Ukrainian names in German and Polish documents: ISO 9, the Polish rules, and your passport

A Ukrainian receiving a German translation of their birth certificate for the first time usually asks the same question: who is Ŝerbak, and why is that me? The passport says Shcherbak, the Polish translation of the same document says Szczerbak, and the German one has produced a character that is not on the keyboard.

None of those spellings is wrong. Cyrillic is not rendered into Latin script by one system but by several, and each was built for a different purpose: the Ukrainian passport system so that the name reads in English, the German one so that the record can be converted back into Cyrillic unambiguously, the Polish one so that the name reads in Polish. The trouble starts when the systems meet inside a single file of documents.

The three systems you will meet

System	Where it applies	Щербак	Ковальчук	Юлія
Resolution No. 55	Ukrainian international passport	Shcherbak	Kovalchuk	Yuliia
ISO 9:1995	German civil status records, courts, universities	Ŝerbak	Kovalʹčuk	Ûlìâ
Polish transliteration	Polish records and translations	Szczerbak	Kowalczuk	Julija

The difference is not one of quality but of purpose. The passport spelling is how you are identified internationally. ISO 9 is a technical record from which the Cyrillic can be restored character by character. The Polish form is how a Polish official will pronounce your name.

Germany: why ISO 9:1995, and when the passport wins

German administrative practice for rendering names from non-Latin scripts relies on ISO standards. For Cyrillic that is ISO 9:1995 — a system mapping one Cyrillic character to exactly one Latin character, with diacritics where required. It was made unambiguous precisely so that the original can be reconstructed from the transliteration; an amendment to it was issued in 2024.

Hence the unfamiliar shapes: ь becomes ʹ, щ becomes ŝ, ч becomes č, ж becomes ž, я becomes â. A sworn or authorised translator in Germany is expected to produce that record in the translation and to flag any divergence from the passport in a translator’s note.

The clarification that settles most of the anxiety: where the Latin spelling of a name follows from a document of your home state — above all your international passport — that spelling is decisive. ISO 9 steps in where no such document exists, or for a part of the name the passport does not carry. The most common instance of the latter is the patronymic: it is not printed in the international passport but does appear on the birth certificate, so in a German document it will show up in ISO transliteration.

The practical consequence is simple: file a copy of your passport along with the documents. That moves the question from “what is the correct transliteration” to “there is a document, and we take it from there”.

Where this matters most:

• the Standesamt — marriage registration, registration of a birth, entries in the register;
• courts and notaries — where identity has to be beyond argument;
• universities and credential recognition — where the diploma, the supplement and the passport must read as documents belonging to one person.

Institutions differ on WHO must produce the translation: a Standesamt, a court or a university will usually insist on a translator sworn in Germany, while other bodies often accept a notarized translation from Ukraine. Confirm this before ordering. The country route is collected on the Germany page.

Poland: its own rule, and the double-record practice

In Poland the way names of persons belonging to national and ethnic minorities written in a non-Latin alphabet are transliterated is governed by the Regulation of the Ministry of the Interior of 30 May 2005. Alongside it sits the Polish standard PN-ISO 9:2000, the Polish version of the same international standard.

More important in practice is something else: the act on the profession of sworn translator requires names to be rendered on the basis of the person’s travel document or a copy of it. Hence the settled practice among Polish sworn translators of a double record: the Polish transliteration, with the Ukrainian passport spelling beside it in square brackets.

The Polish record differs from the passport spelling predictably:

• щ → szcz, ч → cz, ш → sz, ж → ż;
• в → w, й → j, и → y, г → h;
• the ending -ія usually gives -ija (Юлія → Julija).

Where the mismatch bites hardest in Poland: PESEL, ZUS, the tax office and an employer’s personnel records. These systems compare data literally, and an employee’s name recorded inconsistently across documents is one of the standard reasons an application comes back. The country route is on the Poland page.

Patronymics and name order: different problems in each country

Transliteration is not the only reason a Ukrainian name fails to line up with its foreign form. The other half of the trouble is the structure of the name itself.

The patronymic. The international passport does not carry one at all — only a given name and a surname. The birth certificate, the diploma and various certificates do. When those documents reach one institution, the question becomes what “Ihorivna” is: a middle name, part of the surname, or a stray field. In Germany this matters for the entry in civil status records; German law does provide procedures for aligning the form of a name, but whether a particular one is open to you is a question for the Standesamt, and the answer depends on your status. In Poland the problem takes a different shape: Polish documents and registers carry separate fields for the father’s and the mother’s given names, so the patronymic does not compete with your own name — it simply has to match what your other documents say.

Surname-first order. Ukrainian diplomas, school certificates and official letters print the surname first; the passport does the opposite. Strictly it is not a mismatch, but it is exactly how foreign databases end up holding a person whose first name is “Shevchenko” and whose surname is “Oksana”. A translator removes that trap — in a translation the fields are labelled — but only if the document is being translated rather than a table retyped.

How not to pay for the same translation twice

The expensive mistake in this area is not transliteration but the wrong order of operations. The working sequence is:

1. Establish who will receive the document — a specific institution, not “Germany”.
2. Ask that institution two things at once: whether an apostille is needed, and whose translation it accepts — a local sworn translator’s, or one made in Ukraine with notarial certification.
3. Apostille first, translation second. The apostille is affixed to the Ukrainian document and itself contains text that has to be translated. A translation produced before the apostille will need reworking.
4. One passport scan for the whole file, wherever the translation is produced.

Breaking that sequence is the most common reason a set of documents gets translated twice. The legalization routes themselves are set out on the legalization and apostille page.

Three rules for your own file

1. The passport is the first document the translator sees. A scan of the page, not a spelling given over the phone. That alone removes most mismatches before work begins.
2. One institution, one file, one spelling. If part of the file has already been submitted, new translations must agree with what was submitted rather than with the “correct” version. Say so in advance.
3. A mismatch you cannot remove has to be explained. A translator’s note on the identity of two spellings, or a consular certificate, costs less than a returned file. Which applies when is set out in the guide to a name spelled differently across documents.

What about other languages

The principle is the same everywhere; the details differ. Czechia and Slovakia use their own transcription; Hungarian institutions follow the passport spelling; for Greek-speaking countries — Cyprus and Greece — translation is usually into English or Greek with the Latin spelling taken from the passport (see the Cyprus page). The common rule is short: the Latin script in a translation should lead back to your passport, not away from it.

Common mistakes

• Asking the translator to “drop the accents”. In a translation for a German Standesamt the diacritics are a requirement of the standard, not a stylistic choice.
• Ordering the translation before asking the institution. “Do you accept a translation made in Ukraine?” costs one phone call and saves an entire file.
• Not providing the passport. The cheapest way to end up with a spelling you did not want.
• Having documents translated in different places at different times. That is how two spellings of one surname enter a file unnoticed until the day you submit it.

Preparing documents for Germany or Poland and unsure which spelling belongs in the translation? Send us a scan of your passport and the list of documents: within 15 minutes we will tell you what to translate and how, where a sworn translator on the ground is required, where a notarized translation from Ukraine is enough, and what it will cost. Request a quote.