Ships registered in Greece for expamle had their names spelt as per the Greek alphabet on their hulls yet their name boards displayed their names in English ? Is this not the case perhaps for easy ID ?

I'm a firm believer that the title should reflect the name displayed on the ship, in this case ESTONIA. If we are to adopt a name translated from the Cyrillic then no doubt most Russian vessels on this site will have a different spelling to that displayed on the name board. I have looked back through a few of my old books (eg Soviet Merchant Ships by Ambrose Greenway) and in each case her name is spelt ESTONIA.

Well - in the 1970-71 and 1973-74 editions of Lloyd's Registers her name is clearly ESTONIA
while in 1983-84 and 1994-95 her name is ESTONIYA.

Clive, I have checked several old Lloyd's Registers ranging a quite long period, and each time her name is spelled as Estoniya. So that seems to be the name under which she has officially been registered. A bridge sign is just an indication and is not even mandatory for flags.

Pieter the size of the can of worms isn't particularly relevant. All that I was doing (the same as Robert J Smith) was pointing out that on her name board is spelled ESTONIA. If the administrators of this site want to spell it ESTONIYA then they'll do so regardless of what I or others may think.

Clive, the can of worms is much bigger than you think. If a name of a Russian ship starts "E" many times the real pronounciation is reflected in the transcript and E becomes YE, and then again not always and everywhere.

Her name as per IHS database (Lloyd's Register) is "EstoniYa", so that is clear.
As for the practice to write ships' names in English even if the original name is pronounced/spelled differently, the jury is still out on that one. There are examples of both cases, but in this particular one I'd go with the official source. Hence, EstoniYa.

Cheers

Vlad

PS

I see a forum thread coming. ;)

Forgive me Pieter whilst I don't doubt your knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet but that is not the correct answer. The name board aft of her bridge clearly states ESTONIA. Therefore, in English that is her name.

Possibly because the two last characters in cyrilic translate as I and YA (the reversed R is YA)

Why have all the photos in this group been renamed ESTONIYA when clearly the name on the board is ESTONIA?