The Russian word for this city is actually closer to Moskva. We’ve had a number of threads about how other peoples’ names for their own country is typically different from the names that other countries ascribe to them, but for the most part we keep city names as close to the original as possible.
So. . .
Who started calling it Moscow? It has a Polish look to it, so did the Poles vault this version into prominence? And, if so, who decided that it should “officially” be pronounced “moss-ko,” as opposed to “moss-kow,” since that’s not even how the Poles (assuming they’re the culprits) would pronounce it.
Found one possibility of an answer:
From this site. Seems Moscow/Moskva is a “hydronym”, or a place named after a river.
It may come from the Latin form of the name, Moscovia or Muscovia. In Latin class, I was taught that clasical Latin v was pronounced like English w but it may be that by the time Moscow was first called Moscovia, the standard was already to pronounce it like English v. It’s hard to say, especially since the pronunciation of Latin varied from country to country.
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If you’re interested, Moscow in other languages is
Moscou in French
Moskau in German
Mosca in Italian
Moscou or Moscóvia in Portuguese
Moscú in Spanish
Actually, I believe that Russia wasn’t called Russia until Peter the Great. It had previously been Kievan Rus, but until Peter, the ruler was the Tsar of Muscovy.