How do I say my name and address in Serbian

Sooner or later every learner has to fill in a form, visit an office, or simply introduce themselves properly in Serbian. This post gives you the personal-data vocabulary you will need for all of those moments -- from your name and passport to your marital status. It is the kind of vocabulary that sounds dry in a textbook but turns out to be urgently useful the moment you land in Belgrade.

What do I need to say my name and address?

The table below covers the core vocabulary for personal data (licni podaci) in Serbian. These terms appear on every official form, border crossing, and registration document you will encounter.

Serbian term	English meaning
LICNI PODACI	Personal data
IME	First name / given name
PREZIME	Surname / family name
DEVOJACKO PREZIME	Maiden name
LICNA KARTA	Identity card (ID card)
PASOS	Passport
MESTO RODJENJA	Place of birth
DATUM RODJENJA	Date of birth
STALNA ADRESA	Permanent address
POSTANSKA ADRESA	Mailing / postal address
POL	Sex / gender
MUSKI	Male
ZENSKI	Female

A note on pronunciation: "LICNI" is said something like "LEECH-nee" and "PODACI" like "po-DAH-tsee". Do not be put off by the spelling -- Serbian is phonetically consistent and each letter represents exactly one sound.

Married, single, divorced -- the words change

Serbian makes a grammatical distinction between male and female marital status -- the same concept has a different word depending on who it applies to. This is true of many adjectives and participles in Serbian, so it is worth getting comfortable with the idea early.

Status	Male form	Female form
Married	OZENJEN	UDATA
Single / Unmarried	NEOZENJEN	NEUDATA
Divorced	RAZVEDEN	RAZVEDENA
Widower / Widow	UDOVAC	UDOVICA

The male word for "married" (ozenjen) actually comes from the word for "wife" (zena). The female word (udata) comes from the verb meaning "to give" -- reflecting very old social customs that are long gone but have left their mark on the language.

Your first sentence about yourself

Now let us put some of this vocabulary to work. Here are two simple sentences you can adapt immediately using your own details:

Try replacing "Ana" and "Markovic" with your own name, and swapping the city names for your birthplace and current city. Even if the pronunciation is not perfect yet, forming that sentence and saying it aloud is genuine progress.

Watch and listen

This video walks through personal data vocabulary with native-speaker audio. Watch it before and after studying the table -- you will notice how much more the words stick the second time through.