This article explores changes in the lexicographic presentation of personal nouns with the suffix -ц(a). The study is based on materials from 20 dictionaries of the 20th and early 21st centuries, academic grammars and monographs. The dynamic processes of the entry of words of this type into the lexicon, their competitive interaction with identical masculine nouns with suffix -ец, -нік and adverbial nouns are analyzed. There are given examples of new formed words, which were included in lexicographic publications. The study notices differencies in presentating of the lexemes with -ц(a) in modern dictionaries: in quantity of these nouns as derivating synonyms of nouns of masculine gender with suffix -ец, -нік ets. and in gender marks (only masculine or masculine and common). Analysis of modern media texts shows a wider use of nouns with the suffix -ц(a) to mark a female person. In practice, variants of the gender and type of declension of nouns with the suffix -ц(a) causes difficulties in the use of case endings.