Czech name

A native Czech given name may have Christian roots or traditional Slavic pre-Christian origin (e.g. Milena, Božena, Jaroslav, Václav, Vojtěch).

However, in recent years the common practice has been that most birth-record offices look for the name in the book Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?

[2] The most popular boys' names between 1999 and 2007 were Jan (John), Jakub (Jacob or James), Tomáš (Thomas) and Martin.

These are similar in origin to English ones and may reflect: What is not shared with English but is similar to North American native languages[citation needed] is the colorful nature of some Czech surnames, such as Brzobohatý (soon to be rich), Volopich (pricking an ox), Urvinitka (tear a string), Rádsetoulal (liked wandering around), Stojaspal (slept standing), Vítámvás (I welcome you), Tenkrát (back in those days), Schovajsa (hide yourself!

Some of them got phonetically normalized and transcribed to Czech: Müller (miller) as well as Miler; Stein (Stone) as well as Štajn, Schmied (Smith) as well as Šmíd (or Šmýd), Fritsch (Frič), Schlessinger (Šlesingr), etc.

Some of them retain their original German surnames e. g. : Gottwald, Feiersinger, Dienstbier, Berger, Koller, Klaus, Franz, Forman, Ebermann, Lendl, Ulihrach, Gebauer, Kaberle, Vogelstanz, etc.

Many of Czech surnames occur in a diminutive form which was used to distinguish father and son (similar to John → Johnnie) or as a patronymic (John → Johnson), e. g. Petr → Peterka or Petřík → Petříček, Václav → Václavek or Václavík or Vašek → Vašinka, Sedlák → Sedláček, Polák → Poláček, Novák → Nováček, Zajíc → Zajíček, Němec → Němeček, Kalous → Kalousek, Havel → Havlík → Havlíček, Štěpán → Štěpánek → Štěpnička, Kovář → Kovařík → Kovaříček, Holub → Holoubek, Kocour → Kocourek, Cibula → Cibulka, Petržela → Petrželka, Chalupa → Chaloupka, Čáp → Čapek, Beran – Beránek.

[5] As in English-speaking countries, Czech women traditionally receive their father's surname at birth and take their husband's name when they marry.

The woman's surname is also[clarification needed] not declined if it is of foreign origin and adding the suffix -ová would be awkward or unfeasible: Olga Walló, Blanka Matragi.

Supporters of abandoning this habit claim that adding a Czech female suffix to a foreign surname means deliberately changing a woman's name and is therefore both misleading and inconsiderate, whereas traditionalists point out that only by adding the suffix can the name be used as a flexible feminine adjective within a naturally sounding Czech sentence.

[8] An amendment proposed[9] to allow women to use male family name versions was approved by the Senate of the Czech Republic in July 2021.