If you are tracing a Czech or Slovak woman, her surname will usually look different from her brother’s, and the rules about it changed recently. The feminine ending -ová is one of the most recognizable features of Czech and Slovak names, and it is a trap for anyone searching a database. This guide explains how the feminine forms work, what the law now allows and how to find women in the records. We checked these details in October 2026, and laws, statistics and tools change, so confirm them before you rely on them.
How feminine surnames are formed
Czech female surnames are almost always feminine adjectives, according to Wikipedia: a girl whose father’s surname is Novotný has the surname Novotná, Novák becomes Nováková and Svoboda becomes Svobodová. Czechs tend to add a feminine suffix to the surnames of foreign women as well, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was referred to as Angela Merkelová in Czech newspapers. Slovak women’s surnames take -ová or -á in the same way.
The ending -ová is not a possessive suffix, unlike -ova in some other Slavic languages, but makes a feminine adjective out of a surname, and it has a long history: evidence of using -ová to form feminine designations from a man’s name can be found in obituaries, urbars and town books from the fourteenth century.
The Czech law change
Women in the Czech Republic previously had to adopt a surname with the feminine suffix. For more than a decade, they could formally decline it only under conditions, such as marrying a non-Czech national or proving that they intended to live outside the Czech Republic, according to Euronews. President Miloš Zeman signed a new law in July 2021 allowing women to choose the male or female form of their surnames. A Czech law firm explains that, effective 1 January 2022, the conditions previously required for entering a surname in the masculine form were abolished, so a woman may ask the registry office to enter it in masculine form. In Slovakia, women have been allowed to choose whether to use the -ová suffix for several years, according to Euronews.
The ending is unlikely to disappear soon, because many women prefer to keep it. For genealogy, the practical point is that records created from 2022 onward may show a woman under the masculine form.
Surnames after marriage
According to a Czech law firm, spouses can choose the surname of one of them as the joint family surname, either the husband’s or the wife’s, but not a third person’s. A spouse who gives up a surname may attach a previous surname to the common surname, so that, for example, Alena Pomalá marrying Jan Pospíšil could become Alena Pospíšilová Pomalá. The law sets rules against excessive chaining of surnames. These rules describe the present law, and older records follow older practice, so check the date.
What this means for records
- A woman usually appears under -ová in baptism, marriage and burial entries, and in censuses.
- Her maiden name is the feminine form of her father’s surname. Convert it back to the masculine form to search for the family.
- A wife may share her husband’s surname in the feminine form after marriage.
- A daughter’s surname follows her father’s. The feminine form of Novák is Nováková, and of Černý is Černá.
- Hungarian-origin surnames in Slovakia, such as Nagy and Nagyová, may appear in Hungarian or Slovak forms, so check the register.
Searching for women
- Write her surname in the masculine form and in the feminine form.
- Search both in databases, using the stem where possible.
- Use the husband’s surname after marriage.
- Check the mother’s entry in her children’s baptisms, which often gives her maiden name and her parents.
- Look for the grandmother in the censuses under the feminine surname.
- Record every form in your tree.
Genealogy Indexer notes that its Czech and Slovak search handles the masculine and feminine forms automatically in many cases but not always: a search for Novak will find Novakova, but a search for Novakova will not find Novak. See our spelling guide.
In American records
Women’s surnames may appear with -ová on tombstones and in church records, according to Family Tree Magazine, which points to a tombstone showing the suffix. Many American records use the masculine form for the whole family, so search both. See our guide to surnames changed in America.
Illustrative composite (not a real family): A reader cannot find her great-grandmother Marie in the Czech registers under “Dvořák.” She searches “Dvořáková,” finds the baptism and learns that Marie’s father was a Dvořák and her mother was a Černá, the feminine form of Černý. She uses the mother’s name to find the next generation.
Sisters and families
Wikipedia’s examples show that the feminine form also appears when women are named together. For the surname Novák, “the Novák family” is rodina Novákova and “the sisters Novák” is sestry Novákovy, while for Novotný the sisters are sestry Novotné. When a record names the sisters as a group, the surname form may therefore differ from the form used for the father.
A note on dates
The law described here is recent, and older records follow older practice. When you read a woman’s name in a register, note the date, because the rules of 2022 do not apply to a baptism in 1880.
Common mistakes
- Searching only the masculine form for a woman. She appears under -ová.
- Searching only the feminine form for the family. The family name is masculine.
- Assuming a modern woman uses -ová. Since 2022 she may choose.
- Forgetting the mother’s maiden name. It leads to the next family.
- Ignoring Hungarian-origin names. They appear in both Hungarian and Slovak forms.
Continue with our complete guide to surname origins and surname endings, and browse Surnames & Name Origins. Sources include Wikipedia on surname inflection, Wikipedia on Czech names, a Czech law firm on spouses’ surnames, Euronews on the Czech surname debate and a news report on the 2021 law.
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