Transliteration of a surname and given name

Transliterate a Ukrainian name online

The official КМУ №55 transliteration table

There are two Latin columns because five Ukrainian letters are written differently depending on where they sit in a word. For every other letter the two columns match.

Source: Transliteration – State Migration Service

Four cases the table does not show

The table maps single letters, but it does not say what to do with clusters or with a letter’s position in a word. Here is how the converter above handles them.

1. The зг cluster becomes zgh

   On their own, з is z and г is h. Written as zh, the cluster would collide with the letter Ж, so the standard gives it a spelling of its own.

   зграя → zghraia, згода → zghoda

2. Є, Ї, Й, Ю, Я each have two forms

   At the start of a word they are Ye, Yi, Y, Yu, Ya. Inside a word and at the end they are ie, i, i, iu, ia. After an apostrophe or a soft sign the letter counts as not being at the start.

   Яна → Yana, but Мар’яна → Mariana

3. The soft sign and the apostrophe drop out

   Neither has a Latin character: they simply disappear and leave the surrounding letters unchanged.

   Коваль → Koval, Мар’ян → Marian

4. Г, Ґ and Х map three different ways

   Г becomes h, Ґ becomes g, Х becomes kh. The Latin g stands for Ґ alone, and neither Г nor Х is ever written with it.

   Григорій → Hryhorii, Ґалаґан → Galagan, Харків → Kharkiv

Which spelling is binding

The converter gives you the spelling under the current standard. What binds you personally is the spelling already in your foreign passport: that is the Latin form the authorities treat as your name, even where the passport was issued under older rules.

So in a document translation we use the spelling from the passport, not the one from the table. If there is no foreign passport yet, the translation follows КМУ №55 — the same standard the migration service will apply.

• Changing the spelling printed in a foreign passport
• Passport and personal document translation