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by talonstriker 4449 days ago
I think that's because nouns ending in a "ah" are considered feminine in the Russian language

http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/nouns_gender.php

1 comments

Yeah, for the name to be feminine it must end in ah/ya sound or a certain class of soft consonant endings, so this pretty much restricts the usual female names to this class. That said you're quite likely to encounter people with non-Slavic names, like Gulimzhan which don't have to follow this rule.