Paul Goncharoff

[victor steinbok]

Actually, I suspect that it's far more common outside of Russia (and
Ukraine). "Goncharoff" is the common transliteration from early 20th century
Franko-Russian immigrants (and other Russian Frankophones from the preceding
200 years or so). It would be quite uncommon for a post-Revolutionary
Russian (from Russia, or a post-Revolutionary emigre) to transcribe his name
with a double-f ending instead of the usual "v" transliteration.

Similar idiosyncrasies exist with respect to Ch/Tch/Tsch (although the
influence is not just French, but also German), Ch/Sh/Sch, Ia/Ya (and
similar iu/yu and, occasionally, yo and ye), kh/ch/k, h/g, etc. Yiddish had
similar problems--and that's not counting various Ellis Island inventions
and misinterpretations.

VS-)

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 9:47 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Doubt it. The name, which derives from an old Slavonic word meaning "pot",
> is not uncommon in Russia.
>
> DanG

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