Kiev - History of Kiev's Name in English

History of Kiev's Name in English

Currently, Kiev is the traditional and most commonly used English name for the city, but in 1995 the Ukrainian government adopted Kyiv as the mandatory romanization for use in legislative and official acts.

As a prominent city with a long history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjevъ (Cyrillic: Къıєвъ), derived from Kyi (Кий), the legendary founder of the city.

Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, Kiovia. On one of the oldest English maps of the region, Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius (London, 1570) the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, and the region was named Kÿowia. In the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall (London, 1772), the city is referred to as Kiovia. While the choice of these spellings have likely been influenced by the Polish name of the city (Polish: Kijów) as until mid-17th century the city was controlled by Poland, the name Kiev that started to take hold at later times, likely originates on the basis of Russian orthography and pronunciation, during a time when Kiev was in the Russian Empire (since 1708 a centre of a Governorate).

In English, Kiev was used in print as early as in 1804 in the John Cary's "New map of Europe, from the latest authorities" in "Cary's new universal atlas" published in London. The English travelogue titled New Russia: Journey from Riga to the Crimea by way of Kiev, by Mary Holderness was published in 1823. By 1883, the Oxford English Dictionary included Kiev in a quotation. Kiev is also based on the old Ukrainian language spelling of the city name and was used by Ukrainians and their ancestors from the time of Kievan Rus until only about the last century.

Kyiv is the romanized version of the name of the city used in modern Ukrainian. Starting from the 20th century it has been used in English-language publications of the Ukrainian diaspora and in some academic publications concerning Ukraine. Following the independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government introduced the national rules for transliteration of geographic names from Ukrainian into English. According to the rules, the Ukrainian Київ transliterates into Kyiv. This has established the use of the spelling Kyiv in all official documents issued by the governmental authorities since October 1995. The spelling is used by the United Nations, all English-speaking foreign diplomatic missions, several international organizations, Encarta encyclopedia, and by some media, notably in Canada and Ukraine. In October 2006, the United States federal government changed its official spelling of the city name to Kyiv, upon the recommendation of the US Board of Geographic Names. The British government has also started using Kyiv. The alternate romanizations Kyyiv (BGN/PCGN transliteration) and Kyjiv (scholarly) are also in use in English-language atlases. Most major English-language news sources like BBC continue to use Kiev.