Pavlova or Pawlowa

 

Photo Credit: Anna Pavlova with her company in Bremen 1930 from Museum of London 

Sometimes you will see text, even photos, spelling Anna Pavlova’s name with  w's instead of  v's. Now, how did this happen? It was because the American writers misunderstood how her name was pronounced and more importantly, the spelling, so this caused a lot of confusion.  It was in Cleveland, where patrons were heard talking about Anna Pavlova and Mordkin. These patrons made the comment, "You might as well learn early how to pronounce their names.” The patrons described how to pronounce Pavlova; the v is enunciated, there is no w, the a is spoken softly and the o is pronounced like the o and go.  

Mordkin's name was a bit different. His surname was pronounced phonetically but his first name Mikail was sometimes spelled Michel, Mikhail or Michael.  All these spellings enraged Mordkin so much that he sent a telegram expressing his anger as referenced here.

"INFORM EDITEURS VOUS AVEZ TORT. I AM COSSACK. NAME IS MIKAIL. NOT MIKE. MAKE IT SO IN EVERY ANNOUNCEMENTS."

I noticed Anna Pavlova didn't seem as bothered by the mistakes as Mordkin was. There are even pictures of her name spelled Pawlowa but she is instead smiling with her company in front of the sign and there are many accounts of this. Anna Pavlova in my opinion seemed much more concerned with how her shows would go then superficial things like misspellings of names.