Extremely specific transliteration question

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

I realize this question is a little nit-picky, but since it involves my last name, it's quite important to me. In brief, my last name is Gjertsen, it's a not-too-uncommon Norwegian last name. Like a lot of immigrants to the US my grandparents "americanized" the pronounciation (though not, for some reason, the spelling.) I grew up pronouncing it as if it were spelled "Jert-son." As I went out into the world, I encountered many educated Americans, as well as nearly all the Europeans I've met who recognized that it was Scandinavian and so should be pronounced more like "Yert-sen" or "Yart-sen." As a result, though I still pronounce it the first way, I answer to both.
Now when a Russian transliterates a name, are there rules for different languages of origin? My various visas/letters of invitation to Russia/etc have involved three different transliterations:
most commonly:
гжертсен
or
джертсен
and once:
гертсен
However, are there rules for transliterating from Norwegian to Russian? If so it should be more like:
ертсен
or
яртсен
I asked the woman who prepared my last visa application and she said "I transliterate it the way you pronounce it." Fair enough. But some of the forms that I've seen my name on must have been transliterated from the spelling only, and none of them transliterated the "GJ" as a "Y" sound. I know I probably can just pick the way I transliterate it, but I am curious. Norway is not that far from Russia after all...

Comments

[constpd.livejournal.com]

Usually the standalone Y's or J's are transliterated explicitly as Й even if Russian allows not to write it. So, the most likely variant is Йертсен.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I don't have any clue on how you should officially transliterate your name. (The ways of transliteration are mysterious and shrouded from outsiders, or something.)

One of my professors, though, has a French last name. She transliterates it two different ways: for her visa and official paperwork, she mirrors the Latin spelling. For everything else, she mirrors the pronunciation (she prefers this way). Because her name isn't pronounced like it's spelled, the two versions are pretty different.

She says it's because she's heard of people having trouble when the transliteration of their names was too different than how it was spelled in English, but then, that might be outdated information.

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. I wouldn't want to explain to someone at Russian passport control why the name on my visa did not seem like the transliteration of the name on my passport....

[mustangostang.livejournal.com]

Гьертсен or Йертсен will work maybe?

[oryx_and_crake]

I think you should be Герцен. This transliteration is not very accurate but at least you will never have to spell it, as there was a writer with such a name, a street named after him etc.

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

Really? A Russian writer? That's cool.

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes; he was a natural child of some Russian noble (whose last name escapes me at the moment). There was a tradition then to give natural children some last names of their own, altogether different from their mother's or their father's. So this father gave his son a name stemmed from German "Herz" (heart), probably meaning "love-child" or something. Then H became Г in Russian, more or less in the same way that Harry Potter became Гарри. Hence Герцен.

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

This is incredibly interesting! I don't mind that the transliteration is not that accurate, since I am, after all, someone who grew up mispronouncing her own last name anyway...

[solito.livejournal.com]

His father is Ivan Yakovlev, and his mother, Luise Haag. She was German, hence the name has German origin.

[edricson.livejournal.com]

Йертсен will be the correct one. Don't me mislead by the Герцен variant - Norwegian gj- is never г-. Anyway, the Norwegian cognate of Herz is hjerte.

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

So that seems to address my other question. It's more correct to transliterate a name into Russian based on the language of origin, as opposed to an americanized version?

[edricson.livejournal.com]

This is supposed to be considered good practice, even though now it is not generally followed and often derided as purism. There had been some quite violent flames over whether Schiavo was Скьяво (as would be proper in Italian) or Шиаво or even Шайво (rather lame, IMO, attempts at capturing the Americanization).

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

...or Ертсен, which I'd opt for. Cf. Ельмслев (Hjelmslev), and very common Юханссон (not *Йюханссон) for Johansson.

However, since Dina says she uses the Americanized version in real life, perhaps Джертсен is the least confusing choice.

I think it's inevitable - you'll always have to tell people while introducing yourself, Моя фамилия пишется по-русски "...".

[gjertsen.livejournal.com]

well it's not like I don't have to spell it in english all the time either...;)
thanks

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize. My first name, Heather, has been transliterated/mispronounced as:
Хитер
Хизер
Хивер
Хезер
Хетер
and, worst of all, Гизер.

It's even more confusing when one acquaintance uses Хизер and then another Хитер, and then they want me to tell them which one is better. I hate all of the variations. I'm seriously considering going by my middle name from now on, because I can't stand to hear it butchered.

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

That is because of this "th" that does not have a direct analogue in Russian.

Yours is a nice name though. By the way, do you know that "heather" in Russian is "вереск"? This also sound very nice, may be a good idea for a Russian nickname?

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the Russian X is also different from the English H, much harsher.

I thought about the "вереск" thing, but I wasn't sure if that would be weird since it's a masculine word.

I've also thought about just asking people to call me Irina, because it sounds like Erin, which is my middle name.

I'm just so tired of hearing "Heezer."

[artais.livejournal.com]

вереск is a good idea. In the matter of fact вереск is not masculine, it's rather feminine :)
BTW I'm russian.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

I suppose if you think of flowers as girly, then yes it's feminine.

But I was concerned about it being masculine grammatically. Would it be better to shorten it to чЕТБ? Or would that just be confusing?

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

That's supposed to say "Вера". Encoding issues.

[artais.livejournal.com]

Вера will sute you very well, it's an old russian name with a nice concomitant meaning.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Well, I might try that, then.

[artais.livejournal.com]

I got it before you corrected encoding. :))

[temcat.livejournal.com]

It's even Y(ae)rtsen, where (ae) = "a" in "back". In Russian it would be definitely Йертсен.

[kart.livejournal.com]

If you wanted to be really picky about the pronounciation, perhaps Гъйәрцен. You sould be the only Tatar Norwegian ;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

Gj = й.

[kart.livejournal.com]

Well, i was trying to pinpoint the Scandinavian pronounciation, not the Russian approximation ;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/bc_/]

The initial consonants are'nt different in anything substantial. Gj = й.

I do understand you meant the vowel.

[roman-v-m.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I don't know Norwegian at all but in modern Russian (and Ukrainian too) foreign proper names are transliterated according to their pronunciation. If in a foreign proper name has sounds absent in Russian they're replaced by sounds more or less similar to original as it's done with name like Heather mentioned above. But it's necessary to know that about a century ago foreign proper names were transliterated literally but not phonetically which sometimes sounded very funny and quite different from original proununciation. E.g the state Texas is Техас /t e x 'a s/ (x is IPA symbol for sounds like Russian x or Scottish ch) and Ch. Dicken's character Uria Hip is Урия Гип /'u r i a g i p/.