Britain’s new king is Charles III in much of the world but in Russian newspapers today he acquires an unusually Germanic-sounding name — Карл III, or Karl III.
“This Король [King] Карл III business is driving me nuts,” tweeted Michele Berdy, the leading Russian-English translator. “Supposedly Russians ‘traditionally’ call English kings by the German version of their name.”
Prince Charles was known as Чарльз (Charlz) in Moscow, until he became king yesterday.
Princes William and Harry are currently transliterated as Уильям (Uilyam) and Гарри (Garri), the closest that Cyrillic can come to the sound of the English. William’s name would become Vilgelm as king.
The Germanisation of foreign names is mostly peculiar to monarchs: Henry VIII is Genrikh VIII in Russian but the American politician
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