How do Russians deal with the last names and first names of foreigners? The general rule makes sense: the name declines if it ends in a sound that is typical for a male/female name and if it matches the gender typical of such names.

Not too surprisingly, if the foreigner is male, and if his first name and last name end in a consonant typical of a Russian masculine first declension noun, then the first and last names decline just like masculine first declension nouns. For example, Brad Pitt's name declines like this in Russian:

Likewise if a female foreigner's names end in a letter typical of a second declension noun, the names decline like second declension nouns. Thus Christina Aguilera's name declines like this in Russian:

If either of a man's names ends in a sound that is not typical for a masculine first or second declension Russian noun, then that name is not declined. The other name may still decline. Here's how the names of Antonio Banderas and Gérard Depardieu work:

If either of a woman's names ends in a sound not typical for a second declension noun, then that name does not decline. The other name may still decline. As example we see Paulina Rubio and Jane Fonda:

If a foreign name ends in a sound atypical for Russian male and female names, then usually the name doesn't decline at all, e.g. the names Вупи Голдберг, Мелани Гриффит, Пинк, and Антонио Сабато never change their endings.

A few general examples:

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The generalizations we just discussed take care of most foreign names in Russian. There are lots of other possibilities, but they are too many to enumerate in a short blog entry. Suffice it to say that every once in a while names surprise you.

Quirky exceptions:

• Heaven knows why, but—in terms of official written Russian stylistics—Polish last names in -ski are usually transliterated into Russian not as -ский but as -ски, and they do not decline, thus «фильмы Романа Полански» “the films of Roman Polanski.” If you are writing a formal report in Russian or giving a formal presentation, that's how you have to treat them. But those rules don't hold up later in the day. Even overeducated native speakers of Russian with a fetish for film will say фильмы Романа Поланского when socializing after their big presentation.
• Likewise, although first and last names in -а are generally declined, officially speaking last names that end in -иа are not declined in überformal contexts, thus you'll hear «книги Джона Гарсиа» “the books of John Garcia” if someone is making a formal presentation, although afterwards, when their students are fawning over them at the parties after the conference, the same speaker will say книги Джона Гарсии.

One last thought: the Russians themselves are not always sure how to handle foreign last names and whether to decline them or not, or even how to spell them. When I looked at the Russian Wikipedia entry today for author John David Garcia, I saw that in the title of the page they spelled his name Гарсиа (standard transliteration of the name), but in the body of the article they tended to write Гарсия.