The article examines the dynamics of word formation of names of persons of the feminine gender during the 20th and early 21st centuries. The trends of prescriptive and descriptive norms in connection with non-linguistic factors of different historical periods are clarified. The vocabulary of feminine nouns had signs of natural language development until the end of the 20th century and acquired threatening proportions in the last decade, which can lead to the destruction of the phonetic, morphonological structure of the word and the literary norm in general. The issue of creating feminine names in the Ukrainian literary language has gained significant resonance in recent years. Among the reasons for its actualization, linguists cite the powerful socialization of modern women, their involvement in the spheres of “male” activity, state-building tendencies to assert national identity (“restoration” of the purity and authenticity of the language), the impact of the democratization of society on the literary standard. Language always responds to the demands of society and this is one of the drivers of its natural development, but provided that these changes correspond to its structural features, in the case of names of persons of the feminine gender, to the potential possibilities of word creation. As evidenced by language practice, this is the main and defining problem that can have not only negative, but also destructive consequences for the grammatical system in general. Any word-formation models are embedded in the language a priori, and have certain precedents throughout its historical development. The creation of personal names has a long tradition in the Ukrainian language and is primarily based on the principles of the internal structure of the dictionary. The most important and unchanged for all generations of linguists were the instructions of the norm-makers of 20th century on the natural development of the language, which is decisive for its life activity as a whole. At the current stage of language functioning, the normativity of a word depends on its compliance with the phonetic and morphological structure of the Ukrainian lexicon and the lexical norm in general.