Female last names in Czech Republic ending in OVA?

Question

An acquaintance of mine is from the Czech Republic. I noticed when looking through her facebook pictures that her and all of her female friends have last names that end in "ova" for example, her last name is Hadrova. Again, I was watching ghost hunters and they were in a castle in Czech Republic and the...

Answer 1

well it is something originally meant to express possession. it's the original meaning of -ova (kovářova kobyla - blacksmith's mare[horse])

however it later prolonged into -ová and is used as a general feminine inflexion of male surnames.

similarily, russians use the genitiv of male surname to create the female surname (thus Fedorova means "of Fedorov")

Czech journalist often expand utilisation of this nation specific grammar feature onto foreigners - thus Hillary Clinton ->Hillary Clintonová

this is considered uneducated and occasionally rude. On the other hand, Czech people often get puzzled over english unisex names, like Kim, Jocelyn etc. without the hint in their surnames, they can't tell the sex of that person (in written contact, of course)

Answer 2

It is indeed a cultural thing, if not limited to Czech republic.
In many countries where the national language is one of the Slavic language group, all family names will get an a at the end for women. If the name ends in a vowel, the last vowel will be changed into an A, but if the name ends on a consonant, the most used option is adding 'ova' to it.

Answer 3

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RE:
Female last names in Czech Republic ending in OVA?
An acquaintance of mine is from the Czech Republic. I noticed when looking through her facebook pictures that her and all of her female friends have last names that end in "ova" for example, her last name is Hadrova. Again, I was watching ghost hunters and they were in a castle in Czech...

Answer 4

Ya, that's common in Slavic Europe, in Poland, if a man's name ends in "ski," a woman with that last name will end in "ska" instead