City of Odessa

Not for points Ukrainian to English Other Law (general) Court Decisions

Since Ukraine became an independent country, many official city names spelling (at least in Ukrainian) has changed.
City of Odessa name has two "s" in Russian (Одесса) and traditionally - in English (Odessa). Ukrainian spelling has one "s" (Одеса).
So, how should the Odessa city name be translated into English now, both from Russian and Ukrainian - as Odesa or Odessa?

Proposed translations (English)

5	It depends	Alexandra Shapovalova
5 +4	Odesa	Sergiy Butkov
5	Odesa	Dmytro Rachek
4	Odesa	Oleksandra Matviichuk

Proposed translations

16 mins

Alexandra Shapovalova

Ukraine

21 answers

Specializes in field

Selected

It depends

Usually I do this way. I use Odessa (and other Russian wordings) in the case I translate RU-EN, and I use Odesa (and other Ukrainian wordings) when I translate UA-EN. Also it is applied to names, such as Nikolay (Ru) - Mykolay (Ua), Nataliya (Ru) - Nataliia (Ua), etc.

Note from asker:

I agree. Actually, I do the same. When I translate old Birth Certificates of Ukrainians from Russian, I include a Translator's Note about a discrepancy in name spelling of the old and current Ukrainian versions). On another hand, I think each language has (should have?) standard geographical names, no matter what language a text is translated from. There are two options existing currently in English though, for the City of Odessa/Odesa (my beloved birth city, by the way). That was the reason for my question.

Comment: "It seems logical - keeping the traditional City name spelling when translating from Russian, where it stays the same as before. At the same time, on many sites and official maps ALL city names in Ukraine have changed, according to their current Ukrainian versions. Therefore, the challenge remains - how should it be reflected in translations into English. Should it always correspond with the official Ukrainian version, or depend on what language we translate it from..."

6 mins

Sergiy Butkov

Ukraine

153 answers

Native in Ukrainian

Odesa

Odesa is the official name and it should be definitely used in any official, legal and logistics content. I'd recommend using this version in other fields too. Same for other names like Kyiv instead of Kiev, etc.
And, actually, Ukraine is independent for 31 years, but some spelling names have changed several times, and that's the reason of the mess with city names, etc.

Peer comment(s):

agree	Oleksandra Matviichuk 4 mins
agree	Vladyslav Golovaty : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odesa 3 hrs
agree	Viktoriia Horiachko 10 hrs
agree	mk_lab 11 hrs