Thanks to the recent Russian translation of my book with Henryk Iwaniec, I can now at least read my own last name in Cyrillic; I wonder what the two extra letters really mean…
ðÉð¢ð░ð╗ð©Ðéð©ÐçðÁÐüð║ð░ÐÅ ÐéðÁð¥ÐÇð©ÐÅ Ðçð©ÐüðÁð╗
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The “Ðî” is not an “extra” letter. It modifies the “ð╗” so that it would actually real like the English “l” (without it, the “ð╗” alone would be pronounced more like the English “w.” The “ð╣” at the end is there because Russian names often end with “ð©ð╣” (for example, “Trotsky” is “ðóÐÇoÐåð║ð©ð╣” in Russian) and that’s also how other Slavic or Slavic-origin names ending with “i” or “y” are normally transliterated.
Thanks!
The Ðî is orthographically marking the preceding consonant as soft. In Russian, a hard L isn’t really like a W, that’s more Polish.
The thing is, ðÜð¥ð▓ð░ð╗ÐîÐüð║ð©ð╣ is the Russian spelling for the name Kowalski, which is, though Polish in origin, quite common as a Russian surname. Virtually all Russian surnames originated as adjectives, and ð©ð╣ (iy) is the masculine adjectival ending, so all the -sky/ski names are -Ðüð║ð©ð╣ in Russian. The word ð║ð¥ð▓ð░ð╗Ðî (koval’) means “farrier” or “blacksmith-who-works-with-horses”, and the -skiy ending is just tacked on.
Welcome to Russian — names may become longer. If your name was ending on `i’ but was say Italian, e.g., Fermi, there would be no extra letter at the end; the Russian version of Fermi also has 5 letters. But your name sounds sufficiently Russian, perhaps Ukrainian or Polish origin, or Jewish who spent long time in Ukraine or Poland, and then an extra letter at the end sounds appropriate. ðÜð¥ð▓ð░ð╗Ðî means `smith’ but in Ukrainian, in Russian it would be ð║ÐâðÀð¢ðÁÐå.
Let me also mention that the proper French version can be so much worse… A friend of mine, with last name ðáÐâð┤ÐçðÁð¢ð║ð¥, thought that it will be made into Rudchenko (just one more letter) and this is how he signs his papers. But he became Roudtchenko in his `foreign’ passport issued 20 years ago (this is at least how it used to be thanks to the huge French historic or cultural influence)… Some French names becomes readable in Russian, Houellebecq shortens to 7 letters (one of which is the same obscure Ðî which makes makes `l’ in his last name sounds soft).
On the other hand, the Russian writing of Iwaniec explains how to pronounce it properly!