Breakdown of У каждого студента есть свой блокнот.
студент
student (m)
у
at, by
есть
is, there is, to have
каждый
every
Questions & Answers about У каждого студента есть свой блокнот.
Why is свой in the nominative case here if the student is the one who owns it?
In Russian, to say "someone has something", we use the structure У + [owner in Genitive] + есть + [object in Nominative]. Even though the student is the logical owner, the grammatical subject of the sentence is the notebook (блокнот). Since свой describes the notebook, it has to match its nominative case.
Could I use его (his) instead of свой here?
If you used его, it would mean every student has another specific guy's notebook! The reflexive pronoun свой always points back to the main actor or "owner" in the sentence. Using свой here is the only way to clearly say that every student has their own notebook.
Why does каждого end in -ого and how is it pronounced?
The word каждый (each/every) acts like an adjective, so it has to match the noun it describes. Because it follows У to show possession, both it and студента must be in the genitive case. Remember that the masculine genitive ending -ого is pronounced with a "v" sound instead of a "g" ("-ovo").
What if the sentence was about female students? Would свой change?