Russian Noun Gender Explained

We sorted our list of the 600 most common Russian nouns by type. Each one has its own page in our Russian noun declension tables, with all six cases in the singular and plural, and the type label on that page links to the matching section below.

The five types at a glance

The ending rules in this table give the right gender for 527 of the 584 nouns that have one. The other 57 are the 52 nouns in -ь, which need a closer look, and five masculine nouns that end in -а or -я.

Which gender is the most common?

That depends on what you count. Count nouns, and masculine wins, with 269 of our 600, ahead of 218 feminine and 97 neuter. Count how often they're used, and feminine catches up. Our list is ranked by how often each noun occurs in film and TV subtitles. In the top 20, masculine still leads, with 9 nouns to feminine's 7, plus 3 neuter and 1 plural only. In the top 100, feminine leads with 49 nouns, against 37 masculine, 13 neuter and 1 plural only.

The very top of the list is a mix. The three most common nouns are время (time), which is neuter, люди (people), which is plural only, and жизнь (life), which is feminine. The first masculine noun, друг (friend), comes fourth.

So you'll meet a lot of feminine nouns early, and masculine nouns take a bigger share of the ones you add later. Neuter is the smallest of the three genders by either count.

Masculine nouns

In our list, every noun that ends in a consonant is masculine, all 236 of them, from стол (table) and дом (house) to брат (brother). So are all 8 that end in -й, such as чай (tea). Grammar books say these nouns have no ending in the nominative, and the endings appear in the other cases: стол, стола, столу. Masculine nouns that end in ж, ш, ч or щ never take a soft sign, as in муж (husband), врач (doctor) and нож (knife).

Masculine nouns in -ь. Of the 52 nouns in our list that end in the soft sign, 20 are masculine, including день (day), парень (guy) and учитель (teacher). Nouns in -тель, such as учитель and водитель (driver), are masculine. The ending -ость usually means feminine, but гость (guest) is masculine, because in гость those letters belong to the root. The soft-sign section has every cue.

Masculine nouns in -а and -я. Five nouns in our list end in -а or -я and are still masculine. Four of them name men: папа (dad), мужчина (man), дедушка (grandfather) and дядя (uncle). Adjectives and past-tense verbs that go with them take masculine forms. Their own endings are the feminine ones, though, and папа declines exactly like мама (mom):

So the gender tells you how other words agree with папа, and the ending tells you how папа itself changes. The fifth noun, коллега (colleague), is common gender in the dictionaries, masculine or feminine depending on the person, but our tables file it under masculine.

Feminine nouns

A noun that ends in -а or -я is almost always feminine. In our list, 147 of the 151 nouns in -а are feminine, and so are 39 of the 40 in -я. That's 186 nouns, including мама (mom), книга (book), рука (hand), кухня (kitchen) and 24 nouns in -ия, such as армия (army). The five exceptions are masculine nouns such as папа (dad), listed in the masculine section.

The other 32 feminine nouns end in the soft sign, among them жизнь (life), ночь (night), дверь (door) and радость (joy). A soft sign after ж, ш, ч or щ always marks a feminine noun, as in ночь and помощь (help), and so does the ending -ость, as in радость. The one -ость exception in our list is гость (guest), which is masculine.

Мать (mother) and дочь (daughter) add -ер- to the stem in every form except the nominative and accusative singular, so мать becomes матери and матерью, and дочь becomes дочери and дочерью.

Neuter nouns

In our list, every noun that ends in -о or -е and changes its endings is neuter. That's all 38 nouns in -о and all 57 in -е, such as окно (window), слово (word), место (place), море (sea) and сердце (heart). They include 51 nouns in -ие, such as здание (building), and nouns in -ство, such as чувство (feeling), are neuter too.

Neuter nouns share their genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional singular endings with masculine nouns like стол (table), but their nominative plural ends in -а or -я: окна, слова, моря.

Two neuter nouns end in -мя: время (time), the most common noun on our list, and имя (name). They look like feminine nouns in -я, but they're neuter, and they add -ен- in every form except the nominative and accusative singular: времени, временем, and in the plural времена.

Indeclinable loanwords such as метро (subway) are neuter too, but кофе (coffee) is masculine. The indeclinable section explains why.

Soft-sign nouns: masculine or feminine?

A noun that ends in -ь can be either gender, and the letter alone won't tell you which. Our list has 52 of them, 32 feminine and 20 masculine. So feminine is the better guess, right about three times in five, but it's still a guess.

Five cues do better:

• A soft sign after ж, ш, ч or щ means feminine. All six such nouns on our list are feminine: ночь (night), помощь (help), дочь (daughter), вещь (thing), речь (speech) and ложь (lie). Masculine nouns that end in those letters have no soft sign, as in муж (husband), врач (doctor), нож (knife) and ключ (key). This is an official spelling rule, so it holds well beyond our 600.
• -тель means masculine. Every noun in our list that ends in -тель is masculine, including учитель (teacher), водитель (driver), житель (resident), свидетель (witness) and приятель (pal).
• -ость means feminine, with one trap. Радость (joy) and неприятность (trouble) are feminine. Гость (guest) is masculine, because in гость those letters belong to the root.
• Nouns for people follow the person. Мать (mother) and дочь are feminine, while учитель, гость and парень (guy) are masculine.
• The endings settle it. Masculine soft-sign nouns take -я in the genitive singular and -ем or -ём in the instrumental, so день (day) gives дня and днём, and учитель gives учителя and учителем. Feminine ones take -и and -ью, so ночь gives ночи and ночью, and дверь (door) gives двери and дверью. The one exception in our list is путь (way), a masculine noun with a feminine-looking genitive, пути. Its instrumental, путём, still gives it away.

Every noun page shows all six cases, so a soft-sign noun's table settles the question in one line.

The three declensions

Gender tells you how other words agree with a noun. The declension tells you which endings the noun itself takes. Russian schools sort the nouns that change into three declensions, by their ending and gender:

Three mixed nouns, время (time), имя (name) and путь (way), borrow from two declensions, and the indeclinable and plural-only nouns sit outside the count.

If you use more than one grammar book, watch the numbers. The Russian Academy of Sciences grammar of 1980 swaps the first two, so its 2nd declension is the nouns in -а and -я. This guide uses the school numbering, as English Wikipedia does.

Here are the singular endings, with nouns from our list as examples:

Two details change these endings. Nouns in -ия take -ии in the dative and prepositional, so армия (army) gives армии, and nouns in -ие do the same in the prepositional, so здание (building) gives здании. Under stress, -ей and -ем are written -ёй and -ём: земля (earth) gives землёй, and день (day) gives днём.

In the plural, the dative, instrumental and prepositional endings are nearly the same for every noun. The genitive plural is the one to watch.

Spelling rules. Two rules change endings in every declension. After г, к, х, ж, ш, щ and ч, Russian writes и, never ы, so книга (book) gives книги, рука (hand) gives руки, and нож (knife) gives ножи. The letter ц isn't on that list. The second rule covers ж, ш, щ, ч and ц: after them, an unstressed о is written е. Where the ending is stressed, the о stays, so отец (father) gives отцом and врач (doctor) gives врачом. Where it isn't, you get е, so муж (husband) gives мужем and сердце (heart) gives сердцем.

The mixed nouns. Время and имя take 3rd declension endings in the genitive, dative and prepositional, as in времени, but the 2nd declension ending -ем in the instrumental, as in временем. Путь has 3rd declension endings everywhere except the instrumental, путём. All three are in our top 100, so you'll meet them early.

Animate nouns and the accusative

Russian treats most nouns for people and animals as animate, and the difference shows in one case, the accusative. Our list has 106 animate nouns, and each noun page says whether its noun is animate.

The rule has two parts. In the plural, every animate noun uses its genitive form as the accusative. In the singular, only masculine nouns with no ending do, and our list has 72 of them. So брат (brother) gives брата in the accusative singular and братьев in the plural, and отец (father) gives отца and отцов. An inanimate noun like стол (table) keeps стол and столы.

Masculine nouns in -ь count as having no ending, so гость (guest) gives гостя and учитель (teacher) gives учителя.

Other animate nouns use the genitive form only in the plural. Take мама (mom): маму in the singular, but мам in the plural. Мать (mother) gives мать, then матерей. Папа (dad) is masculine, but it ends in -а, so it follows мама: папу, then пап.

Animacy is grammar, so it doesn't always match biology. The word for a dead body, труп, is inanimate, and its accusative is труп.

Fleeting vowels, stress and the locative

Fleeting vowels. In 29 of our nouns, a vowel drops out when an ending is added: отец (father) gives отца, день (day) gives дня, and ребёнок (child) gives ребёнка. In 46 others, a vowel appears in a genitive plural that has no ending: девушка (girl) gives девушек, окно (window) gives окон, and сестра (sister) gives сестёр.

Stress. In 147 of the 588 nouns that decline, the stress moves from one form to another. Ordinary Russian text doesn't mark stress, so our tables mark it for you. Here are three nouns where it moves:

In рука, the stress is the only difference between руки “of the hand,” stressed on the ending, and руки “hands,” stressed on the first syllable. And ё only ever appears under stress, which is why сестра has сёстры in the plural.

The locative. Of our nouns, 38 have a second locative, a separate form for place after в (in) or на (on). The 32 masculine ones take a stressed -у or -ю, as in в году (in the year) from год and в саду (in the garden) from сад. The 6 feminine ones are spelled like the ordinary prepositional, with the stress on the ending: на двери (on the door), в ночи (in the night). Talking about something, with о (about), still takes the ordinary prepositional:

Some of these forms appear only in fixed phrases. Our pages show the locative on its own line, labeled “Locative (в, на).”

Our tables leave out the partitive, an -у or -ю form some masculine nouns take for “some of,” as in чашка чаю (a cup of tea). The ordinary genitive can stand in for it almost everywhere.

Plural-only nouns

Some Russian nouns exist only in the plural, and they have no gender at all. Our list has 4: люди (people), деньги (money), волосы (hair) and похороны (funeral). Any word that goes with them takes its plural form, and their tables have no singular.

The second most common noun on our list, люди, works as the plural of человек (person), which isn't in our 600. It's animate, so its accusative is людей.

The word волосы means hair as a whole, a full head of it. Деньги and похороны have no singular at all, and деньги has a fleeting vowel in its genitive, денег.

Classic textbook examples such as очки (glasses) and ножницы (scissors) aren't in our 600, but they work the same way.

Indeclinable nouns

Indeclinable nouns never change. All 12 in our list are loanwords with the same form in all six cases, singular and plural: кофе (coffee), шоу (show), леди (lady), фото (photo), видео (video), кино (movies), такси (taxi), радио (radio), интервью (interview), кафе (café), метро (subway) and пальто (coat). The case shows in the words around them, the preposition and any adjective.

They still have a gender, though our label doesn't show it. Inanimate ones are neuter, which covers ten of the twelve, among them метро, такси and пальто. The exception is кофе, which is masculine in careful, standard Russian, though you'll hear it used as neuter in casual speech. Older forms of the word were masculine, and the masculine became the norm. For people, the gender follows the person, so леди is feminine.

In what order to learn them

1. The ending rules. A consonant or -й means masculine, -а or -я feminine, and -о, -е or -мя neuter. That's right for 527 of the 584 nouns on our list that have a gender.
2. The 1st and 2nd declensions. Together they cover 549 of our 600 nouns and 87 of the top 100.
3. The animate accusative. One rule covers every animate plural and 72 masculine nouns in the singular.
4. Soft-sign nouns, one at a time. Learn each one with its genitive and instrumental.
5. The rest as you meet them. Fleeting vowels, moving stress, the mixed nouns and the plural-only and indeclinable nouns are easier to learn noun by noun.

To practice one type at a time, the Russian noun declension worksheet generator filters its 600 nouns by gender, by animacy or for nouns in -ь. The Russian noun declension quiz narrows the list the same way and marks each form you type, and the Russian case worksheets put the endings into sentences. Start with a sheet of nouns in -ь and check each instrumental in the answer key. An -ем or -ём means masculine, and -ью means feminine.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

Declension tables come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Nouns are ranked by Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords list, built from OpenSubtitles 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).