ELOT 743 is the official Greek standard for romanizing Greek into Latin letters, also adopted by the UN. It is used on Greek passports and road signs. It transliterates most letters directly, for example η→i, υ→y, and ου→ou.

How does ELOT 743 differ from ISO 843?

ISO 843 is the international transliteration standard and uses diacritics to keep a reversible one-to-one mapping, for example ē for η and ō for ω. ELOT 743 favours plain Latin letters without diacritics, which is friendlier for everyday use and passports.

What does phonetic mode do?

Phonetic mode approximates how the Greek sounds in modern pronunciation. It renders context-sensitive groups such as μπ as b, ντ as d, γκ as g, and αυ/ευ as av/ev or af/ef depending on the following sound.

Why do some letters depend on context?

Greek has combinations whose sound changes with neighbours: γγ and γκ are 'ng/g', αυ is 'av' before voiced sounds but 'af' before voiceless ones, and final or initial position can matter. The tool applies these rules so the output reads correctly.

Is the conversion exact?

ELOT 743 and ISO 843 are deterministic standards and the tool follows their letter tables closely. Phonetic transcription is an approximation, since real pronunciation has subtleties no single mapping captures perfectly.

Greek Romanization — Gera Tools

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Romanizing Greek means writing it in the Latin alphabet. There is no single “right” way — it depends on whether you need the official passport spelling (ELOT 743), a reversible scholarly transliteration (ISO 843), or something that reads the way the word sounds (phonetic). This tool offers all three.

How it works

Each scheme is a mapping table from Greek letters and digraphs to Latin output, applied longest-match-first so multi-letter groups like ου, μπ, and αυ are handled before single letters.

ELOT 743 (official / UN): mostly plain Latin letters, e.g.

η → i    υ → y    χ → ch   ξ → x    ου → ou   αυ → av/af   ευ → ev/ef

ISO 843 (transliteration): reversible, using diacritics, e.g.

η → ē    ω → ō    χ → ch   ξ → x    υ → y

Phonetic: approximates pronunciation with context rules, e.g.

μπ → b    ντ → d    γκ → g    γγ → ng
αυ → av (before voiced) / af (before voiceless)
ευ → ev / ef    same rule

For αυ and ευ the tool inspects the following letter: before a voiceless consonant (θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, ψ) the υ becomes f; otherwise it becomes v.

Tips and example

Αθήνα → ELOT 743 Athina, ISO 843 Athēna, phonetic Athina.
αυτό → phonetic afto because τ is voiceless; αύριο → avrio.
ELOT 743 is the spelling that matches Greek passports and official signage, so use it for names that must match identity documents.
ISO 843 keeps a one-to-one mapping with diacritics, so it is the choice for library catalogues and bibliographies where the original spelling must be recoverable.