Greek letters on signs, and why Greek places have several spellings

The short answer

Greek signs are written in the Greek alphabet. The UK government's toponymic factfile for Greece says road signs show destinations in Greek script "with a romanization or English translation where appropriate", and that street signs give the Greek name followed by an exact transliteration in the Greek standard ELOT 743, without translating words into English.[3] ELOT 743 is the system the United Nations recommended in 1987 as the international system for writing Greek place names in Latin letters.[2]

A single place collects several spellings because three things overlap: older romanization systems that gave different letters, older forms of the Greek names themselves, and English names that are not romanizations at all.[1][3] The sections below take each in turn.

Reading the letters

The UN's romanization report gives a Latin equivalent for every Greek letter. The grouping below is XTOUR's, to show which letters mislead a reader used to the Latin alphabet; the values are the report's transcription table.[1]

A few letter pairs are converted together, and the same report sets out the rules.[1]

• ου is written ou.
• αυ and ευ become av and ev before a vowel or one of β, γ, δ, ζ, λ, μ, ν, ρ, and af and ef before θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, ψ or at the end of a word, which is why Ναύπλιο is written Náfplio.[4][1]
• μπ is written b at the beginning or end of a word and mp in the middle.[1]
• γγ is written ng, and γκ gk, as in Λαγκάδα, Lagkáda.[4][1]
• ει and οι keep both letters, ei and oi, as in Ηράκλειο, Irákleio.[4][1]

The original 1987 resolution printed a pronunciation column beside the table but marked it "for information only" and not part of the standard.[2] The factfile puts the consequence plainly: ELOT 743 is easier to convert back into Greek than the older system it replaced, but "a less reliable guide to Modern Greek pronunciation".[3] XTOUR gives no pronunciation guide of its own.

Modern Greek marks the stressed syllable of a word of two or more syllables with one acute accent, which the factfile says should be kept in romanization (Árta, Ípeiros), but which is not usually written on words in capitals.[3] XTOUR's reading is that a name in capitals on a sign may therefore give no clue where the stress falls.

Why one place has several spellings

Older romanization systems. Before ELOT 743, the British and American geographic names boards (PCGN and BGN) used a 1962 system that, among other differences, wrote μπ as mb in the middle of a word, χ as kh, δ as dh and υ as i; that system remained in use until 1996. Applied to Καλαμπάκα, XTOUR's reading of the two tables is that the 1962 rule gives Kalambaka and ELOT 743 gives Kalampaka.[1] Wikidata keeps both, and a third: its German, French and Italian labels are Kalambaka, its English alias is Kalampaka, and its English label is Kalabaka.[9] The town's own municipality shows the same mix. The Municipality of Meteora's website spells the town in its page addresses as "kalampakas", the genitive in ELOT form, and its list of local news sites includes both ekalampaka.gr and kalabakacity.gr.[7] XTOUR's Kalambaka destination page uses Kalambaka; for the monasteries near it, see Visiting the Meteora monasteries.

Older forms of the Greek name. Until 1976 official Greek was the archaising form called Katharévousa; the factfile says the spoken Demotic form, official since, usually changes only the last few letters of a place name, and that the loss of a final -n is very common. The factfile's examples include Ηράκλειον, Iraklion or Herakleion, beside the Demotic Ηράκλειο, Irákleio, and Ναύπλιον, Navplion, beside Ναύπλιο, Náfplio.[3] Wikidata's alternative names for the two cities show the same spread: Heraclion, Iraklion, Irakleion and Candia for Heraklion, and Nafplion, Nauplio and Anapli for Nafplio.[11][10]

English conventional names. The factfile says many Greek places have conventional English names, derived from a simplified Greek form or from Latin or Italian, and that some are falling out of use; Latin forms are typical for names from ancient history but, it says, usually not appropriate for places in modern Greece. Its examples include Athens for Athína and Corfu for Kérkyra.[3] Heraklion is a different case. The factfile gives the city no English conventional name: it recommends Irákleio, gives Irákleion as the Katharévousa form and Candia as an obsolete Italian name.[3] The Municipality of Heraklion's own English pages use "Heraklion" throughout, and Wikidata uses it as the English label.[10] XTOUR's destination pages mix the three kinds of name: Athens and Corfu Town are the factfile's conventional English names, Heraklion is the municipality's own English spelling, and Nafplio is the ELOT 743 form without its accent.[3][8]

The forms in the table come from the factfile and from Wikidata's labels and aliases; the Kalampaka form is XTOUR's application of the UN table and also appears as a Wikidata alias.[1][12][9] Santorini is a separate case: the factfile lists the island as Thíra, with Santoríni in brackets, and Wikidata keeps Thira and Thera as alternative names; Santorini, Oia, Fira and Thira: the names explained covers it, and XTOUR's destination page is Santorini.[13][3]

What signs and official names look like

The factfile's two sign policies are worth reading closely. On road signs, the destination is in Greek and the Latin-letter line may be either a romanization or an English translation. On street signs, the romanization is an exact ELOT 743 transliteration with no English substituted, so a street named after the English poet Byron appears only as Vyronos, "a name barely recognisable to an English visitor".[3]

Ancient sites and modern villages are often named differently. The factfile says ancient sites are usually known in English by their conventional names while a nearby village takes its modern Greek name: Mycenae the ancient site and Mykínes the village, Tiryns the site and Tíryntha the village.[3] Both sites are covered in Mycenae, Epidaurus and Olympia by base.

Administrative names often change their ending. A paper Greece submitted to the UN in 1998 explains that place names are normally given in the nominative, but appear in the genitive when used with a descriptive word, as in Attiki and Nomos Attikis, the department of Attiki. XTOUR's reading is that this is why the Municipality of Meteora calls itself Δήμος Μετεώρων rather than using the nominative Μετέωρα.[7][6]

The standard, and where official sources disagree

The 1987 UN resolution recognised ELOT 743 as already "officially sanctioned by the Governments of Greece and Cyprus for cartographic and administrative purposes", while also saying that "a suitable transitional period will be required" before it could be fully implemented.[2] The factfile gives a slower timeline: the Greek standards body issued the system in 1983, it was introduced in stages, and it has been accepted by the Greek government, the UN and the British and American naming boards since the late 1990s. It also notes that, when it was written, Wikipedia and Google Earth did not romanize Greek place names consistently.[3]

The Greek passport directorate's online converter transliterates names according to ELOT 743 and states that ELOT 743 is identical to the international standard ISO 843.[5] The UN report does not treat them as identical: it says ISO 843:1997 is based on ELOT 743 but, in its transliteration form, writes η and ω as ī and ō and converts αυ, ευ and ου as au, eu and ou.[1] XTOUR records the difference and does not resolve it. The UN report also explains that ELOT 743 itself has two versions, a transcription and a transliteration that adds a small mark under some letters so that the Greek can be recovered.[1]

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR has not read the Greek road-sign standards themselves, so it cannot say which signs carry a romanization and which an English translation, or how consistently either is applied; the factfile's description is the only source here. It gives no pronunciation guide beyond the UN table, and it does not say which spelling any particular map, timetable or booking site uses. The Greece country page lists XTOUR's Greek destinations under the names this article explains.