Russian/Cyrillic - Multiple authors with & many spellings/transliterations of the same name

[Limey]

Владимир Соловьёв - There are THREE authors (at least) with this name. A 19th century Russian philosopher, a modern Russian emigré journalist and writer (living in New York with his wife and often co-author, Yelena Klepikova) who was an associate of Sergei Dovlatov, and a popular modern Russian journalist (mainly tv and radio) and writer, based in Moscow. There's also a book on here by a Vladimir G. Solov'ev, which may be another tv journalist, Sergei Genadievich Solovyov, though in fact it looks like it could be someone else. They can, with Russian conventions be distinguished by their patronymics, in the same order: Sergeyevich, ???????????, Rudolfovich (& Genadievich?). To add to the potential confusion you can also write their surnames two different ways in Russian and 5 different ways (maybe more) in latin script: Соловьёв, Соловьев, Solovyov (closer to pronunciation), Soloviev, Solovev, Solov'ev & Solovyev (well, I've also seen 'Solov'ёv' on here, and maybe even 'Solovёv' and 'Solovyёv' are possible, depending on your keyboard and skill with adding an umlaut or whatever it is to letter, but let's leave that for now as a big rarity, and there are also German and other variants, like 'Soloview') & of those 7 variants 6 have been entered on Goodreads for the author, and the other has also been used in naming the philosopher in titles in books (also there are plenty of other people with the surname, and all variants are used there). There is also an additional issue that someone adding the patronymic could sometimes spell it various ways, like 'Sergeievich' and 'Sergeyevich'.

I've been looking over their books, and profile pages for the various spellings, while looking at the librarians guide and group discussions about translation, for 2 or 3 hours, thinking about sorting it out. I'll put it off for now, because it's a big task, and I'm trying to have a life, but I thought I should get clarification here about how to sort it out best.

Firstly I'd divide the books between the different writers by adding a space more for each author between names (chronologically, i.e. the NY guy gets two spaces, the Moscow tv/radio journalist 3). I would do this the same for each different accepted spelling of the name, so, for example, the NY guy would have 2 spaces between names for all his variants, i.e. his name in Russian too, and maybe one or two other variants found.

Secondly I'd need to sort out which spellings are valid. The first thing to say here is that the version 'Solov'ev' is a strict transliteration, using the apostrophe to signify the 'soft sign' in Russian, but this is rarely used actually to name an author on a translation of their book (though it does happen) or to name anybody when transliterating their name from cyrillic (like, we never said 'Prokof'ev'). So, surely, unless there's an example of a book actually using this spelling in translation (not in Russian) I should remove that spelling as an author for the book. This would happen most often where people have added books that are in Russian, but have used latin script and transliterated everything. I would initially change the author simply to the Russian spelling (with the corresponding amount of spaces too, of course), other questions about adding other spellings as an author to the book I'll mention below. In time, once all the author stuff is sorted, I (or others) would hopefully get around to putting the title in Russian too (with the transliteration in [parenthesis]).

Am I right in saying that if there are no translations of the author's work that there's no need to add a transliteration of their name in English as primary (or any other) author? Or, seeing as maybe a translation may come later, should this be done so the work will appear on any profile appearing for that later translation? This maybe can be left to be an issue for later if a translation does appear, especially as the spelling of the name may differ, but on the other hand no-one not able to read Russian would easily discover this other edition and the author if there isn't a transliteration. Though maybe it should be left to them to research what the original name was, and also it'll work out because Russian speakers will start to notice the two editions anyway (?).

But, anyway, if there are variants used to spell the name (the philosopher has probably 4 variants that are used in translations, or 3 at least, and the other at least in books about him) am I right in thinking that the most seemingly popular use (on here and on Wikipedia for that philosopher it's 'Solovyov') that I should put that as the primary author for ANY book by him, even the Russian ones, adding the spelling used on the book as an 'additional' author so it appears on that profile too?

And should I simply in the end add all actually used spellings of the name as authors for any books by this same person. So for that philosopher it would be (in this order, the first as primary at least) 'Vladimir Solovyov, Владимир Соловьёв, Владимир Соловьев, Vladimir Soloviev, Vladimir Solovev, Vladimir Solov'ev (maybe not this last one, see below), (etc?) and then for the NY writer the same with 2 spaces in between, then 3 spaces for the Moscow journalist?

Anything to make this all seem simple would be appreciated.

In the end it leads me to think it's a big shame you don't have a system like RateYourMusic has for artists, where all potential spellings are on one profile, and any work can be attributed to that person simply by choosing the right one by the profile and other works.

It also raises the big issue of finding standards for transliteration and maybe trying to not have certain variants used. The 'Solov'ev' or 'Afanas'ev', etc., versions seem particularly dodgy to me, but then you accept that way of showing the soft sign in transliteration of titles too, it seems, which maybe shouldn't happen. There are other standards, just using y or i, but then in some languages it's 'Dostojewskij' or whatever, so.... confusing. Surely at least here there should be a drive to have the Russian titles only transliterated in [parenthesis] and the actual Russian always added as the title to a Russian edition (I don't really get why there are so many Russian editions with titles only in transliteration), and also in the same way to not have authors' names transliterated by users on the site, but only put in latin script as they actually appear on translations of their works.

I hope I'm as clear as might be expected. I have a headache now. Thanks.

Oh yeah, P.S., someone added a profile (added as author) the name with patronymic, despite this not actually being on the book. Although I understand that the name as it appears on the book should be there too (and the English variant as primary author (if there is an English translation?)), am I right in thinking that this is a good idea to add as author too, to help people in distinguishing between the authors? For this book I would just add the other variants too, leaving that one with the patronymic (and no spaces needed for this variant, of course) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... Would that be correct, or reasonable at least? With the philosopher, Владимир Сергеевич Соловьёв, if there isn't a profile with a patronymic already (i.e. this not added as author to any book), would it make sense to add this author here (and in other similar cases) so as to make it easy to distinguish who exactly the author is? Then of course this raises the demon of potential transliterations of the variant with the patronymic; that problem would suggest that maybe that should only happen if it's actually used on a book (the same with the Russian full name too?).

I guess I could sum up what seems to be the answer, but someone needs to confirm it:

1. Only variants of author names should ever be added that are actually used on books (which means NOT user transliterations of the actual Cyrillic spelling of the name, meaning this should be removed as author for any book where it is used, adding the other variants, unless this version is actually used, as the author for a book, i.e. written exactly like that on the book). This also means that if the author has nothing translated into another language, the original name in Russian is all that need to be added as an author (?). This would also mean not adding an author that uses the patronyimic, unless that appears on a book, though actually adding just the full original name, with patronymic, for each author to all of their works would help a lot in identifying each author.

(I'm a little confused with this last one; I thought that maybe it's worth just leaving the 'Solov'ev' version, even if never used on a book, but just a transliteration of cyrillic, because someone might add a book with it later and then not connect to the other versions and other works by the same author on other profiles, but then I thought that surely someone adding a book that's in Russian, able to transliterate it from Russian, surely should be able, and also is likely to, search for the original Russian spelling, and other transliterations, first, and that leaving this variant that is simply a transliteration on other books will only encourage people to keep using it. Plus surely they can just add it using Russian, seeing as it's Russian (by why all these transliterations for Russian editions on the site?). People wouldn't also normally search for an author using this kind of transliteration, or should know at least to search for other variants, because simply it isn't standard use to name people like that - as I said, we never wrote 'Prokof'ev').

2. Use the most often used English variant of the author's name as primary author, adding the other variants after (with amount of spaces consistently separating the authors).

3. Add all the different variants of author name that are found so that all books show up on all the various profile pages, so that librarians can see if there are other editions of one book with a different spelling of the author's name.

4. With transliterations of titles the actual Russian original title should be added, leaving the transliteration in [parenthesis].

5. Add notes and links to the other profile pages from each of the profile pages for each author, with a librarian note also about the various authors and how many spaces are added between the names for each). Also add some text, hopefully a picture too, to identify the separate authors on the profile pages.

6 Did I think of everything?

Thanks again.