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Why/How these names have different grammatical endings: Marija - Natalija? Or do they have the same endings in Dative case? Could somebody give me all 6 singular case endings for these two names for women, please.

Artemix
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user1708
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1 Answers1

8
Nom:  Мария    Наталья  
Gen:  Марии    Натальи  
Dat:  Марии    Наталье  
Acc:  Марию    Наталью  
Inst: Марией   Натальей
Prp:  Марии    Наталье

The endings differ indeed: Мария belongs to declension 1-7a while Наталья belongs to 1-6a

Note that both names have complementary forms (Ма́рья and Ната́лия), accordingly, which do decline similarly to Наталья and Мария (Наталия and Мария both belong to 1-7a; Наталья and Марья both belong to 1-6a).

Before the orthography reform of 1917, both words ended in iѣ in both dative and prepositive.

Quassnoi
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  • Interestingly enough, all those endings are completely identical if diminutive version of each name is looked at, namely Маша and Наташа. – Anvar May 27 '13 at 02:32