Russian/Cyrillic Spelling of Players' Names

[Alessandro]

To me these are the best "non-card" facepacks I have seen. They are clear and crisp and look really good. As for the names:

1. It could be that an English name is incorrect in there just as easily as a Russian one.
2. The Cyrillic spelling is going to completely limit English and non-Russian speakers in their efforts to do add ons such as this. It takes more time for that person to go and check the game each and every time he makes a card for a Russian player.

***Note: Although I personally think the Cyrillic spelling in this game of Russian names is idiotic, and it is causing me not to actually try the database at all....it is the perogative of those putting in the work to update EHM and make the rosters to do what they wish with it. Therefore this is my final (I made one other) comment on the situation. Allesandro, your time and efforts in this game are 2nd to none other than people like archi and manimal (lidas in the past) and I hope you continue the work for all those who will continue to use future updates..***

I may one day use the updated versions again and just never ever have a Russian on my team. But seeing Cyrillic spelled names will kill me when I am playing against the Pens or Caps and see guys I recognize (and are recognized internationally and WORLDWIDE) with their Anglicized spellings. All the research databases spell in English. But to each their own.

Dead batdad,

I appreciate your feeling. But the situation was this one: we had for the same name or surname 4 or even 5 different versions of the same thing. Let's have a look to a classic example, the name (current spelling) Alexei. We had Aleksei, Aleksey, Alexei and Alexey. This is non-sense, isn't it? The same for Yury. We had Yury, Yuri, Yuriy, Iouri, Ioury, and so on. Again, don't you think this is a non-sense. We needed some consistency. And I thought we should just adhere to IIHF:

Q: What prompted the reform?
A: In short-term it was the request from the Russian national team and Washington goaltender Semyon Varlamov to have his first name spelled just like that instead of the incorrect “Semen”. Long-term it was that we are three years away from the first Olympic hockey tournaments in Russia. We felt that come Sochi 2014, the names of the hosting country should be transcribed correctly. It’s long overdue already. But primarily, we wanted to get it right.

Q: What were the IIHF’s guiding principles when doing this?
A: First and foremost it was the sound-emulating aspect. It is a matter of correctness and respect to the individual. When a player from a country that uses Cyrillic spelling takes part in our events, he or she should expect that the organizer spells his or her name in a way that it reflects how it is originally pronounced. The second principle was consistency and the third simplicity.

Q: Give us some examples of consistency?
A: If we take the above example with the correct Semyon, we can’t have other players be “Artem”. The crucial Cyrillic letter here is “ë” which is pronounced “yo“. Thus: Semyon and Artyom. The recognition of this letter has far reaching consequences on many names which have been consistently transcribed incorrectly. So players who earlier were known as “Fedorov“ and “Kovalev“ will be correctly spelled as Fyodorov and Kovalyov.

This is how Semin/Syomin looked at the latest WC:

[CeeBee]

I don't mind the new spellings but it does take some getting used to I just hope that any new facepacks use the new spelling so that a bunch of guys won't be faceless though what with regens and all it eventually doesn't matter.

[archibalduk]

I think there are very valid arguments both for and against the Cyrillic-spelling of names. I do agree that consistency and accuracy are extremely important. However, I think the (minor) issue is that for all NHL fans (and there are a lot of them in the community), they are used to seeing the NHL spelling rather than the IIHF/native spelling:



But it's a small thing and it doesn't bother me that much personally. As Batdad says, everybody is just extremely grateful for people like yourself and Manimal who put in hours of work to continue updating the rosters. And perhaps if the NHL had paid a little more attention to the Russian spellings / IIHF, we wouldn't have this problem at all.

In any event, this discussion has got me thinking. I think it will be easy to add a function to the EHM Updater which will covert the Russian spellings of NHL/NA players back to the NHL version. Then we can have the benefit of accuracy and consistency as default and, if a user wishes, he can still have the familiar NHL spellings.

[Alessandro]

I think there are very valid arguments both for and against the Cyrillic-spelling of names. I do agree that consistency and accuracy are extremely important. However, I think the (minor) issue is that for all NHL fans (and there are a lot of them in the community), they are used to seeing the NHL spelling rather than the IIHF/native spelling:

Well, I don't think the NHL is guilty. Passports are usually written the way the NHL writes them. So yes, sometimes it's a problem because maybe in a passport you have Iouri (in older times Russians used to write their names according to the French orthography) and another document has Yury
But I think the IIHF way is the way to go because the IIHF is a supranational entity, the NHL is not.

[Alessandro]

I may one day use the updated versions again and just never ever have a Russian on my team. But seeing Cyrillic spelled names will kill me when I am playing against the Pens or Caps and see guys I recognize (and are recognized internationally and WORLDWIDE) with their Anglicized spellings. All the research databases spell in English. But to each their own.

Actually eliteprospects has an interesting feature which allows both things to exist. For example: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=9258

[Loosie]

I appreciate your feeling. But the situation was this one: we had for the same name or surname 4 or even 5 different versions of the same thing. Let's have a look to a classic example, the name (current spelling) Alexei. We had Aleksei, Aleksey, Alexei and Alexey. This is non-sense, isn't it? The same for Yury. We had Yury, Yuri, Yuriy, Iouri, Ioury, and so on. Again, don't you think this is a non-sense. We needed some consistency. And I thought we should just adhere to IIHF:

Q: What prompted the reform?
A: In short-term it was the request from the Russian national team and Washington goaltender Semyon Varlamov to have his first name spelled just like that instead of the incorrect “Semen”. Long-term it was that we are three years away from the first Olympic hockey tournaments in Russia. We felt that come Sochi 2014, the names of the hosting country should be transcribed correctly. It’s long overdue already. But primarily, we wanted to get it right.

Q: What were the IIHF’s guiding principles when doing this?
A: First and foremost it was the sound-emulating aspect. It is a matter of correctness and respect to the individual. When a player from a country that uses Cyrillic spelling takes part in our events, he or she should expect that the organizer spells his or her name in a way that it reflects how it is originally pronounced. The second principle was consistency and the third simplicity.

Q: Give us some examples of consistency?
A: If we take the above example with the correct Semyon, we can’t have other players be “Artem”. The crucial Cyrillic letter here is “ë” which is pronounced “yo“. Thus: Semyon and Artyom. The recognition of this letter has far reaching consequences on many names which have been consistently transcribed incorrectly. So players who earlier were known as “Fedorov“ and “Kovalev“ will be correctly spelled as Fyodorov and Kovalyov.

This is how Semin/Syomin looked at the latest WC:

While I understand the Russian Federation and IIHF reasoning, I don't by your first point about 'different spelling of one name' English has the same thing. It's like everyone named Alexei has to spelled the same way. Look at the different spelling of Shawn/Sean. And other names two. My name is Geoffrey, but there is also Jeffrey, Jeffery and others. Just because than can be different ways of spelling a name, to me doesn't really constitue a reason for sweeping changes. Maybe I'm missing the point.

[bruins72]

In any event, this discussion has got me thinking. I think it will be easy to add a function to the EHM Updater which will covert the Russian spellings of NHL/NA players back to the NHL version. Then we can have the benefit of accuracy and consistency as default and, if a user wishes, he can still have the familiar NHL spellings.

I would love to see this! Even though I can see Alessandro's rationale for using the spellings that he did, I don't like the spellings that way. I much prefer to use the NHL names I'm used to.

[Alessandro]

While I understand the Russian Federation and IIHF reasoning, I don't by your first point about 'different spelling of one name' English has the same thing. It's like everyone named Alexei has to spelled the same way. Look at the different spelling of Shawn/Sean. And other names two. My name is Geoffrey, but there is also Jeffrey, Jeffery and others. Just because than can be different ways of spelling a name, to me doesn't really constitue a reason for sweeping changes. Maybe I'm missing the point.

No offense, but yes, you're missing the point. You said English has the same thing, but Russian DOESN'T have the same thing: Alexei, Alexey, Aleksey is ONE name. It's like having Mario Lemieux called Mario Lemieux in one moment and then call him Mharhio Lhemiu another time and if you have another Mario Lemieux you call him Mario Lemieux and another one Mharhio Lemieux or Mario Lhemiu. Do you understand now?

[batdad]

Basically what you are saying is that Alexey, Aleksey, Alexei are spelled exactly the same way in the Russian cyrillic alphabet, which is fine. I don't have an issue with you wanting to use the Cyrillic spellings. I just don't like them because I am not used to seeing them spelled that way.

And it is definitely not just the NHL. Any Russian people that are playing hockey or not....have the cyrillic alphabet name completely dropped when they get their passports, move to a new country etc. Otherwise we would be much more familiar with the cyrillic names of people from Russia here. And hockey players in the CHL from Russia all have the non-cyrillic spellings.

I appreciate your explanation for why you want to do things the way you are, and am not asking you to change it Alessandro. That is totally your choice. And of course I was not aware of the different ways to view things on eliteprospects etc. I would never look for that information anyway.

And yeah...not surprised at Varlamov wanting to have his name spelled/pronounced differently than it was originally was.

Again, for me it is just a matter of familiarity and not really being interested in dealing with the changes in the EHM game.

ARchi--Awesome idea. Hopefully that works.

And Loosie--there are way to many Kr8tv spellings of names in English. Why can't a David be a David instead of a DAY-Vid or a Steve be a Steve instead of a Steev?