How to change the Latin spelling of your name in a Ukrainian passport

Transliteration looks like a triviality right up to the moment two of your documents land on the same desk. A diploma translated five years ago as Iarema and a fresh international passport reading Yarema are, to a German official, two different surnames and therefore two different people. What follows is predictable: the file comes back, the deadline is gone, and the cause of the mismatch is a lookup table.

The Latin spelling in a Ukrainian international passport is produced not by a person but by software, from the transliteration table in Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 55 of 27 January 2010. That is why a single family can end up with three different spellings of one surname: the passports were issued in different years, under different versions of the rules, and sometimes at different offices.

The good news is that the law allows you to depart from the automatic version. The bad news is that you may do so only with a document evidencing the other spelling, and only by written application at the moment the passport is issued.

Why Yarema is not Iarema

Most mismatches come down to one feature of the Resolution No. 55 table: five Ukrainian letters are rendered differently depending on their position in the word. One form at the start, another anywhere else.

Letter	Word-initial	Elsewhere	Example
Є	Ye	ie	Євген → Yevhen · Наєнко → Naienko
Ї	Yi	i	Їжакевич → Yizhakevych · Маїк → Maik
Й	Y	i	Йосип → Yosyp · Олексій → Oleksii
Ю	Yu	iu	Юрій → Yurii · Крюков → Kriukov
Я	Ya	ia	Ярема → Yarema · Рябчук → Riabchuk

This is where the commonest error by translators and office clerks creeps in: the surname Ярема gets written Iarema, applying the word-internal form to the first letter. That is not transliteration under the current table — and when the passport comes back reading Yarema, the documents no longer match.

The rest of the table has its own traps:

• Г → H, but Ґ → G. Гончар is Honchar, Ґонта is Gonta. Writing Latin G for “г” is a constant source of the same mismatch.
• Х → Kh, Ж → Zh, Ч → Ch, Ш → Sh, Щ → Shch. Хмельницький becomes Khmelnytskyi.
• The cluster “зг” → zgh, to keep it distinct from “ж” (zh): Згурський → Zghurskyi.
• The soft sign and the apostrophe are not rendered at all. Русь → Rus, Знамʼянка → Znamianka.

You can check your own surname against this table in five seconds with our transliteration tool — it implements Resolution No. 55, positional rules included.

Three lawful grounds for a different spelling

According to the State Migration Service, the Latin spelling of a surname and given name may be changed in the following cases:

1. Ukrainian passport documents previously issued to you. If your earlier international passport spelled the surname differently, that is a ground to keep that version in the new document.
2. Documents issued by competent authorities of a foreign state. A residence permit, a foreign passport, a driving licence, a marriage certificate issued abroad — anything where your surname is already recorded officially in Latin script.
3. The spelling used for a relative. Your passport may follow the spelling of the surname of your child, your parents (or one of them) or your spouse — including from passports issued by foreign states, where the relative is a foreign national.

The third ground is the most common in families whose children were born abroad or where the spouses hold different citizenships. It is also the most useful one to act on early: if you have just married a foreign national and expect to file joint paperwork, agree the spelling before the first submission rather than after.

What is not on the list is “I prefer it this way”. Aesthetic preference is not a ground, and an application without a supporting document will not be granted.

How the application is filed

There is no standalone “transliteration change” procedure: the spelling is changed at the moment the international passport is issued or renewed. The sequence is:

1. You file for a new passport (a territorial unit of the Migration Service, an administrative service centre, or a Ukrainian consulate abroad).
2. Together with it you submit a handwritten application stating the spelling you want and the ground for it.
3. You attach the supporting document. If it is Ukrainian — the original. If it is foreign — a legalised copy and a notarized Ukrainian translation.
4. You receive the passport with the agreed spelling.

Step three is what brings most clients to us. They already hold the document: a German Aufenthaltstitel, a Polish karta pobytu, a Canadian birth certificate for their child. What is missing is the notarized translation — and without it the application is not accepted. It is a one-day job; how it works is set out on the notarized translation page, and the specifics for passport documents are on the passport translation page.

You can see in advance what the automatic transliteration under Resolution No. 55 produces with our free transliteration tool. It takes five seconds and immediately shows whether there is a discrepancy worth writing an application about.

What happens to the old passport

The question asked more often than any other: does a valid passport become void if the new one is spelled differently? According to the Migration Service, passports with different transliterations are not deemed invalid automatically — the issue arises only when the person applies for a new document or a renewal. So while you are not renewing anything, both documents work.

The practical conclusion: the renewal is the one point at which the spelling can be tidied up without extra effort. Miss it and the next chance comes in ten years.

The document chain: where a mismatch really hurts

Ukrainian documents are issued in Cyrillic, so Latin script appears in them only in translation. Which means a transliteration mismatch is almost always a question for the translator rather than for the Migration Service.

Situation	What the translator does
A valid international passport exists	The spelling is taken from the passport — the baseline “as in the passport” rule
No passport yet (documents prepared in advance)	Automatic transliteration under Resolution No. 55
Documents in the old spelling already filed abroad	We keep the earlier version and, where needed, add a note on identity of spellings
Germany: courts, Standesamt, universities	ISO 9:1995 transliteration may be required — a separate standard that maps Cyrillic character by character

The last row deserves a word. For some procedures German institutions require the translation to be done by an ermächtigter Übersetzer using ISO 9:1995 transliteration — in which case a second, “scholarly” spelling appears in your translation alongside the passport one. That is neither an error nor a contradiction: the standard prescribes it. How this works in Germany and Poland is set out separately in Ukrainian names in German and Polish documents. More on the German specifics is in our guide to the apostille on a diploma for Germany; country-by-country routes are collected in the countries section.

A spelling change is not a name change

The two procedures are constantly confused, and the confusion is expensive.

• A transliteration change alters only the Latin spelling in the passport. The Cyrillic name is unchanged, the civil act record is untouched, no certificate is issued.
• A name change alters the name itself in your Ukrainian records: an application to the civil registry, a review of up to three months, the issue of a name change certificate, and passport replacement within a month.

When a foreign institution asks for “a document confirming the change of surname”, it almost always means the second one — the registry certificate. How it is translated, and why it is needed even when you hold a new passport, is covered separately: name change certificate translation.

Checklist before you file

If the spellings have already diverged across your documents and the passport is not the only problem, the order of operations is different — see a name spelled differently across documents.

1. Run the surname through the transliteration tool and see the automatic version.
2. Compare it with your family’s passports and with documents already filed abroad.
3. If there is a mismatch, find a supporting document from one of the three categories above.
4. Send a foreign supporting document for a legalised copy and a notarized translation.
5. Write the application and file it together with the passport paperwork, not afterwards.
6. Once the passport is issued, spell the name “as in the passport” in every later translation, without exception.

Preparing a document file for use abroad and unsure which spelling belongs in the translations? Send a scan of the passport and a list of the documents — within 15 minutes we will tell you where the mismatch is, what to do about it, and what it costs to bring the file to a single spelling. Request a quote.