Surname confusion

[pineledge]

I am researching my grandmother's ancestry and am a bit confused about surnames. For instance, I thought the suffix "ova" referred to a female yet one name that surface for a man was Mr. Muzikova. Another example Josef Sedlone was also listed as Sedlon and his wife was Sedlonovou and also Sedlonova.
Any insight would be very helpful.

Diana

[Sova]

In Czech, surnames, like any other noun or adjective, change their endings based on how they are used in a sentence, e.g. subject, direct object, indirect object, etc. For example, after the preposition "s" (meaning "with"), the surname Sedlonova changes to Sedlonovou. When calling someone (e.g. "Hey you!"), the surname Sedlon changes to Sedlone.

The instance of Mr. Mužikova is somewhat of a mystery to me. Probably it is a possessive form of the surname Mužik (e.g. Mužikův, Mužikova, etc.). In principle, the feminine form of noun-based surnames is a possessive form, so this would make sense as to why the possessive form would look like the feminine version of the surname. I'd have to see the context of the usage to determine if this was the case.

[pineledge]

Thank you so much for your reply. I recently found a letter from 1984. My family corresponded with my grandmother's cousin, Frantisek Douda (he won a bronze medal in the 1932 Olympics) In his letter, he mentions that two of his aunts married brothers name Muzikova. "Aloise, married to Mr. Muzikova" and "Marie, married Mr. Muzikova from the town of Tabor. I believe the letter I found was a translation from Czech by a neighbor. In this letter he mentions my great-grandmother, Anna Sedlonove-Novotny. Yet other references to Anna listed her surname as Sedlone or Sedlonova.
Your explanation will help ... again, thanks.

Diana

[bibax]

The Czech surnames in question:

Mužík - Mužíková (mužík = a little man, manikin)

Muzika - Muziková (muzika = music, as a surname a musician colloq.)

Sedloň - Sedloňová (sedlo = a saddle; sedlati = to saddle)

Novotný - Novotná (nový = new; novota = a novelty)

[wer]

[meluzina]

just to add to wer's comment that 'ova' is adjectival and not possessive, consider names such as zeleny/zelena, cerny/cerna, zeleny/zelena and some names that do not chane, such as martinu, macku

just as an aside, i've oft had arguments about the fact that people think the 'ova' suffix is 'sexist' as it denotes possession - having been an 'ova' since birth (even in the u.s.), i would feel funny without it

[Sova]

Thanks wer and meluzina for the clarification. I'm aware of the differences in the forms--I just misspoke: I should have said genitive, rather than possessive.

@meluzina: I've been an -ova since my "birth" here on MyCzechRepublic.com, but I suppose S-ova, doesn't quite fit that bill.