On August 15, 2020 6:19:08 PM EDT, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Many sources are using "Kyiv", as you mentioned; but many are also using "Kiev". A Google web search today from Los Angeles reports about 48 million results for "Kyiv" and about 108 million for "Kiev", and a Google News search reports about 4.1 million for "Kyiv" and about 9.4 million for "Kiev". This (admittedly quick-and-dirty) sanity check suggests that "Kyiv" is not yet the consensus spelling.
I did a more reliable Google Ngram search, which shows the usage in edited text, and found that while the Official Government spelling is clearly gaining ground, it hasn't quite crossed over yet. <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28Kiev+-+chicken+Kiev%29%2CKy...> That said, the gap is quite similar to that between Bombay and Mumbai or Calcutta and Kolkata. By contrast, Beijing surpassed Peking in edited English text by about 1980. -GAWollman
