Official Cyrillic → Latin Passport Transliterator
Type a Ukrainian, Russian or Bulgarian name and see it under five real, officially adopted standards at once — so you can match whichever one your passport office, visa centre, university or bank actually requires. Every mapping table below was transcribed from the normative text and checked against a second independent source.
Type a name above to see it side by side under every official standard. Nothing is uploaded — all five mapping tables run in your browser.
Why one name has five different “correct” spellings
There is no single romanization of Cyrillic. Each country legislated its own, and they disagree on exactly the letters that appear most often in names. The consequences are not academic: if your visa application says Yulia and your passport says Iuliia, that is a mismatch a border officer has to resolve, and it is the reason people end up rebooking flights.
| Letter | Ukraine (KMU 55) | Russia (ICAO) | GOST 7.79 B | Bulgaria | ISO 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Г г | h | g | g | g | g |
| Х х | kh | kh | x | h | h |
| Ц ц | ts | ts | c / cz | ts | c |
| Щ щ | shch | shch | shh | sht | ŝ |
| Й й | y- / i | i | j | y | j |
| Ю ю | yu- / iu | iu | yu | yu | û |
| Я я | ya- / ia | ia | ya | ya | â |
| Ї ї | yi- / i | — | — | — | ï |
| Ы ы | — | y | y` | — | y |
| Ъ ъ | — | ie | `` | a | ʺ |
| Ь ь | (nothing) | (nothing) | ` | y | ʹ |
Read that table row by row and the practical lesson is obvious. Ukrainian Г is h, so Гриценко is Hrytsenko, not Gritsenko. Bulgarian Щ is sht because that is how Bulgarians pronounce it, while Russian and Ukrainian write shch. Russian Ю and Я became iu and ia when Russia adopted ICAO Doc 9303 in 2013 — which is why Юлия is printed Iuliia on a modern Russian passport and catches almost everyone by surprise.
Where each standard comes from
- Ukraine — KMU Resolution No. 55 (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 27 January 2010). The system printed in Ukrainian biometric passports and ID cards. Distinctive rules: Г→h and Ґ→g, the digraph ЗГ→zgh so it can never be misread as ж, word-initial forms for Є Ї Й Ю Я, and the soft sign and apostrophe are simply not written — which is why Коваль is Koval.
- Russia — ICAO Doc 9303, applied by FMS Order No. 320 (2012) and carried into MVD Order No. 889 (2020). The machine-readable travel document standard. Ц→ts, Ъ→ie, Й→i, Ю→iu, Я→ia, Ь not written.
- GOST 7.79-2000 System B — the plain-ASCII, fully reversible interstate standard. Not a passport spelling; it exists so a database can round-trip Cyrillic through ASCII without loss. Included here precisely because people find it in an online converter and paste the result into a visa form.
- Bulgaria — Transliteration Act (State Gazette 19/2009), the Streamlined System also carried by Ordinance No. 1 of 2010. Х→h, Щ→sht, Ъ→a, Ь→y, and a word-final -ия written -ia, so Мария is Maria and София is Sofia.
- ISO 9:1995 (identical to GOST 7.79-2000 System A) — the strict scholarly standard, one Latin character per Cyrillic character with diacritics, so the original is always reconstructible. Academic, library and civil registry systems across Europe ask for this one. Also not a passport spelling.
ELOT 743 is deliberately not in this list. It is sometimes suggested alongside these, but ELOT 743 (ISO 843) is the Greek romanization standard and defines no Cyrillic mappings at all. Padding the comparison with an irrelevant standard would make this tool look more thorough while making it less useful.
Preguntas frecuentes
Як зробити транслітерацію прізвища для паспорта?
Введіть прізвище та ім'я кирилицею у поле вище — рядок «Ukraine · KMU 55» показує саме той запис, який Державна міграційна служба друкує в закордонному паспорті та ID-картці, згідно з постановою Кабінету Міністрів України №55 від 27 січня 2010 року. Зверніть увагу на три речі, які найчастіше дивують: Г передається як h (Гриценко → Hrytsenko), м'який знак і апостроф не відтворюються взагалі (Коваль → Koval), а Є, Ї, Й, Ю, Я мають окрему форму на початку слова (Юлія → Yuliia, але Мар'яна → Mariana).
I need my Ukrainian name transliteration for German forms. Which row do I use?
It depends on which German form. For anything that has to match your travel document — a visa application, a residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel), an airline booking, a bank account — copy the KMU 55 row, because that is the spelling physically printed in your Ukrainian passport, and a mismatch there is what causes real problems. For academic and civil-registry paperwork, some German offices instead ask for a strict transliteration with diacritics of foreign-language documents, which is the ISO 9:1995 row. If a form does not say which it wants, use your passport spelling and attach a copy of the passport page.
Why does my Russian passport say Iuliia when everyone writes Yulia?
Because Russia switched to the ICAO Doc 9303 system in 2013. Under ICAO, Ю is written iu and Я is written ia, so Юлия becomes Iuliia — the first ю gives 'Iu', the и gives 'i', and the final я gives 'ia'. The older GOST R 52535.1-2006 system and everyday informal spelling both give 'Yulia', which is why the new form looks wrong to Russian speakers. It is not wrong: it is the spelling the state prints, and it is the one every other document you hold should match.
Is any of these the single 'correct' transliteration of my name?
No, and that is genuinely the answer rather than a hedge. Each of these is legally correct within its own system — the question is only which system the authority in front of you uses. The rule that actually keeps you out of trouble is: whatever is printed in your passport is your name for every official purpose, and every other document should be made to agree with it. If you already hold a passport, do not use this tool to decide your spelling. Use it to work out which standard produced the spelling you already have, and to check other documents against it.
Which letters cause the most trouble?
Г, Х, Ц, Щ, Й, Ю, Я, Ї, Ы, Ъ and Ь — exactly the ones highlighted in the comparison table. Ukrainian Г is h while Russian Г is g, so the same-looking surname transliterates differently depending on which country issued the document. Bulgarian Х is h where Russian Х is kh. Bulgarian Щ is sht where Russian and Ukrainian use shch. Russian Ъ is written ie under ICAO but a under the Bulgarian act. And the soft sign Ь vanishes entirely in Ukrainian and Russian passports but becomes y in Bulgarian. Turn on the full letter table in the tool to see every row where the standards diverge — those rows are highlighted.
Does this send my name to a server?
No. All five mapping tables and the positional rules ship as plain JavaScript and run entirely in your browser — there is no network request, no AI model, and no logging. This is deliberate: transliteration is a deterministic legal mapping, so a language model guessing at it would be strictly worse than a lookup table, and a name is exactly the kind of data that should not leave your device.