Spelling of Crete place names

You say Chania, I say Hania, you say Rethimnon, I say Rethymno...

No matter how long you spend in Crete, Creta, Kreta or Kriti you may still get confused by the spellings!

If you travel around by bus or hire a car from a car rental company on the Greek island of Crete you may be a little confused by some of the different spellings of the village, town and place names you may come across on maps or road signs.

For example, for the capital of Crete, Heraklion, you may see it as Heraklio, Irakleion, Iraklion or Iraklio.

Chania, the former capital, can be spelt as Hania or sometimes Xania.

Quite regularly you’ll find the letter ‘G’ as an alternative to the letter ‘Y’ as in Agios Nikolaos or Ayios Nikolaos. Sometimes added to this is the letter 'H' making it Aghios Nikolaos! And very commonly words with one ‘S’ can be seen with two, as in Lasithi or Lassithi.

Confused?

Well this variation in spelling is because the translation from the Greek language to the English language is not an exact science. Many letters in the Greek alphabet do not translate exactly to a letter in the English alphabet. So mapmakers, road sign writers, and guidebook authors translate the Greek alphabet place names to what they believe is a phonetic counterpart in the English language.

So throughout our website you’ll find alternative spellings to many of the towns and villages of Crete. So you may see Rethymnon spelt as Rethimno for example.

Variations of spellings is just one of the eccentricities of living in Crete that you never seem to get used to!

Luckily for most people though, the spellings of Greek road signs are also in English as well as in the Greek alphabet.