Talk:Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Zaporozhye

[discussion moved from User_talk:Mzajac]

This is like Kiev and Kharkov, Zaporozhye is used in the west and not Zaporizhzhia. You can call it Zaporizhzhia on the Ukrainian wiki, but in English we stick with the common western form of the name. Zaporizhzhia gives me 27,600 hits on google, Zaporozhye gives me 181,000 hits. GeneralPatton 07:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi General. Zaporozhye is not like Kiev and Kharkov. Zaporizhzhia is like Chernivtsi, Luts'k, and Uzhhorod.

1. It's not commonly used in English. Ask any ten non-WWII history buffs how to spell it, ten out of ten will say "never heard of it."

2. It's not an English name. "Zaporozhye" is transliterated from Russian, which was the local official language at the time (of the WWII battle, and until 1991). It may be appropriate to use it in the WWII and Soviet history context on Wikipedia.

3. I'm no fan of Google tests for proving anything, but your example is unfair. There are many transliteration conventions. The doubled Ж of the Ukrainian name is optionally simplified. Here's a more inclusive comparison: the Russian name zaporozhye OR zaporozh'ye OR zaporozhie OR zaporozhiye gets 116,000 results. Ukrainian zaporizhzhia OR zaporizhzhya OR zaporizhia OR zaporizhya OR zaporizhzhe gets 101,000 results.

The convention states "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form. ... If there is no commonly-used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language." Until 1991, Russian may have been considered the native name, but now it is clearly not.

The way I see it, you're arguing that the Russian name is English, because you saw it in a book on Soviet history. Yours is really a straw-man argument for using the Russian over the Ukrainian native transliteration.

—Michael Z. 17:58, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

I'm wondering why Zaporizhia is being spelled with two "zh"s. And if it DOES happen to be spelled correctly, how the hell would it be pronounced? Could someone edit the title and take out the extra "zh"? It really doesn't make sense. Other than that, that's an awesome name for a region! Having Ukrainian ancestry, I wonder if my ancestors are from there. That'd be so cool! ForestAngel 02:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)