Is it spelt Вітaлій or Віталію in Ukrainian? I don’t think I’d have any problem pronouncing or spelling your name in it’s romanized form, but I did complete the duolingo Ukrainian course so I have a little bit of familiarity with the language.

You’ve probably noticed the different ways Зеленский is spelt in English; Zelenskyy, zelensky, zelenskiy… Й doesn’t translate seamlessly to English and ий is even harder. I’d say Zelensky is the easiest to read/spell for English people. On that basis I’d go with Vitaly for strangers.

I can’t see why your English friends and co-workers can’t get used to Vitalii though. It’s really not that hard. But then I have a very common first name of French origin and a common Irish surname. It’s extremely rare for someone to pronounce my name correctly 🤷🏼‍♀️

Радий знайомству Віталій. Слава Україні!

I would definitely suggest losing the second i at the end, that looks weird. Or maybe go for “Vitaly” (which you can tell people spells like V + Italy).

(Incidentally, a couple years back, I had email contact with someone named “Vitalis”, which I thought sounded like a female and vaguely flower-y name. Only when we finally met in person did I notice he was male. Somehow he didn’t seem too irritated by me having misgendered him in multiple emails though.)

Maybe go for shorter version: Vito

People tend to misspel my name with c instead of k at the end so to make things easier for everyone I go by Dom

What about just Vit? I have a colleague with that name. Come to think of it, he might have Slavic roots given his last name. Maybe he’s actually also a Vitalii ;)

Perhaps the Italian spelling of the same name, Vitale? I expect anglos to be a bit more used to it than to Slavic names, specially since romanisation adds another layer of complexity. This should stop them from butchering the first vowel, at least.

Keep in mind that no matter the spelling, English speakers are prone to reduce some unstressed vowels until they’re unrecognisable, or to “stress” them randomly; it’s a restriction of the language itself, not the spelling. I kind of predict that they’ll do it with the last vowel of your name no matter the spelling.

Another approach would be to find some similar-sounding local name that you like, I know a few Armenian speakers who did this here in the Southern Cone - for the same reasons as yours, people got a hard time pronouncing their names.

Any way, there’s no “single” answer for that, but I hope that you find one that works for you.

Vito is probably the easiest for your average “what’s your name?” Queries at a coffeeshop. But I think Vitaly would also work since it’s just the word “Vital” with a Y added to the end. I’m sorry you had to move because of the Russians :(