The names of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, have varied over the years, colored both by the history of Kyiv as well as other nations' perception of the geopolitical climate.
Modern names ( , ) or Kiev ( ) , , , , Online-Lexikon zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa from
History of names Before standardization of the alphabet in the early 20th century, the name was also spelled , , or with the now-obsolete letter yat. The Old Ukrainian spelling from the 14th and 15th centuries was nominally ("Kiev" in Latin script), but various attested spellings include (gen.), , and (acc.), кїєво or кїєвом (ins.), києвє, Кіеве, Кїєвѣ, Києвѣ, or Киѣве (loc.).
Old East Slavic chronicles, such as the Laurentian Codex and Novgorod Chronicle, used the spellings Києвъ, Къıєвъ, or Кїєвъ.Lavretian Chronicle and Novgorod Chronicles : "В лЂто 6743. Не хотя исперва оканныи, всепагубныи диаволъ роду человЂческому добра, въздвиже крамолу межи рускыми князи да быша человЂци не жили мирно: о том бо ся злыи радуется кровопролитью крестияньскому. Поиде князь Володимиръ Рюриковиць с кыяны и Данило Романович с галицаны на Михаила /л.158./ Всеволодица Чермного къ Чернигову, а Изяславъ побЂжа в Половци; и много воева около Чернигова и посадъ пожьже, а Михаилъ выступи ис Чернигова; и много пустошивъ около Чернигова, поиде опять; и Михаилъ створивъ прелесть на ДанилЂ и много би галицанъ и бещисла, Данила же едва уиде; а Володимиръ пришедши опять, сЂде въ КиевЂ. И не ту бысть того до сыти зла, нь прииде Изяславъ с погаными Половци в силЂ тяжьцЂ и Михаилъ с черниговци под Киевъ, и взяша Кыевъ; а Володимера и княгыню его изымаша Половци, поведоша в землю свою, и много зла сътвориша кияномъ; а Михаилъ сЂде в ГалицЂ, а Изяславъ в КиевЂ; и опять пустиша Володимира Половци на искупЂ и жену его, и на НЂмцЂх имаша искупъ князи. 'В лЂто 6744 . Поиде князь Ярославъ из Новаграда къ Киеву на столъ, понявши съ собою новгородцовъ болших муж: Судимира въ СлавнЂ, Якима Влунковица, Костя Вячеслалича, а новоторжець 100 муж; а в НовЂградЂ посади сына своего Александра; и, пришедши, сЂде в Кие†на столЂ; и державъ новгородцовъ и новоторжанъ одину недЂлю и, одаривъ, отпусти прочь; и приидоша вси здрави. Того же лЂта пришедше безбожныи Татарове, плениша всю землю Болгарьскую А и град их Великыи взяша, исЂкоша вся и жены и дЂти" and others. The traditional etymology, stemming from the Primary Chronicle, is that the name is a derivation of Kyi (, ), the legendary eponymous founder of the city. According to Oleg Trubachyov's etymological dictionary, it derives from the Old East Slavic name *Kyjevŭ gordŭ (literally, "Kyi's castle", "Kyi's gord"), from Proto-Slavic *kyjevъ. This etymology has been questioned, for instance by Mykhailo Hrushevsky who called it an "etymological myth", and meant that the names of the legendary founders are in turn based on place names. According to the Canadian Ukrainian linguist Jaroslav Rudnyckyj, the name can be connected to the Proto-Slavic root *kyjь, but should be interpreted as meaning 'stick, pole' as in its modern Ukrainian equivalent Кий. The name should in that case be interpreted as 'palisaded settlement'.Rudnyc'kyj, Jaroslav Bohdan (1962–1982). An etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language. 2., rev. ed. Winnipeg: Ukrainian free acad. of sciences, pp. 660–663.
Kyiv is the official romanized Ukrainian name for the city, The entry is the same as the print edition of It includes the note "Ukrainian name: Kyiv". For American English, the website also includes the definition from In the 2018 fifth edition, WNWCD changed the main headword to Kyiv, with Kiev as a see-also entry with the label "Russ. name for Kyiv". Merriam–Webster's online dictionary entry has the headword "Kiev" with the label "variants: or Ukrainian Kyiv or Kyyiv." According to M–W's help on entries , the key word or signals an equal variant spelling: "these the two spellings occur with equal or nearly equal frequency and can be considered equal variants. Both are standard, and either one may be used according to personal inclination." and it is used for legislative and official acts. Kiev is the traditional English name for the city, The entry includes the usage note "Ukrainian name Kyiv", and the dictionary has a see-also entry for "Kyiv" cross-referencing this one. The entry text is republished from the print edition of the but because of its historical derivation from the Russian name, Kiev lost favor with many Western media outlets after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014.
The city was known by various names in history. In the Norse sagas it was or , meaning "city of the Kyivans" (from ), which survives in modern Icelandic . Perhaps the earliest original manuscript to name the city is the Kyivan letter, written CE by representatives of the city's Jewish community, with the name written as .
The historian Julius Brutzkus in his work The Khazar Origin of Ancient Kiev hypothesizes that both Sambat and Kyiv are of Khazar origin, meaning "hill fortress" and "lower settlement" respectively. Brutzkus claims that Sambat is not Kyiv, but rather Vyshhorod (High City), which is nearby.
In the Byzantine Greek of Constantine Porphyrogenitus's 10th-century De Administrando Imperio it was , , and "also called Sambatas", . In Arabic, it was in Al-Istakhri's work of 951 AD, and according to ibn Rustah and other 10th-century authors. In the medieval Latin of Thietmar of Merseburg's Chronicon it was mentioned for the year 1015 as . After it was rebuilt in the 15th century, Kyiv was called by the Turkic (Crimean Tatar) name or .
As a prominent city with a long history, its English name evolved with the language. Early English sources rendered the city's name as Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, and—as in Latin—Kiovia. On one of the oldest English maps of the region, , published by Ortelius (London, 1570), the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, and the region was named Kÿowia. In the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall (London, 1772), the city is called Kiovia. Originally published: London, J. Almon, 1773, .
In English, Kiev appeared in print as early as 1804 in John Cary's "New map of Europe, from the latest authorities", and in Mary Holderness's 1823 travelog New Russia: Journey from Riga to the Crimea by way of Kiev. The Oxford English Dictionary included Kiev in a quotation published by 1883, and Kyiv in 2018.
The Ukrainian version of the name, Kyiw, appears in the Volume 4 of the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland, published in 1883.
After Ukraine's independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government introduced the national rules for transliteration of geographic names into the Latin alphabet for legislative and official acts in October 1995, according to which the Ukrainian name is romanized Kyiv. These rules are applied for place names and addresses, as well as personal names in passports, street signs, and so on.
In 2018, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry launched #CorrectUA, an online campaign to promote the use of official Ukrainian spellings by countries and organizations, in place of "outdated, Soviet-era" place-names. Specifically, for the capital, the campaign KyivNotKiev was developed as part of the broader campaign.
The place name Kyiv is standardized in the authoritative database of Ukraine's toponyms maintained by Ukraine's mapping agency Derzhheokadastr. It has also been adopted by the United Nations GEGN Geographical Names Database, the United States Board on Geographic Names,"U.S. Begins to Spell Kiev as Kyiv". About.com Geography, 20 October 2006 the International Air Transport Association, the European Union, English-speaking foreign diplomatic missionsEmbassies of Australia , Great Britain, Canada , United States and governments,Public-facing government websites of major English-speaking states use Kyiv, including in the United Kingdom , United States , Canada , Australia , New Zealand , Ireland , and Malta . several international organizations,The list includes NATO, OSCE, World Bank and the Encyclopædia Britannica. Some English-language news sources have adopted in their style guides, including the AP, CP, Reuters, and AFP news services, media organizations in Ukraine,Kyiv Post, the leading English language publication in Ukraine. and some media organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, despite more resistance to the spelling change compared to others, like Beijing and Mumbai.
Alternative romanizations used in English-language sources include Kyïv (according to the ALA–LC romanization used in bibliographic cataloguing), Kyjiv (scholarly transliteration used in linguistics), and Kyyiv (the 1965 BGN/PCGN transliteration standard).
The US media organization NPR adopted an on-air pronunciation of Kyiv closer to the Ukrainian, responding to the history and identity of the local population, in January 2022.
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