Demetrius, Dimitri, Dmitri, Dimitry, Dmitry, Demetre, Demetry, Dmetre, Dmetry....

[Orthodox Andrew]

Alright, alight, you guys get the point. There is so many different ways people seem to spell the name Demetrius in English. And I was wondering if we had anybody here would who could tell me the general way one should spell the name when writing it in English?

 

[seashale76]

Alright, alight, you guys get the point. There is so many different ways people seem to spell the name Demetrius in English. And I was wondering if we had anybody here would who could tell me the general way one should spell the name when writing it in English?

I am in no way a language expert but I've always seen it spelled as Demetrius, which I assumed was the standard English spelling. Not that there is truly an English standard on this sort of thing, per se. Demetrius seems to be the more common version that I've seen though. (Possibly because of that old technicolor movie called 'Demetrius and the Gladiators' that was a sequel to 'The Robe'? Yeah, I have weird thought processes, I know.)

 

[Nickolai]

However you want to.

 

[choirfiend]

I think the best way is trying to reflect the spelling in the other language...

Like, Demetrios for Greek
Dimitri for Russian
and assorted variations for the various languages that have adapted the name. If the spelling in Romanian is close to Dmitry, then I'd use that. It depends on the purpose.

 

[eoe]

My choir director spells his name "Demetri"

 

[Ioan cel Nou]

I'd spell it however the person who actually uses the name spells it. One thing I can't stand is when people from another ethnic group respell someone's name as though it were in their language. I've seen English speakers change Constantin to Constantine, Iosif to Joseph and I've even had my own name rendered Iacobos by a Greek priest. It annoys me no end, so if the person was Greek I'd say Demetrios, Russian Dimitri, Romanian Dumitru, etc.

James

 

[ufonium2]

The official Library of Congress transliteration (thank God for it; do you know how many ways there were to transliterate "Tchaikovsky" before?) for the Russian version is Dmitri. I agree with jmbejdl, though. There's nothing more annoying than being told you're misspelling (or even mispronouncing) your own name.

I've also had a priest insist on using another form of my name, but this was an all-convert "we're Americans and proud of it--so proud we'll wipe all vestiges of "ethnicity" from our parish" group, so the priest actually insisted on anglicizing my middle name. He even changed it on paperwork. I'm all like, "Dude, you can't change my name," and he's like, "But we're Americans" and I'm like, "But it's my name. It's on my birth certificate. It's what my grandma calls me." Very stupid.

 

[Nickolai]

I'm often called Niko by local greeks. It's like I'm five years old or something. I just like to be called Nikolai, as that was the Name of my patron, anglicizing it is ok, but I never refer to myself as Nicholas. And I'm glad that people have stopped calling me Kolya, I don't mind it too much, but it's not my name.

 

[DonVA]

My grandfather from Lebanon spelled his name Demetrius. My mother's middle name is spelled Demetria. I guess it's however someone using the name wants it spelled...