Czech Surnames

Do you know that Czech men and women do not have the exact same family name although they are married or they are siblings? I just knew about this recently.

I have some friends who are siblings and one time I asked them what are their complete names. To my surprise, they gave me similar-sounding, yet differently-spelled surnames. I later learned that the Czech language has seven grammatical cases and five of these are very particular with gender differences. The Czechs have specific gender-marked suffixes to differentiate whether one is male or female.

Thus, one can notice that most female surnames are basically spelled the same with males BUT with an additional -ová at the end. For instance, there's a guy whose surname is Jurke while his mother/sister is Jurkova.

I've traveled to many countries and this is my first time to hear about such rules regarding surnames. Interesting!