Streepova??

January 30, 2007 7:12 PM

Years ago on vacation in Europe, I was in Prague, and walking past a movie theater I saw a poster for "The River Wild"--that Meryl Streep river-rafting action movie out at the time. The language on the poster was, of course, Czech, but the strange thing i noticed was Streep's name, which was spelled "Streepova", with a little carat above the "o". Czech speakers, what's up with that? Is the "-ova" part silent, or is it pronounced somewhat like it would sound in English? If the latter, then this would totally change Streep's name, from one syllable to three syllables. Is this a Czech name? Even so, Meryl's is "Streep", so I can't imagine why it was changed.

Strange question, I know, but it's something I've been curious about for over 10 years now.

posted by zardoz to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

Best answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_name#Female_surnames

It is also customary for the surnames of female foreigners when used in Czech to be used with -ová but this is not necessary: e.g. Laura Bush is often, but not always named as Laura Bushová.

Can't help you on pronunciation.
posted by zamboni at 7:18 PM on January 30, 2007

Czech applies the whole gendered language to names as well. So women's last names have endings to make them feminine.

reference.com reference
posted by advicepig at 7:19 PM on January 30, 2007

Response by poster: Looks like my memory failed me: it was a tick over the "a", not a carat over the "o".
posted by zardoz at 7:25 PM on January 30, 2007

Many slavic languages use similar endings on female names. A dad who's name is Petr Strom will have a daughter who's name is Stromova. It's just the way names work in those languages. If they would have had her name as "Meryl Streep" anyone who didn't know the name would probably have thought it was a man.

The humorous thing is when men in foreign countries end up with their mother's feminine last names.
posted by metajack at 7:28 PM on January 30, 2007

It's not silent -- it sounds just like it looks. The a with the accent is slightly elongated.
posted by jennyjenny at 8:43 PM on January 30, 2007

Serbs are even better; they'll change the spelling of foreign names to match their strict phoentic rules. Like here. (Self link!)
posted by Ljubljana at 3:44 AM on January 31, 2007

When marying a foreigner the Czech bureaucrats insist that the -ova is added to the end of all names (except those that end with a vowel I think- i.e. I know one Czech girl married to a chap named 'Bentley' that was allowed to take the name as is as the y functions as a vowel).

The hilarty ensues of course when you get a name like Bent.
posted by Gratishades at 5:28 AM on January 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

You're confusing the carat with a hacek - the little "v" that goes over some consonants in Czech and functions like an "h", so s with a hacek becomes sh, c becomes ch, etc.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 6:08 AM on January 31, 2007

I always throw Czech names in the face of people who agree with Nabokov that Russian feminine names should be stripped of their endings in English. When they tell me that Anna Karenina should be "Anna Karenin," I respond "So you also say Martina Navratil and not Navratilova?" They never have an answer.
posted by languagehat at 6:40 AM on January 31, 2007

The suffix designates an "egg-bearer"; ie. a female.
posted by spasm at 9:08 AM on January 31, 2007