Thread: russifying my last name

Привет! Мне нужен ответ...

I am corresponding back and forth with universities in Russia, making plans to study there this fall. My plans are proceeding nicely and language is not a barrier for me. However, I have one odd little detail that is bugging me:

Should I be adding an "a" to the end of my last name when I write it in cyrillic letters?

It wouldn't bug me except that my first name, Lindsay, can belong to either a man or a woman. My last name ends in a consonant, so in Russian it is, of course, masculine gendered. So I think maybe people might think I am a man if they only hear from me in writing. But I think it sounds kind of unnatural to add an "a" to my last name - it was eastern European at one time, but when my family moved to the US it was Americanized so badly that you can't tell what nationality it is anymore.

Any advice? What would you do? Do you know what is standard in transliteration?

Thanks so much!

1. i have neever met a man name lyndsay
2. i have never met a russian who changed their name to fit thier gender.
3. they will probly think you are a man anyway, u just have an A as the last letter of your last name.

Such gender rules do not work for foreign names because gender does not exist in English. As far as I know, for example, last name Smith can be both male and female (John Smith, Jane Smith). It is known in Russia that English last names cannot give information about sex of their owner. Due to this people will not think that you are male. Probably, if needed, they will ask you, who are you. Or better, you should say it yourself. Your name Lindsay (Линдзи) looks like female, so you better to put them together. Adding "a" to the end of last name is not a decision. It is applied to Russian names that are usually ended with "-ов", "-ин", but for foreign ones it looks odd. If you're interested, not all last names in Russia can have two genders. For example, Ukrainian names ended with "o" (Засядько) don't have female version. Male and female variants sound the same.

Спасибо, я говорю по-русски, но о культуре я не знаю ничего.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

1. i have neever met a man name lyndsay

Нет? Где ты живешь? Я знаю, что здесь многo мужчин, которых зовут Линдзи. But they usually spell it Lindsey.

where are you studying next fall? Ill be at St petersburg State university for the semester.

Originally Posted by drew881

where are you studying next fall? Ill be at St petersburg State university for the semester.

Hertzen, I think. Plans are not quite finalized.

It is no need to add any letters to your name, it looks strange and funny when foreigners change thier names and last names.

I live in Krasnodar and if you will come here you can contact me.

Its in st petersburg? Are you a college student in the us?

Yes, and yes.

The Российский Государственный Педагогический Университет is called "The Herzen State University" in all the English language documents I've seen about it , for some reason. I don't pretend to understand.

Originally Posted by Линдзи

Yes, and yes.

The Российский Государственный Педагогический Университет is called "The Herzen State University" in all the English language documents I've seen about it , for some reason. I don't pretend to understand.

It used to be an "institute", but in the 90s every school with three students and a teacher started calling themself "university". To add some status or something...

I've also studied at Herzen for 3 months, in the summer of 1998. It sucked most of the time. Half of the classes were just a complete waste of time. We had history by a woman who to our firm believe showed up drunk most of the time! Hey, I've payed good money, educate me!

Ah well, if the classes are bad, you don't feel so guilty when you skip them and St. Petersburg has a lot more to offer than a few dull classrooms!

Hmmm... there are two Russians at my school, brother and sister...

One has an ending of ya at the end of her name and the boy's last name ends normally.

But there is this Russian girl I know whose family all changed their name to the masculine form.

...And I would have never known....

Originally Posted by Gollandski Yozh

It used to be an "institute", but in the 90s every school with three students and a teacher started calling themself "university". To add some status or something...

This is because of new law "About high and after-highschool professional education" of 22 august 1996. This law sets three types of high-schools (Article 9): University, academy and institute. In accordance with law, university is a high-school which realize educational programs and makes scientifical researches on a wide variety of specialist areas. Academy do almost the same as university but in a one scientifical area. And institute has even lower status than academy. After this law was made, high-schools began to set their names in accordance with law. Many high-schools decided to use this situation for changing their status. For example, my university was called "Aviation institute" After making this law the administration decided to change it to university because, by judjing the law, "institute" is too low status for high-school of such level. But university must provide educational programs and scientific researches on a "wide variety of specialist areas" (i.e. not only in aircraft as it was earlier). So, they added there one more faculty which is called "Humanitarian faculty" and renamed the institute to the "State technical university" Now, this "technical university" has "Humanitarian faculty" when students learn Russian and Tatar languages, literature, public relations and other "technical" subjects. This is just the story…

Sounds familiar. My gf in St. Petersburg studies at GUAP (Gos. Universtitet Aerokosmicheskogo Priborostroeniya, ili chto-to podobnoe), nothing technical or anything, but economy. There they also started up some new faculties just to call themselves university...