Ihorovych, Ihorevych or Ihoryovych: how to write a patronymic in Ukrainian correctly
Only one option is correct.
Igor is a beautiful Slavic name for a boy, which has Old Norse roots. It comes from the name Ingvar and means “warrior”. In Ukraine, the name Igor is popular and, as they say, timeless. But what about the patronymic from Igor? How is it correctly written and pronounced in Ukrainian – Igorovich, Igorevich or Igorevich?
Can you use all the options? Spoiler: no, you only need to use one of them. MigNews will tell you which one.
How to correctly write the patronymic of Igor in Ukrainian: Igorovich, Igorevich or Igorevich
Although it seems to us that we speak the same way as our ancestors, this is not entirely true. Our language is changing, acquiring new words and modernizing. The most significant changes in the language occurred in 2019. And in 2024, the rules went through a period of adaptation and became mandatory for everyone.
Igor is a masculine noun of the soft group II declension. It is declined in the same way as, for example, such words as tsar, kobzar, doctor. The hard sound “r” turns into a soft one during declension.
Therefore, according to the new spelling, we should not write Igorovich, as it was before, but Igorevich. The female patronymic of Igor will be Igorevna. This is important to know and remember. And passport holders from 2019 need to write exactly like this.
But why not Igorevich? Some people think that it sounds more natural and harmonious. But no, the suffix -evich in the Ukrainian language does not exist in patronymic names: they are characteristic of the Russian language.
How is the name Igor conjugated in Ukrainian?
As we said above, Igor is conjugated in the same way as nouns of the soft group II declension. We suggest you familiarize yourself with this table of declensions of the name and memorize them:
Declension of the name Igor, Source: slovnyk.ua
Examples of the use of the patronymic “Igorevich”
- Vyacheslav Igorevich, how many can you have? We asked you not to bother our neighbor anymore.
- Lev Igorevich came to the pier every day in the hope that his son would one day return from a long voyage.
What about the patronymic “Yurievich” or “Yurievich”? Here we discussed the subtleties of spelling this word.
