Spellings of Santorini place names…This Spellings of Santorini Place Names Page is from the Simply Santorini website – an insiders guide to getting the most from Thira - the honeymoon island. Santorini hotels, resorts, romantic locations, beaches, history, sunsets & much more…
As you may know Santorini is also known as Thira sometimes spelt as Theira or even Thera. It's capital is called Fira and should not be confused with Thira. And you think that’s confusing! If you travel around by bus or hire a car from a car rental company on the Greek island of Santorini you may be a little confused by some of the different spellings of the village, church names, town and place names you may come across on maps or road signs.
For example Oia you may see as Ia. Quite regularly you’ll find the letter ‘G’ as an alternative to the letter ‘Y’ as in Agios Nikolaos or Ayios Nikolaos. And very commonly words with one ‘S’ can be seen with two, as in Perisa or Perissa.
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 Santorini. So you may see Kamari spelt as Kammari for example. Variations of spellings is just one of the eccentricities of life in Santorini that you never seem to get used to!
Here is a chart that might help you.
If you love Santorini then you'll love the wonderful Greek island of Crete. Visit our sister site of Completely Crete .Com for all you'll need to know about Crete.
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