# Soviet Rocket 'Chief Designer:' 'Best' way to render his name in English

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-rocket-chief-designer-best-way-to-render-his-name-in-english/556489>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 8, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-rocket-chief-designer-best-way-to-render-his-name-in-english/556489 "2010-10-08T14:27:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-rocket-chief-designer-best-way-to-render-his-name-in-english/556489/1 "2010-10-08T14:27:55Z")

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Here’s the [wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Korolyov). The editors have chosen to render his last name phonetically, instead of using the Russian “ë”. I don’t care how the wiki is spelled, but just as a matter of practice, which would be the preferred way when rendering his name in English?

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**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-rocket-chief-designer-best-way-to-render-his-name-in-english/556489/2 "2010-10-08T15:37:30Z")

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The scientific way is [Transliteration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration) where each Kyrillic letter is mapped (according to an universal standard) to one latin letter. This makes the system  
a) indepent of the target language (an english and a german transliteration are the same) and  
b) reversable: you can transfer back to cyrillic using the same universal table.  
c) Hi Opal!

In common use, however, people use [Transscription](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_(linguistics))which

> [@](#):
>
> Transliteration is opposed to transcription, which specifically maps the \*\*sounds \*\*of one language to the best matching \*\*script \*\*of another language. Still, most systems of transliteration map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific pair of source and goal language. If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription. In practice, there are also some mixed transliteration/transcription systems that transliterate a part of the original script and transcribe the rest.

This system is dependent on the target language, that is, a German and an English transcription of the name will look different. (This also relates to Arabic: a transliteration eliminates dialects on both sides).

For historical people, certain transcriptions have became standard, though, because they have become popular under that name in the west.

To my knowledge, wikipedia uses the scientific standard of transliteration, along with the commonly known name. You would have to look at their specific guidelines to be certain, though.

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**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-rocket-chief-designer-best-way-to-render-his-name-in-english/556489/3 "2010-10-08T17:45:10Z")

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Transcription is a matter of taste, and, I guess, geography.

As an American Russianist, I’ve always used the ALA-LC system, and so would write the name Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. The “yo” spelling shows the palatalized vowel better, but looks British to me.

Wikipedia has an article on the different transliteration systems: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization\_of\_Russian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian)

Note that the spelling might be different if Korolev were considered a Ukrainian.