FRENCH TRANSLITERATIONS

[Gary H. Toops]

I was wondering if anyone else out there has noticed this and whether
this represents a widespread phenomenon:

It seems that Russians now coming to the U.S. (in whatever capacity),
equipped with their new Russian Federation passports, are using
French rather than English transliterations for the Romanized spelling
of their names.  Apparently this is because the new Russian passports
are printed in Russian and French.  We currently have a grad student
here whose surname "in the old days" would have been transliterated
_Bushuev_ or _Bushuyev_.  Because his surname is already
given a Romanized spelling in the French portion of his Russian pass-
port, however, his U.S. documents all list him as _Bouchouev_, and
this is the surname he uses at our institution as well.

So, I'm just curious:  are we now going to see two types of Russian
surnames in the U.S.?  Or is anyone aware of newer arrivals from
Russia ignoring the Romanization used in their passports and using
an English-based transliteration instead?

Gary H. Toops                               TOOPS at TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU
Associate Professor                         Ph (316) 689-3180
Wichita State University                    Fx (316) 689-3293
Wichita, Kansas 67260-0011 USA              http://www.twsu.edu/~mcllwww