Thread: Gender for Nouns ending with И

Привет, форумы. So in Russia I know that there's a gender system for all nouns. All consonants including й are masculine, а and я are feminine, and о and е are neuter. The thing is though, that doesn't cover all the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet. What do you do for the rest of the letters? What gender are they? I'll give an example sentence:
"Шон дарит цветы Наоми." ("Sean gives flowers to Naomi")

Because Naomi is the indirect object in this sentence, her name should be altered, but there's no rule for it because it doesn't fit under a gender. So my question is, what are you supposed to do in this situation? (I know it's a big question, so I don't mind if you just answer it for the sentence I gave)

Maybe you should consider reading some grammar books?

All consonants including й are masculine, а and я are feminine, and о and е are neuter.

Is it? I'm a 45-years old native Russian speaker, but I'm not so sure about this rule. What if a noun is ending with "-ь", such as "ночь", "мышь", "шампунь" or "мозоль"? Or what about diminutive forms of masculine names, such as "Серёжа" for "Сергей"? Do you mean it's the feminine gender? I object! What about the word "кофе"? Is it neuter? I don't like to drink such coffee!
What for the name "Наоми" it's indeclinable, as many other names and surnames, not only foreigners' names but also Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian names, including my own surname.

Sorry, SergeMak, you're right. I forgot to mention those exceptions in my first comment, I was actually in a rush at the time so I made a few mistakes.

И-nouns are always indeclinable. They all are loan words (well, at least, all of them that I can recall.).

К несклоняемым существительным относятся:
1) иноязычные по происхождению нарицательные и собственные имена, оканчивающиеся на безударные и ударяемые е (э), и, о, у и ударяемое а: кофе, кашне, алоэ, пони, такси, какао, арго, банту, какаду, интервью, антраша; Данте, Доде, Верди, Мали, Осло, Бордо, Шоу, Барту, Дюма, Золя;
2) иностранные по происхождению нарицательные и собственные наименования лиц женского пола, оканчивающиеся на согласный звук: мадам, мадемуазель, миссис; Кармен, Каролина Шлегель;
3) украинские фамилии на -ко: Короленко, Ляшко;
4) русские фамилии на -аго (-яго), -ово, -ых, -их, восходящие к формам родительного падежа единственного или множественного числа имен прилагательных; Шамбинаго, Дубяго, Седых, Долгих, Дурново;
5) русские фамилии на согласный, обозначающие лиц женского пола: Татьяна Жук, Анна Гребень;
6) буквенные (реже звуковые) аббревиатуры и сложносокращенные слова на гласный: УССР, МГУ, ООН, роно, сельпо, Мосэнерго.

Although some words in Russian are indeclinable, it doesn't mean they don't have a gender. The gender of an indeclinable noun along with its number and case becomes visible when you use some attribute words (adjectives, pronouns) with it. For example:
Наоми - веселая и красивая. У прекрасной Наоми есть надежный друг Шон.