Thread: Matthew - How ?

I am stuck on how to translate my sons name Matthew, I can translate the first part, but how does the ending translate as Matthew in English sounds like Math but then the ew sounds like "u" as in "ewe" female sheep,

If someone could help I would apprecaite it

Since Matthew is a christian biblical name, it can also be found among russian. Though not very many. Its very old fashioned and people with this name are really rare, though there are a few out there. Russians usually tend to stick to extremely common, extremely safe names. Especially since their middle names depend on their parents names. Russians like to play it safe when playing the name game. Thats why you see so many people named Alex and Katya. They are just really common, really popular names.

Anyways, back to the question!
In russian Matthew it

Old style - Матфей
Or new style Матвей

Both ways are pronounced as Matfey. (Met- fay)

By the way, My name is also Matthew =).
Don't worry though, its not that so uncommon that nobody has every heard of it. I infact, am quite proud of it. When Russians ask me what my name is, and i reply with a smile and a Матвей and they smile back and they are very happy to meet me. Even among the younger kids they had no problems calling me матвей and no one ever made fun of me for such an out of style name.

I also know another russian guy who's named Тимофей. In english that's Timothy. I dont think this is very common in russian names either (though its probly more common than Matthew) But he was also a very nice guy and everyone liked him.

As far as nicknames go for Матвей, Im not sure that there are any. For Тимофей we called him either Тима or just тим (Tima, Teem).

Anyways, I hope i answered your question... And then some!

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Old style - Матфей
Or new style Матвей

Both ways are pronounced as Matfey. (Met- fay)

thats not right.

They are pronounced differently.

Матфей - MahtFey

Матвей - MahtVey

Well. I stand corrected. I was told they are both pronounced the same, probably on this forum... Just that one was an older syle of spelling.
I spell my name матВей but say F.

Sorry for the confuse.

...About the A though. It is not a very sharp a and sounds almost exactly like an e. Infact, when russians say my name, they kinda sound like cats. It reminds of of 'Meow' how they say Mett! It doesnt sound to me much like an A at all.

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Well. I stand corrected. I was told they are both pronounced the same, probably on this forum... Just that one was an older syle of spelling.
I spell my name матВей but say F.

Sorry for the confuse.

...About the A though. It is not a very sharp a and sounds almost exactly like an e. Infact, when russians say my name, they kinda sound like cats. It reminds of of 'Meow' how they say Mett! It doesnt sound to me much like an A at all.

Well, if you want to know how a word should be pronounced just ask a russian to say it loud and slow.
Матвей and Матфей are two different words and they are pronounced differently.

Originally Posted by Alware

Well, if you want to know how a word should be pronounced just ask a russian to say it loud and slow.
Матвей and Матфей are two different words and they are pronounced differently.

Давай пожалуйста! У тебя микрофон?

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Originally Posted by Alware

Well, if you want to know how a word should be pronounced just ask a russian to say it loud and slow.
Матвей and Матфей are two different words and they are pronounced differently.

Давай пожалуйста! У тебя микрофон?

Не вопрос Только время маленько потребуется

Originally Posted by Alware

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Old style - Матфей
Or new style Матвей

Both ways are pronounced as Matfey. (Met- fay)

thats not right.

They are pronounced differently.

Матфей - MahtFey

Матвей - MahtVey

Yes I thought they were different sounds also

Dogboy 182 and Alware СПасйбо

Thing is, when I was in Russia and I tolв people my name was Григорий they all then thought I was Russian or had Russian parents or something. ON your Visa and that they just transliterate your English name. I prefer to use my English name Грегори.

Like if you name is Paul, are you gonna call yourself Pavel in Russia?
or how many John's go round Moscow saying they are called Ivan. Although I understand that with Matthew and also my name the Russian forms aren't that different.

If you want to write Matthew in Russian Cyrillic it would be something like:

Мэтью

Wow, and google seems to agree with me.

The name comes from Greek (but before that from Aramaic), where it is Ματθαιος (Matthaios) or Μαθθαιος (Maththaios). In Russian they used to have the letter Theta which in Greek is the same as the English th in thin, or think (voiceless dental frictive). However Russian doesn't have this sound, so the letter had an [f] sound instead, pronounced the same as ф. Prior to the spelling reforms in 1918, words that came from Greek and that were spelt with theta in Greek were spelt with Theta in Russian (although still pronounced ф). After the spelling reforming all the Thetas were replaced by ф.

Фёдр which comes from the Greek name Theodore (which we have in English) was spelt with a Theta.

So anyway Матфей used to have a Theta in it instead of a Ф.

Taty is correct, it is Мэтью. You don't translate foreign names to Russian, you just transcribe them in cyrillic.

John is Джон, Jean (French name) is Жан, Jan (Polish and Czech name) is Ян. None of these names is "translated" as Ivan, even though they all derive from the same Hebrew name.
In the same way, English name Paul would be transcribed as Пол, German Paul would be Пауль etc.

I should have mady myself clearer I understand that you dont tranlslate word for word for ex Igor in English is eegor in Russian so I wasnt expecting it to sound word for word, I just couldnt figure out how the ending was it could have been any number of different ways as proved by this post. If I was to step off a plane in Russia and wanted to know how to spell my sons name I could have spelt it a number of ways but until I asked someone what the definative form was, I would have been mistaken. It would seem my family has names that are not usual names in Russian.

If i was in Russia i would NOT call myself мэтью

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

If i was in Russia i would NOT call myself мэтью

It's just that calling yourself by a Russian name makes it sound like you are trying to be Russian. The Russians will be like "Why have you got a Russian name?".

I know a Russian girl who lives here in London and she introduces herself as Kate when her friends (even the English ones) all call her Katya.

But I mean, you can call yourself Matthew in Russia. You can SAY the name Matthew when someone asks what your name is. Obviously when it comes to writing you have a problem.

Everyone knows my real name is Матвей кербин anyways. I mean i was born in казахстан afterall. Sometimes i miss my native town of Кустанай. Tear.