Is it Zelensky or Zelenskyy? Behind the spelling of the Ukrainian president’s name

The last name of Ukraine’s president is correctly spelled: Зеленський

Unless you’re a prominent American rapper (e.g. Kanye West) or a newly naturalised American basketball star (Enes Kanter Freedom), you’re used to seeing your name spelled just one way.

And if you’ve been reading about the current president of Ukraine in recent days, the question of how his name is spelled might leave you a bit confused.

For readers of The Guardian or Reuters, Ukraine’s president is Volodymyr Zelenskiy. If you get your news from Sky or Al Jazeera, his last name is “Zelenskyy”.

And at The Independent, along with publications that follow the Associated Press Style Guide, the name of Ukraine’s president is “Zelensky”.

All this name gaming is probably leading you to scratch your head and wonder what the correct spelling of the Ukrainian leader’s last name is. Fortunately, we can give you a definitive answer to that question.

The last name of Ukraine’s president is correctly spelled: Зеленський.

The reason behind the multiple spellings is that the Ukrainian language doesn’t use the same alphabet as English, so any rendering of Ukrainian names into the English language is a transliteration, which means we’re taking the Ukrainian spelling Зеленський and fashioning it into an English-like spelling that approximates how it is said aloud.

According to the US Library of Congress Romanisation tables, a character-for-character rendering of the Ukrainian president’s name into the Latin alphabet would result in the spelling: “Zelenskyy,” which according to his former spokesperson Iuliia Mendel, is the official spelling used by the Ukrainian Passport Service.

It’s also the spelling used by at least two US television networks, Fox News and MSNBC, as well as government sources in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

(MSNBC)

(Fox News)

Does that mean news organisationsare using the wrong spelling?

No, it does not. Each of the spellings common in English-language media is technically correct, whether “Zelenskyy,” “Zelenskiy,” or the transliteration used by The Independent, “Zelensky”.

The Independent’s Chief Sub-Editor Ross McKinnon explained that many English-language outlets have done the same in dropping the final “y” of the Ukrainian leader’s name.

Another consideration in such stylistic decisions is what spelling makes it easiest for search engine users to find news coverage. A search for “Zelensky” returns roughly 247 million results, far more than the 63.6 million for “Zelenskyy”, which indicates the former transliteration is far more common.

But according to Mr McKinnon, perhaps the most important consideration is The Independent’s tradition of following the dictates of George Orwell in our use of the English language: “Never use a long word where a short one will do”.