Is there any reason for a Russian woman to use the masculine version of her surname?

[chierii]

Okay, so I'm not really asking for my own work. Rather, I'm trying to help make sense of detail in someone else's work. Setting is nationality-neutral, military, near future. (And those of you reading this who know me know exactly what I'm talking about specifically, but who cares

Comments

[ayashi_mikage]

She can just have a version of the last name that doesn't change with gender. There's no tradition of taking male form of the last name in order "to avoid prejudice before she became well-known" - I don't think there're ever cases like this, but we're talking about non-fiction life here.

So it could be as the previous commenters said - she's Russian by ancestry, but at some point her parents/grandparents/some level of family, moved to the country with non-gendered last name tradition. In this case we're having something like Alina Ivanoff - which is strange to Russian ear, but absolutely normal to, for example, USA.

Please remember - not all Russian last names differ by gender, even man can have his last name ending in A (ie Belka) so it depends on what kind of last name we're talking here.

[chierii]

Is there a pattern? Like, most surnames ending in -ov or -in differ? I don't know much on the subject myself, only that there is a difference and this name didn't seem to fit the bill.

[mad_maudlin]

If the masculine surname ends in -ov/-ev, or -in, then the feminine will end in -ova/-eva/-ina. (Vladimir Putin and Ludmila Putina, Mikhail Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbacheva, etc.)

If the masculine ends in -(i)y/-(y)y, then the feminine will end in -aya. (Anton Gorodetsky and Nadia Gorodetskaya.)

Anything else, especially names of foreign origin, is the same for both genders.

(Just don't ask me to decline these by case...)

[chierii]

Ah. Then yeah, her name should normally end in -ina.

[familyfoo]

Or you can use a surname that sounds the same both for men and women, like Chernykh or Belykh. It doesn't decline by case, also.

[lilacsigil]

If she's a scientist, maybe she's published internationally and was encouraged to use the masculine form of her name (or her editors just changed it to their stylebook's form) and now she uses that name because it's the one for which she's known? As other people have said, it's not uncommon for English publications to drop the feminine ending.

[chierii]

Oh, that makes sense, too! Thanks!

[jgofri]

If she is Russian with the kind of name that is supposed to have feminine ending, and lives in Russia, it would be highly unusual for her to use masculine form in everyday life

[chierii]

There are no other Russians in the cast (or at least not in the named cast), so yeah, she might just be using it with her colleagues. Thanks for the info!

[rosa_ghjklx]

I think there might be a few Russian names that are the same for men and women, but I understand the character already has a name and it's not one of those.
I'd go with only using the masculine form of the name with foreigners to avoid confusing them.