What's In a Name?

But for non-Czech women marrying Czech men, especially those who plan to live in the Czech Republic, naming requires a little more forethought. The looming question being whether or not to add the traditional –ová suffix to one’s married name—not a choice to be made lightly as not doing so means upsetting the gender-based system of the Czech language and basically ensuring that, for the rest of your life, looks of panic and bewilderment will precede the reading of your name.

When I became engaged to marry a Czech I grappled a bit with the notion of –ová. Those three letters, no matter what their grammatical implications, felt demeaning, suggestive of otherness. Besides, outside of the context of the Czech lands and language wouldn’t my beloved and I appear to have completely different names? I reasoned that if I was going to take his name it should be his name not some gender-inflected version of it.

Around the time we got married, I happened to have been studying with Denisa Šmejkalová, translator, linguist, instructor at Active Czech, and culturally sensitive individual who understood my misguided American pursuit of PC language. She broke down –ová for me, explaining that the key to its not being sexist—as is frequently argued—lies in the accent over the a; –ová merely indicates an adjective that expresses affiliation with a particular family, while –ova denotes possession.

Denisa further explained that –ová is simply the way that the Czech grammar system deals with feminine surnames and that it’s important for a variety of reasons from influencing the past tense to clarifying the subject in a language with flexible word order. Though this sensible explanation eased my mind about the possibility of becoming “paní Zahradníčková” I eventually opted to forgo the –ová, declension difficulties be damned.

I ended up hyphenating our surnames, a choice that was also not without complications. We discovered that, in the Czech manner, my maiden name “Haas” would follow my married name “Zahradníček”, suggesting to my non-Slavic-language-speaking Facebook friends that I had married a relative, while giving way to long, awkward pauses at the supermarket cash desk as I struggled to correctly sign my debit-card receipt.

There would be more naming—and life—surprises to come: A week after the wedding I found out that I was expecting. Because we’d hastily scribbled the default “Zahradníčková” on our marriage application, thinking “Kids? Yeah right!”, we were forced to revisit the ová question upon learning the baby’s sex. We’d now need to legally change her last name back to the masculine form unless we didn’t mind being a family of assorted surnames.

I minded. I recalled an acquaintance telling me how she’d been detained at US passport control when traveling with her small children because their names (she is not married to her Czech partner but their kids have his surname) didn’t match. When my husband suggested letting it be, I screeched, in one of the many Oscar-worthy performances of my pregnancy: “She’s not even born and already she’s losing everything that’s American about her!”

Finally, the name needed to pass muster with the Institute of the Czech Languages. If you are a couple of foreigners becoming parents in the Czech Republic feel free to name your little miracle just that. Half-Czech couples, however, must adhere to a number of rules: No names based on fairy tale characters. Days of the week. Objects. And if your name cannot be found here get ready to pay a visit to the famed “name lady” from the Institute of the Czech Language and plead your case. 

The name we chose (two first names and a last name minus the –ová) is beautifully long and unwieldy and rather un-Czech, though not without its Czech features. “Beatrice” has already on a number of documents suffered unfortunate abbreviations (Beatr Zahradníček) or, for some inexplicable reason, been spelled to suit the Czech pronounciation (Beatris). Or perhaps explicably—when my husband called the matrika offices to inquire about the status of our daughter’s Czech birth certificate he was told, “There’s no boy listed here by that name.” When he repeated that she wasn’t a boy but a girl, the woman replied “Beatrice Zahradníček will always be a boy to me.”

For information in English on the Czech naming policy vist http://www.en.domavcr.cz/

Did you face similar challenges when choosing your married name? How did you name your children? Share your experiences here.

• Are These Prague’s Greatest Dads?
• Giving Birth in a Czech Hospital
• For Moms: Bio Oko’s Baby Bio film screenings
• Bilingual to Biliterate – What Happens When your Little Linguist Learns to Read?
• For Moms: Bringing up Babies in Bohemia