Taienokaiser/sandbox/russian word list

This list contains Russian word with their English translations. The words included here are those that you are likely to find in genealogical sources. If the word (or some form of it) that you are looking for is not on this list, please consult a Russian-English dictionary (See the “Additional Resources section below).

To best make use of the genealogical word list, please read “Russian Language,”

In Russian, the endings of most words vary according to gender, number, and usage in a sentence. Who—Whose—whom, or marry—marries—married are examples of words in English with variant forms. This word list gives only the basic forms of each Russian word, which usually also means the masculine. As you read Russian records, be aware that almost all word vary with usage, including names of people and places. It is important to recognize when a name is written in a different form and to not misinterpret it as another name.

Alphabetical Order
Аа Бб Вв Гг Дд Ee Ёё Жж Зз Ии Йй Kk Лл Mм Нн Oo Пр Pp Сс Тт Уу Фф Хх Цц Чч Шш Щщ Ъъ Ыы Ьь Ээ Юю Яя

No words begin with the hard sign (Ъъ) or the soft sign (Ьь), and very few with the letters Ёё, Йй, Щщ, or Ыы.

Transliteration Aid
Transliteration is a conversion of text from one script to another. For example, the Russian word бракосочетание in Cyrillic script would be transliterated to “brakosochetanie” the English Romanized script.

бракосочетание --> brakosochetanie

There are different transliteration systems for the same language, so not all transliterations will be the same. Here is an automatic online transliterator that is very helpful.

Transliterating Russian to English in One Step, online automatic transliterator by Steve Morse.

Transliteration allows us to pronounce and recognize words in scripts we are not familiar with. It can also help us turn a place name on an English document into a real Russian place name, as you can also transliterate from English to Russian.