
rodina Novotných - the Novotný family
bratři Novotní - the brothers Novotný
sestry Novotné - the sisters Novotný

All forms of the surname Novotný are adjectives in the plural; their endings depend on the gender and case. The form Novotných is in the genitive case.