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In some countries, surname inflection (Czech: přechylování příjmení, Polish: odmiana nazwiska, Slovak: prechyľovanie priezviska) consists in the formation of surname of the opposite sex, but mainly in women, by by modifying the initial form of the surname, mostly the surname of a male person.
The reason is usually the expression of the family status of the bearer of the surname to be brought into line with the expression of its grammatical gender. We also inflect personal names in a similar way (Jan/Ján - Jana) and nouns denoting persons, e.g. Czech and Slovak professions (doktor - doktorka). But the procedure is different for surnames. Inflection allows them to be inflected in accordance with the rule of agreement of subject and predicate, thereby expressing relationships in the sentence (for example, what is the podmet and what is the subject) in the sentence.
On the contrary, it rarely deviates from the feminine form of the surname to the masculine, e.g. when a person changes gender to masculine or during marriage the groom takes the bride's surname or for the son of an unmarried mother. Then the masculine form is used, commonly understood as basic, uninflected.
The female variant of the surname is usually formed as feminative from the basic, male variant, or the male and female variants are grammatically symmetrical. Moreover, in some other languages and cultures, maiden surnames (belonging to the father, e.g. Polish -ówna) were or are being distinguished from wives' surnames (belonging to the husband, e.g. Polish -owa). Inflection of surnames is especially typical for inflective language, in which it is usually done with specific suffixes.
Inflection is usually not governed by grammar, it is often only a matter of adding the ending -ová. So, for example, from the surname Jakubův, the inflected form is not Jakubová, but Jakubůvová (or it is not inflected either), from the surname Vítr, the inflected form is not Větrová, but Vítrová, from the surname Smrt, the inflected form is Smrtová, not Smrťová. Latin endings are also not respected, which fall out during declension, so that, for example, the inflected form of the surname Simonides is not Simonides, but Simonides, from Herod is Herodova, not Herodova, from Paulus is Paulusova, not Paulova. For some slanted surnames ending in -ě, the letter "t" is also added according to the "chicken" pattern, so, for example, there are three possible slanted forms of the surname Kníže, namely Knížová, Knížetová and Knížeová. This is not always the case, e.g. with the surnames Koťová or Káně, where there are only variants Koťová and Káňová. With exceptions (Jankůová, Petrůová, Pavlůová, Bratrůová), surnames ending in -ů are not inflected, unless they are of foreign origin, e.g. the surname Faů is commonly inflected as Faůová, because it comes from the German word Pfau. Surnames ending in -ý can also have inflected forms ending in -ýová, especially if the adjective is outdated and sounds strange or it is not obvious that it is an adjective, so for example the surname Šurý has the inflected form Šurá and Šurýová. For foreign surnames from adjectives ending in -i and -y, the same rules apply as for their Czech versions. In the case of the endings -o, -é and -ic, there is also the possibility that a woman will keep a surname that does not end in -ová. With exceptions, surnames formed from clear adjectives following the "spring" pattern are not inflected, such as Hořejší, Dolejší, Hoření, Domácí, Ryzí, etc. If it is likely that it is not an adjective, the surname is sometimes inflected, e.g. in addition to the main form, the surname Brixí can also be a slanted form Brixíová. In the case of surnames such as Krejčí or Kočí, there are also slanted forms Krejčová and Kočová (rarely Kočíová).