Talk:Cyril

The translations copied from Kirill don't match

The name Cyril and Kirill, though related have a different pronunciation, hence all translations into Russian (Сирил), Arabic (سيريل), Chinese (西里尔) and Japanese (シリル) will be different, based on the [s] sound, not [k]. --Anatoli 22:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The name Kirill is not really English. I have never heard of it before now. If there are people in the U.S. named Kirill, I’m sure they immigrated from another country and did not know to anglicize it to Cyril. Kirill is as odd to us as Акакий to a Russian...or even more so. Although an American named Cyril will become Сирил in Russian, the Russian name Кирилл becomes Cyril in English. So the translations into Russian, etc., are correct, but additional translations might be added as well. —Stephen 00:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Hi Stephen, I understand you but the English entry does not necessarily have to be a pure English name. The name Kirill, e.g. the new patriarch of the Russian Christian Orthodox church will appear as "Kirill", not Cyril in any English newspaper. The translation is not required here. Same with other languages, people need to know how this particular name is spelled in other languages, the transliteration does not only serve to render the pronunciation in the original language. If a name appears anywhere in any English text, it can have an entry in an English dictionary of proper names, describing the English spelling, pronunciation and origin. The value is obvious. Does an English person need to know how to pronounce "John"? No. Everyone already know this.

• Also, the romanisation of Chinese/Japanese/Arabic allows or even prescribes capitalisation of proper names, which is standard. Check some ISO on Wikipedia, if you wish. I will provide links later if you wish. Anatoli 02:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I really think we should separate Kirill and Cyril as two separate entries and only mention cognates and origin. They are cognates. I am not insisting that Kirill is an English name but it have an English entry as romanisation (not translation) of the Russian name. These related names are not the same. Cyrillic is a translation of кириллица (and other Slavic words for it) but "Cyril" is not a translation of "Кирилл". It should be Cyril - Сирил, Kirill-Кирилл and other languages where they differ in spelling and pronunciation. In some cases the names have to merge and in some split or provide an alternative. Владимир (Vladimir) is "Володимир" in Ukrainian and so is always referred to in Ukrainian spelling but in Polish it can be both "Włodzimierz" and "Władimir" (when referring to Russians). These minor details are important, in my opinion. An English person named Cyril will never be called "Кирилл" in a Russian newspaper but "Сирил". Stephen, your name in Russian is Стивен (Stíven), not Степан (Stepán) and they need separate entries with some reference about the origin. As this is an English site, "Стивен" entry is not necessary but would be needed in the Russian version as an English name. Anatoli 02:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, name of the patriarch of the Russian Christian Orthodox Church is Кирилл, not Kirill. Kirill is simply the transcription of it. That is, his name is Russian, not English, and the transcription of his name is a transcription, not a real name. If he emmigrated to America, he would soon take the name Cyril. As far as I’m concerned, we should have entries for English names and Russian names, but no entries for transcriptions of names, any more than we should have entries for "gosudarstvo", "Sovyetsky Soyuz", or "ochen priyatno s toboy poznakomitsya".

I have done the vast majority of the Arabic entries, and I strongly prefer not to capitalize Arabic transcriptions. The name Muhammad is capitalized, but not the transcription of محمد. In the case of Chinese, Pinyin is used not just as a means of transcription, but as a medium for writing the language, and therefore it has standardized spellings and capitalization just like English words. Japanese also has a very standardized spelling in the Roman alphabet. Arabic has a number of different transcription systems, but none of them are popular. Most Arabs, if persuaded to write in Roman letters, use something completely different, and educated Arabs that I know say they cannot read Arabic when it is written is some of the big transcription systems. You have to pronounce the word for them before they recognize it.

Does an English person need to know how to pronounce John? Of course! That’s what dictionaries are for, that’s what they do.

I would separate Cyril and Kirill by deleting Kirill. At most, Kirill could redirect to Кирилл or, better yet, we could just have the Kirill transcription at Кирилл, which can easily be found by searching. Cyril is a name, Кирилл is a name, Kirill is a transcription of a name. To say that Kirill deserves an entry is like saying that every transcription of every Russian word deserves an entry. It’s ludicrous. Russian is Russian, it is written in Cyrillic. Serbian is written in both Cyrillic and Roman, but Russian is only Cyrillic. Transliterations of Russian are not Russian, nor are they English. They are pronunciations of words, not the words themselves. I know my Russian name is usually Стивен, and Стивен is common enough that it might possibly be considered a Russian word, complete with declension, but in fact it is not Russian. Stephen should list Стивен and Степан, but there shouldn’t be an entry for Стивен unless and until Russians begin naming their children Стивен and creating diminutive, endearing and pejoratives forms for it. Until then, we only need entries for Stephen and Степан, and Стивен only needs to be mentioned in passing on the Stephen page, which also makes it searchable. English is written in Roman letters, not Cyrillic, and Стивен can only qualify as a Russian name if Russians themselves use it. If it’s only the Cyrillic transcription of an English name, then it’s a transcription, not a name, and it’s English, not Russian, and English is written in Roman.

And Modern Greek pronounces the Κ in Κύριλλος as Ц, not as a hard K. —Stephen 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I chanced upon this entry and was relatively amused to find that my name does not exist in English. I immigrated to the United States in 1993 and my name has appeared on my Social Security card, Driver's License, and Military ID as Kirill. Therefore, I claim that the name Kirill does exist, can be used, and is a proper English name. I am also strongly considering naming one of my future male children Kirill, which would make him a natural-born American named Kirill. Granted, this would be unnecessary if solely used to prove a point on Wiktionary, as I am sure there have been other natural-born Americans named Kirill. Kirill 22:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC)