Cyrillic to Latin Transliterator

Writing a Russian or Ukrainian name in Latin letters sounds simple until you discover that Юлия can be Yuliya, Iuliia, Ûliâ or Julija, depending on who asks. Each romanization standard was designed for a purpose — passports, maps, libraries, computer systems — and they disagree on almost every difficult letter. This tool applies the main standards exactly, so you can produce the spelling a form, publication or database requires.

The standards

ISO 9 (identical to GOST 7.79 System A) gives each Cyrillic letter exactly one Latin letter, using diacritics: ж is ž, щ is ŝ, я is â. It is exact and reversible, which makes it the choice for scholarly work and databases that must convert back. GOST 7.79 System B uses only plain ASCII letters and combinations such as zh, shh and cz, and is still reversible; it suits IT systems that reject diacritics. ICAO Doc 9303 is the scheme of machine-readable passports, used in Russian passports issued since 2013. BGN/PCGN is the English-friendly romanization of British and American geographic names. The Ukrainian national system of 2010 is the official romanization of Ukraine, used in its passports and road signs.

Rules that depend on position

Some standards change a letter depending on where it stands. BGN/PCGN writes е as ye at the start of a word and after vowels (Yelena), but as e elsewhere. The Ukrainian system writes є, ї, й, ю and я differently at the start of a word (Yurii, Yizhak) than inside it, and writes зг as zgh so it is not read as zh. GOST System B writes ц as c before е, и, ы and й but as cz elsewhere. The tool applies all of these automatically, and capital letters that become two letters follow their word: Жук becomes Zhuk, ЖУК becomes ZHUK.

Comparing standards

Under the result, the first Cyrillic word of your text is shown in every standard. It is a quick way to see why the same person appears with different spellings in different documents, and to pick the version that matches an existing record.

Back to Cyrillic

ISO 9 and GOST System B map letters one-to-one, so Latin text written in them can be turned back into Cyrillic exactly. The other standards drop information (ICAO writes е and ё the same way, and both й and и as i), so they cannot be reversed reliably and are not offered in that direction.

Names in official documents

For anything official — tickets, visas, bank accounts — use the spelling printed in the person’s passport, even if a standard would give something different. Passports often keep earlier spellings or the holder’s preferred form.

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A worked example

Take the name Юлия Щербакова. ISO 9 gives Ûliâ Ŝerbakova, exact and reversible but full of diacritics. GOST System B gives Yuliya Shherbakova, plain ASCII that converts back. ICAO, as in a passport issued since 2013, gives Iuliia Shcherbakova. BGN/PCGN, the form in an English atlas, gives Yuliya Shcherbakova. The comparison panel shows all of these for the first word of your text at once, so you can match the spelling an existing record already uses.

Related tools

Romanize Greek with Greek to Latin, Japanese kana with Romaji to Kana, remove accents from the result with Remove Accents, or make a URL from a name with the Slug Generator.