Have you thought about how many interesting possibilities are available for a Russian person when translating his or her name into Latin letters?

Or is there some kind of default translation that you have to follow? As far as I know, all major Western European language have a different way of transcribing Russian. Once you leave Eastern Europe it's quite unusual for people to be able to read Cyrillic letters. So there is nothing to stop people from being a bit creative!

For example: Somebody called Евдокимов. (I came across this name on a book) Well, depending on his preference he could write it:

Evdokimov
Jevdokimoff
Yevdokimov
Evdukimof
...and several more possibilities.

A woman could decide to use an "a" at the end of her surname... or not use it. For a woman with the first name Екатерина, the possibilities are almost endless!
Catherine, Katerina, Katarina, Cathrine, Katrin.... Etc!

You could do whatever you wanted with your patronymic, for example turn it into a double barelled name (which sounds aristocratic in Britain.) Or you could say it was your second name or just ignore it.

If somebody translated his name like this: "Eugène Nikolaevich-Smirnoff" or "Eugen Smirnoff" most Europeans would think it sounded interesting and cool. On the other hand, "Evgeny Smirnov" would simply sound "foreign". Most English speakers would not know how to pronounce Evgeny. Both translations are tecnically correct.

It would be intersting to hear how you handle this? Have you just done a "standard" translation into English?