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I have seen many types of translation/transliteration of my Russian first and last names to English by different people. At the current moment I don't know what to choose when I want to introduce myself. So, my first name is Вячеслав

  • Vyacheslav
  • Viacheslav
  • Vjacheslav

My last name is Карбовничий

  • Karbovnichii
  • Karbovnichiy
  • Karbovnichij
  • Karbovnichy

What is the best transliteration from the view of the native English language speaker?

v.karbovnichy
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1 Answers1

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I see that Molotov is commonly transliterated as Vyacheslav, so I would suggest you follow this convention.

As for the last name, I would prefer Karbovnichy (or perhaps Karbovnitchy?) - based on, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky.

michael.hor257k
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  • Not "Karbovnitchy". The last couple syllables would suggest a need to scratch. – verbose Jan 15 '17 at 19:21
  • @verbose True, but the pronunciation would be correct. – michael.hor257k Jan 15 '17 at 19:38
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    The pronunciation's correct anyway. CH means [tʃ], so adding a T is superfluous. I'd transliterate it Vyacheslav Karbovnichy for English speakers. – John Lawler Jan 15 '17 at 22:46
  • @JohnLawler Some people will pronounce CH as SH. And some as KH. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky – michael.hor257k Jan 15 '17 at 23:22
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    Using ch to represent ч in the first name but tch seems like it would be an annoying inconsistency to carry around. I don't think using ch would lead to any problems that using tch would solve: those who would be likely to pronounce ch [ʃ] in an obviously Slavic name will probably stumble over the name as a whole anyway, and those who know enough to know that ch represents [h] or [x] in Polish and Czech would be unlikely to not also recognise that this name is Russian, not Polish/Czech. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 16 '17 at 01:17
  • @JanusBahsJacquet "* it would be an annoying inconsistency to carry around." Well, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky seems to have survived such burden. Fact is that there is no consistent pronunciation of ch* nor is there a consistent transliteration of the sound (Czechoslovakia) - so at best one may express a preference, not exclude other options. – michael.hor257k Jan 16 '17 at 08:04