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Cyrillic-to-Latin Transliterator

Paste a Russian or Belarusian Cyrillic name. See the same string rendered in four parallel Latin standards — the spellings most likely to appear across sanctions lists, passports, and government databases. Useful when the standard used on an OFAC SDN, EU OJ, or UK OFSI entry is not obvious and a single transliteration risks missing a match.

GOST 7.79-2000 (System B)

Russian government / pre-2010 passports

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ICAO Doc 9303

Modern Russian / Belarusian passports (post-2014)

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BGN/PCGN 1947

US State Dept / OFAC / UK FCDO

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Russian Passport 2010+

FMS Order No. 26 of 2010 (current)

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Use case. Paste a Russian or Belarusian name; compare against the spelling on an OFAC SDN, EU OJ, or UK OFSI listing where the standard used is not obvious. The same Cyrillic source can render as four different Latin strings — a literal text search using only one variant will miss the rest. The four-up view lets an analyst pick the closest match without re-keying.

Where each standard appears in practice. Russian passports issued between roughly 1997 and 2010 used a GOST-derived scheme; passports issued 2010-2013 used a transitional revision; passports issued from 2014 onward use ICAO Doc 9303 transliteration. US Treasury OFAC typically follows BGN/PCGN 1947 for Russian persons on the SDN list, though spellings of historical figures often vary. EU Official Journal designations tend to follow ICAO with occasional national-language variants.

Limits. This is a deterministic character-level mapper. It does not handle context-sensitive rules where a standard prescribes them (e.g. BGN/PCGN ye vs. e for Е depending on preceding letter is approximated, not perfectly contextual). For high-stakes screening, treat all four outputs as candidate variants and search each.

When a four-standard transliteration matters

The reason to generate four parallel transliterations at once is recall. Sanctions and watchlist databases store names as Latin strings, and a single Cyrillic name can be spelled several legitimate ways depending on which standard the listing authority applied. If you search a screening tool with only one romanization — say the ICAO passport spelling — you will miss an entry filed under the BGN/PCGN form that OFAC tends to use, or a GOST-derived form from an older record. Producing every common variant from the same Cyrillic source lets an analyst paste each candidate spelling into a name-matching search and confirm there is no near-miss hiding behind an alternate transliteration. It is equally useful in reverse: when a list shows an unfamiliar Latin spelling, comparing it against all four outputs helps you decide which standard produced it and therefore how much confidence to place in a partial match. Treat the four results as a candidate set, not a single answer, and search each one before you conclude a name is clear.

FAQ

Why does a Cyrillic-to-Latin transliterator show four different results?
Because there is no single correct romanization. Different authorities — Russian passport rules, ICAO travel-document standards, the BGN/PCGN system used by US and UK governments, and GOST — map the same Cyrillic letters to different Latin spellings. Seeing all four side by side lets you match whichever variant a sanctions list happens to use.

Which standard does OFAC use?
US Treasury OFAC generally follows BGN/PCGN 1947 for Russian persons on the SDN list, but historical figures and legacy entries vary. When in doubt, search every variant the Cyrillic-to-Latin transliterator produces.

Does it support Belarusian as well as Russian?
Yes. Russian and Belarusian Cyrillic are supported, including the Belarusian letters Ў and І. Non-Cyrillic characters pass through unchanged.

Is anything I type sent to a server?
No. Transliteration runs entirely in your browser with no analytics, cookies, or server roundtrip.

References

GOST 7.79-2000 (System B) — Russian state standard "Rules for transliteration of Cyrillic script into Latin alphabet", Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology (Rosstandart).
ICAO Doc 9303, Part 3, Section 6, Appendix 9 — "Machine Readable Travel Documents", International Civil Aviation Organization.
BGN/PCGN 1947 — "Romanization System for Russian", United States Board on Geographic Names and Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use.
Order No. 26 of the Russian Federal Migration Service, 3 February 2010 — transliteration rules for international passports of the Russian Federation (with the 2014 update aligning with ICAO).

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