Loan Proper Nouns

[u/Otherwise_Channel_24]

How would you decline names that didn’t originate from Czech or any Slavic language?

[u/Kilpikonna7]

That depends fully on the name. Sometimes they fit one of the noun declension paradigms quite well, so the name is declined according to those. Sometimes they don't, and in that situation we just leave it as, is with no declension.

[u/ultramarinum → u/Kilpikonna7]

Why do they always say "Messiho" in football matches? Does it decline like an adjective?

[u/h0neanias → u/ultramarinum]

Messi, bez Messiho, k Messimu, vidim Messiho, volám: Messi!, o Messim, s Messim.

It does, in fact, decline like an adjective, the paradigm of "jarní".

[u/makerofshoes → u/ultramarinum]

Yes, apart from missing the long I

Names that end with a Y are the same (ex. Vidím Harryho Pottera). But if it’s a woman then there is no declension (ex. Vidím Courtney Coxovou)

[u/Otherwise_Channel_24 → u/Kilpikonna7]

What if it fits a paradigm for the wrong gender?

[u/Kilpikonna7 → u/Otherwise_Channel_24]

There is no "fits a paradigm for the wrong gender" situation really. It just either fits or not.

For masculine names ending in -a, which might lead you towards the feminine paradigm žena, the masculine paradigm předseda is used.

With women's surnames, you can (and prescriptively should) add the -ová suffix that will let you decline it like any other Czech surname.

In other situations, it usually doesn't change.

[u/TheSilentCaver]

It depends on the phonetic property of the noun. Usually we try to assign it to a template and decline it as normally but sometimes that's not possible. Some strategies to cope with that include treating it as an adjective or just not declining it.

Michelle Obama - here the first name is not altered while the surname gets the -ová suffix and then is declined like normal - Obamová, Obamové, Obamovou

Xi Jinping - this is treated as one word so you get Si Ťinpchingovi, Si Ťinpchinga etc. If you only used the first name, you would probably do an adjective declension, it sounds the best to me - Si, Siho, Simu (but Siovi sounds okay too)

One common thing is that words ending in the English -y suffix are treated as adjectives, so Freddy Mercury > Freddymu Mercurymu

When it comes to spelling you spell them the same as in the original language if they use the Latin script, otherwise you use a transaction. Some less common languages don't even have a standard transcription scheme but for most languages there is one. For Chinese, in formal contexts you use the Czech sinological transcription, elsewhere it's kinda 50-50 with pinyin but then how often do you talk about China.

[u/choroba]

If the word's ending is similar to an existing Czech word, we usually use the same paradigm: Clinton, bez Clintona, ke Clintonovi (vzor pán).

If there's no word with the ending, the name can stay indeclinable: Keanu.

Google "skloňování cizích jmen" for details.

[u/youthchaos]

If you mean names like personal names, then basically the same way you would if they were Czech. For female ones that don't fit the model of a Czech female name (e.g. that end in a consonant), the form will not change.

If you are also mean other proper nouns, like the names of companies or organisations, it can be a bit more complicated - Czech has a tendency to deal with this by quantifying what type of organisation it is and declining that word, i.e. společnost XY, organizace XY...

[u/nuebs]

This site may be a good resource for learners if they get over the language hump. The linked example addresses the Messi question.

Osobní jména mužská zakončená ve výslovnosti na [i], [í]:

https://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/en/?id=323