Whoever said «Русский язык–великий и могучий» [the Russian language is great and mighty] wasn’t kidding. Nothing illustrates this more than склонение фамилий [declension of last names]. There are complicated rules and just when you think you’ve got it, you find out there are a couple of exceptions.

Russian last names typically end in «ов» [ov] (or «ев» [ev] if the stem is soft) or «ин» [in]. We will examine declensions of the last name «Булгаков» [Bulgakov], the name of my favorite Russian writer, and «Бунин» [Bunin], the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This is how the name «Булгаков» declines if it refers to a man. (Yes, it is different if we’re talking about a female «Булгаков», a «Булгакова».)

Nominative: «Булгаков»
Accusative: «Булгакова»
Genitive: «Булгакова»
Dative: «Булгакову»
Prepositional: «о Булгакове»
Instrumental: «Булгаковым»

Notice how in the instrumental case, the name declines like an adjective, not a noun. Before moving on to women’s names, «Бунин» would decline just like «Булгаков»: using the order of cases above, the declension is as follow. «Бунин», «Бунина», «Бунина», «Бунину», «о Бунине», «Буниным».

Female names are when it gets complicated. If we are talking about a woman with the last name of «Булгакова», the declension is as follows:

Nominative: «Булгакова»
Accusative: «Булгакову»
Genitive: «Булгаковой»
Dative: «Булгаковой»
Prepositional: «о Булгаковой»
Instrumental: «Булгаковой»

Notice how this is different than the declension for men’s names. A woman’s last name declines like a noun only in the accusative case–otherwise, it’s like an adjective.

For the plural declension, if you are talking about two (or more) people with the last name in question, the rules are slightly different. To use «Булгаков» again:

Nominative: «Булгаковы»
Accusative: «Булгаковых»
Genitive: «Булгаковаых»
Dative: «Булгаковым»
Prepositional: «о Булгаковых»
Instrumental: «Булгаковыми»

In every case except the nominative, the name declines like an adjective.

Adjectival names (like those ending in «ский» [ski or sky], such as «Достоевский» [Dostoevsky]) are easy: they decline just like adjectives for men, women, and plural.

Now, for the exceptions to these rules. Last names ending in a vowel do not decline, even if they are of Slavic origin. Therefore, «Тимошенко» [Tymoshenko] , «Ющенко» [Yushchenko], and «Шевченко» [Shevchenko] will not decline. This the kind of exception to a rule that we like, right?

There is one more exception that needs to be addressed: names ending in a consonant other than «ов», «ев», or «ин». One such example of a name is «Янукович» [Yanukovych], like «президент Украины» [the president of Ukraine]. When talking about him, his name would decline according the rules for «ов», «ев», or «ин» names. But when talking about a woman with that last name, such as «жена Януковича» [Yanukovych’s wife], the name would not decline.

Sorry if this post was a tad boring. Grammar isn’t the most fun thing to talk about sometimes, but it is important to learn it. For my next post, I’m thinking of writing about the city of «Львов» [Lvov] (I haven’t been, but a commenter expressed an interest in learning about it) or the history of «Киев», the city I last wrote about.