Afrikaans has a number of (native, nativised and non-native) suffixes for coining person names and inhabitant names. These suffixes differ in input/output category, productivity, etc. Generally speaking, person names are unmarked for gender, since gender is not a grammatical feature of Afrikaans (except for pronouns). A person name is therefore in principal gender neutral (e.g. werk·er work·NMLZ worker), unless it is juxtaposed with a feminine counterpart (e.g. werk·ster work·NMLZ.F female worker). Such gender marking is realised through either suffixation (as in the aforementioned examples), or compounding (e.g. leeu+mann·etjie lion+male·DIM male lion, or wyfie+kat female+cat tabby (cat). However, note that feminine marking can be considered by and large obsolete and unproductive in Afrikaans (Combrink 1990:15), except in cases where gender is relevant, e.g. in discussions on single-sex schools, or whether the time that was run by an athlete was a male or female, etc.

An example of a native suffix forming person names is -aar (examples in (1)), of a nativised suffix is -er (examples in (2)), and of a non-native suffix is -or (examples in (3)).

Native (e.g. -ster in (4)) and nativised (e.g. -es in (5)) feminine-marking suffixes are either nominalisers, or category neutral when they append to existing person names, while non-native feminine-marking suffixes (e.g. -rise in (6)) are nominalisers:

Inhabitant names are gender neutral, and are formed with either native suffixes (e.g. -aard in (7)), nativised suffixes (e.g. -er in (8)), or non-native suffixes (e.g. -iet in (9)):