Proper nouns are the specific names of people, places, organizations and other things. In Russian, as in English, proper nouns are capitalized. Here are some examples:
Джон Смит (dzhon smit) — John Smith
Мария Морозова (mariya morozova) — Maria Morozova
Париж (parizh) — Paris
Кока-Кола (koka-kola) — Coca-Cola
Майкрософт (maykrosoft) — Microsoft
Traditionally, brand names are placed in quotation marks, but this is becoming more and more rare outside of formal contexts, especially with foreign brand names.
Traditional Russian names are made up of three parts:
имя (imya) — given name
отчество (otchestvo) — patronymic (a name formed from the father's name)
фамилия (familiya) — surname
These name parts are presented in this order, like in this example:
Иван Петрович Смирнов (ivan petrovich smirnov) — Ivan Petrovich Smirnov
In documents, the order is usually surname — given name — patronymic.
Russian first names and patronymics are declined like common nouns for case, number and gender. This means that the way they look will change depending on how they're being used in the sentence.
For example, let's take a look at the example name from above:
Иван Петрович Смирнов идёт на работу. (Ivan Petrovich Smirnov idyot na rabotu.) — Ivan Petrovich Smirnov is going to work.
If Ivan's role in the sentence changes, every part of his name does, too. For instance:
Он дал Ивану Петровичу Смирнову книгу. (On dal Ivanu Petrovichu Smirnovu knigu.) — He gave Ivan Petrovich Smirnov a book.
Я встретила Ивана в парке. (Ya vstretila Ivana v parke.) — I met Ivan in the park.
Many foreign names are indeclinable. That usually happens when the way the name ends doesn’t correspond to the gender associated with the name:
Марио (mario) — Mario — is indeclinable because the “о” ending is uncommon for masculine nouns.
Most foreign last names, like Миллер (miller) — Miller, Смит (smit) — Smith, and Дюпон (dyupon) — Dupont, will decline when referring to a man, but not when referring to a woman. That’s because the consonant is usually the last letter in masculine nouns but rarely in feminine.
The modern trend is to not decline brand names, but this isn't applied consistently. As a rule of thumb, the more common the brand name is, the more likely it is to be declined.
