Free online translator for converting English names to Ukrainian (Українська)
Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet with unique letters not found in Russian, including ї, і, є, and ґ. It's the official language of Ukraine, spoken by over 40 million people.
Ukrainian Cyrillic has thirty-three letters, and the differences from Russian are the point rather than a detail. Ukrainian has four letters Russian lacks — ґ, є, і and ї — and does not use Russian ъ, ы, э or ё. The consequence is that a Russian keyboard cannot write Ukrainian properly, and text that substitutes Russian letters is immediately visible as wrong to a Ukrainian reader.
The letter that matters most for names is и versus і. In Ukrainian, и represents a sound closer to the English i in bit, while і is the ee sound; in Russian, и is the ee sound and і does not exist. This single difference reshapes how a foreign name is spelled between the two languages, and it is the most common error when Ukrainian text is produced by someone accustomed to Russian.
Ukrainian also pronounces г as a voiced h rather than a hard g, which is why the separate letter ґ exists for the genuine g sound. This has a direct effect on foreign names: the English h, which Russian struggles with, maps naturally onto Ukrainian г. Harry is Гаррі and reads correctly, where the same spelling in Russian would be read Garri.
Ukrainian transliteration follows phonetic rules similar to Russian Cyrillic but with Ukrainian-specific letters. The system is straightforward as most English sounds have Ukrainian equivalents.
Because г carries the h sound, Ukrainian handles English names beginning with h more gracefully than Russian does, with no need to choose between competing conventions. The genuine g sound uses ґ, though this letter was banned during the Soviet period and only restored in 1990, so older texts and some contemporary writers omit it and use г for both.
The remaining gaps mirror Russian. There is no w, which becomes в or у. Th has no equivalent and becomes т. Ukrainian surnames are grammatically gendered in the same way, so a female form differs from the male one. Names of Ukrainian origin are also increasingly transliterated into English from Ukrainian rather than Russian — Kyiv rather than Kiev, Volodymyr rather than Vladimir — and the same preference applies in reverse.
Here are examples of common English names transliterated to Ukrainian:
Explore your name in other writing systems:
Use our Ukrainian translator above. Type your name in English and it converts to Ukrainian Cyrillic following official transliteration standards.
No! Ukrainian is a separate language with its own alphabet variations, vocabulary, and grammar. While both use Cyrillic, they have important differences.
Ukrainian has four letters not in Russian: ї (yi), і (i), є (ye), and ґ (hard g). These represent sounds specific to Ukrainian.
Our transliteration follows standard Ukrainian conventions. For official documents, verify with Ukrainian authorities as specific spellings may be required.
Ukrainian has letters і, ї, є, ґ that Russian lacks, and doesn't use Russian ы, э, ъ. The letter г sounds like 'h' in Ukrainian vs 'g' in Russian.
No. Ukrainian needs ґ, є, і and ї, which Russian layouts lack, and does not use ъ, ы, э or ё. Substituting Russian letters is immediately visible as incorrect.
In Ukrainian, и is closer to the i in bit and і is the ee sound. Russian assigns и the ee sound and has no і at all, which is the most common source of error.
Ukrainian г is pronounced as a voiced h, so Harry becomes Гаррі and reads correctly. The separate letter ґ covers the hard g sound.