English to Russian Transliteration
Type an English name or word and get it in Cyrillic. Where Russian has already settled on a spelling, that is what you get, rather than a letter-by-letter conversion that no Russian would recognise.
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This writes English sounds in Cyrillic, so it is meant for names, places and individual words. Paste a whole English sentence and you get the sentence spelled out in Cyrillic, not its meaning — for that use the translator.
Why letter-by-letter conversion produces names no Russian uses
There are published standards for putting Latin letters into Cyrillic — GOST, BGN/PCGN, ISO 9 — and converters implement them faithfully. Applied to an ordinary word they work fine.
Applied to a name, they produce something a Russian speaker has never seen. Harry transcribes phonetically as Хэрри, but every Russian writes Гарри — Harry Potter is Гарри Поттер on the cover of the book. The English h entered Russian as г in the era those names were borrowed, and the spelling stuck.
It is not a rule you can apply mechanically either, because newer borrowings do take х — Hilton is Хилтон. Which one is right depends on when and how the particular name entered Russian. That is knowledge about the word, not about its letters, and a standards-based converter has none of it.
Where the difference shows
| You type | Correct | Common error | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harry | Гарри | Хэрри | h became г in established names |
| William | Уильям | Виллиам | settled form, not derivable |
| John | Джон | Йохн | j is дж |
| Smith | Смит | Смиз | th is normally т |
| Washington | Вашингтон | Уошингтон | established place name |
| New York | Нью-Йорк | Нью Йорк | place names are hyphenated |
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Questions
How do I write my name in Russian?
Type it in the box. If it is a name Russian already has a spelling for, you get that spelling. Otherwise you get a transcription that follows the same conventions Russian uses for new names.
Why is Harry written Гарри and not Хэрри?
Because English h entered Russian as г during the period those names were borrowed, and the spellings never changed. Harry Potter is published as Гарри Поттер. Newer borrowings use х instead, so Hilton is Хилтон — which is why no single rule covers both.
Which transliteration standard does this use?
For ordinary words it follows normal Russian practical transcription, the same conventions publishers use. For names that already have an established Russian form, that form takes priority over any standard, because it is what people actually write.
Is it free?
Yes, and it needs no account. Pasting text is free and unlimited. Uploading whole books or PDFs is part of the paid packages.