Dinara Safina and Marat Safin?

Question

Why do their last names differ by one letter, being siblings?

Answer 1

To add on to that...  I had a friend from Russia in high school.  Her name was spelled with the "a" on the end, but I noticed that she pronounced it without.  The tennis players pronounce the "a", but I wonder if that is just because it's confusing to other people.  ??

Answer 2

That's because of the LANGUAGE! Brothers and sisters have the same surnames divided by the letter A. That's good because Safina sounds girlish too. :)

I love them both. They're GREAT for tennis!

Answer 3

In the russian language men and women are distinguished by the a as the last character in the last name for women.

Answer 4

That is because some Slavic languate last names (notably Russian, Polish, and Czech) denote gender by adding and an "a" (or sometimes "ova").  Other examples are Yuri Sharapov's daughter Maria Sharapova, Nikolai Kuznetsov's sister Svetlana Kuztnesova, and Miroslav Navratil's step-daughter Martina Navratilova.

There are some exception to the gender changing, but the altering is normally the rule.

Answer 5

Because in Russia when girl born they added letter a to her last name like sharapova her father's last name is sharapov