User:TaivoLinguist/Ukrainian names

This page is an attempt at generalizing some Wikipedia guidelines for names of places within Ukraine. Ukraine has been independent since 1991 and the Ukrainian language is enshrined as the official language of the country in its Constitution. However, eastern Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union for 70 years and Russian was the language of government during that time. Millions of urban Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country have Russian as their first language. During that 70 years, using the Russian names of Ukrainian places was the norm in the rest of the world. In western Ukraine, the situation is more complex. Before the First World War, the region was divided between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire many local ethnic groups exercised linguistic hegemony in their regions and German was not regarded as the uniform language of the Empire. Thus, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Rusyn, and Polish were all spoken in the western part of Ukraine. After the First World War, western Ukraine was divided between Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1938, the Transcarpathian region became part of Hungary and in 1939 the part of Ukraine controlled by Poland became part of the Soviet Union. Only after the Second World War was almost all of modern Ukraine united in the Soviet Union. Crimea, which is nearly all Russian-speaking, joined Ukraine during the 1950s. Thus, despite the modern linguistic unity enforced by the Constitution, there was a great deal of linguistic diversity within Ukraine during the 20th century which is still reflected in the way that places within Ukraine are referred to in foreign sources.

In Transcarpathia there is a saying: "A man was born in Austria, went to school in Czechoslovakia, married in Hungary, worked in the Soviet Union, and died in Ukraine, but never left his village." Wikipedia must recognize that diversity.

Names of articles
The names of articles about places are bound by the constraints of WP:NCON.
 * Since the majority of places in Ukraine are virtually unknown to foreigners, Ukrainian names should take precedence in most cases.
 * Kiev, Odessa, Chernobyl, and Crimea are exceptions since they are widely known outside Ukraine and their names in Wikipedia by WP:NCON should follow common English usage.
 * Within Crimea, Russian is the primary language both in urban and rural areas, so local Russian names should take precedence over recently imposed Ukrainian variants.
 * In general, the article titles should not include a stroke for the soft sign, thus Lviv, not "L'viv".

Alternate names listed in first sentence
Wikipedia is a place for reference, so it is highly desirable that common alternate names from the Soviet and earlier periods should be readily visible to readers. Ukrainian is only a recent addition to the international presence of Ukrainian placenames, so it is important that continuity in names from the past be maintained in the first sentence of each article. How that is done should be sensitive to the linguistic history of each city.
 * Crimea: These articles should have the Russian and Ukrainian variants of the name in bold with original spellings in Cyrillic in parentheses.  Alternate names (unbolded) within parentheses should include the Crimean Tatar if known.  Since the Ukrainian and Russian versions are almost always identical, this means only one name in bold in most cases.  For example:
 * Simferopol (Сімферополь; Симферополь; Συμφερόπολις, meaning city of common good; Aqmescit, literally: The white mosque)


 * Eastern Ukraine: The majority of speakers in most eastern Ukrainian cities is Russian-speaking while the rural areas are generally Ukrainian-speaking.  Therefore the city articles in eastern Ukraine should have both the Ukrainian name and Russian name in bold followed in parentheses by the Cyrillic versions.  Any historical names that are no longer used should also be included here, although bolding is not necessary.  These are cities that became part of the Soviet Union in the 1920s.  For example:
 * Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk (Дніпропетровськ, translit. Dnipropetrovs’k; Днепропетровск, translit. Dnepropetrovsk) formerly Yekaterinoslav (Катеринослав, translit. Katerynoslav; Екатеринослав)


 * Western Ukraine: The majority of speakers in western Ukraine are Ukrainian-speaking, so the Ukrainian name is primary.  However, the historic linguistic situation is more complex in all of these places, so each article must be sensitive to the variety and history of names in the first sentence.  All names must include the Russian variant of the name because that is the name found in foreign sources during the Soviet era and is still often encountered.  In the area controlled by Poland before 1940, the Polish name must also be included.  For example:
 * Rivne or Rovno (Рівне; ; Równe; Ровно, Rovno; ראוונע)


 * Transcarpathia: In addition to the comments concerning Western Ukraine, these places should also include the Rusyn name and Hungarian name.  For example:
 * Uzhhorod or Uzhgorod (Ужгород; Ужгород; Уґоград, Ужгород or Унґвар; Ungvár; Romani Ungvara; Slovak and Czech: Užhorod; Użgorod; Ungwar, Ungarisch Burg; אונגװיר, translit. Ungver or Ingver, Ujgorod)

Listing in City Template
The city templates should include 1) Version in title of article (usually Ukrainian) on top; 2) Cyrillic version of Ukrainian; 3) other name (usually Russian). For example:

Personal names
While the above principles are primarily written with place names in mind, they also quite generally apply to personal names as well since many of the persons from Ukrainian history are not know to the English-speaking world by their Ukrainian names, but by their Russian names, or, less commonly, their Polish names. Therefore it is imperative that Russian (and other relevant) variants of their name be included prominently in the first sentence of the article.