how are Russian names transcribed? and other alphabets?

Question

hello,

how do you transcribe Russian names ? is there any accepted standard for transcrption into Latin letters of the various alphabetical systems? i have not been able to find any profile for  Василий Александрович Архипов 1926-1998.  think we probably have more to thank him for than just about any other 20th century person and therefore i would like him to have a profile on Wikitree. I tried with both Russian and with Vasili Arkhipov which is how his name is found on Wikipedia. thanks in advance.

Edwin Reffell

Answer 1

Hi Edwin,

It looks like he's on WikiTree already. I found this profile, created in 2017: Vasili Arkhipov

Hope that helps!

Comments

thanks. that's great. here are his parents father Aleksandr Nikolayevech Arkhipov 1899-1960, mother Mariya Nikolayevna nee Kozyreva 1901-1970 and spouse Olga Grigoriyevna married 1952, daughter Elena born same year 1952.

• Отец — Александр Николаевич Архипов (1889—1960); мать — Мария Николаевна, урождённая Козырева (1901—1970).
• Жена — Ольга Григорьевна, преподаватель; в браке с 1952 года, в этом же году у них родилась дочь Елена.

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the information is found by googling his name in Russian and going to the wikipedia on him in Russian.

wiki-org.ru/wiki/Архипов,_Василий_Александрович

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Unsure if I transcribed the names correctly and unsure what Grigoriyevna is. i dont think it is her surname but that it says she is the daughter of Grigoriy. i may be wrong about that.

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Patronymics are used as "surnames" in places where the western idea of a "surname" didn't (and doesn't) exist.

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what is his mother's maiden name? if it is Mariya Kozyryeva do i put Nikolayevna as middle name? i did not know what to do.

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Nikolyevna would be her middle name. Her father’s first name would have been Nikolai.

Regards,

Ann

Answer 2

Wikipedia has an article on this topic which is summed as:

Systematic Transliterations of Cyrillic to Latin[edit]

There are a number of incompatible standards for the Romanization of Russian Cyrillic, with none of them having received much popularity and in reality transliteration is often carried out without any uniform standards.

Comments

Transliteration depends on the language used, it will result in different spellings for English, German, or French for instance. For that reason we should probably have a consensus on what language to use, perhaps English as it is the most common used. And for the same reason the LNAB and CLN should probably be in Cyrillic with the transliteration in the Other Names field.

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It is more complicated than this ... there are a number of “Standards” for Romanization of Cyrillic text. These standards have evolved as well.

Answer 3

My personal opinion is that, for people whose language is not spelled with the Latin alphabet, they should be listed in their language, and the biography should be in their language. (I derive this opinion from the general principle of "their conventions, not ours" when it comes to things like place names.)

It is perfectly acceptable to use the "Other Nicknames" and "Other Last Names" fields to put in Latin transliterations, and to put a translation of the biography in English (or any other language) underneath the biography in the language that person spoke.

To see what I mean, see the profile for cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky.

Comments

i agree but i dont know enough Russian to do that so i have done what i could. it would be great if someone with Russian as their mother tongue edited what i have done.