It is a known fact that Croats use Latin alphabet in their writings, but it is important for a genealogist to know and understand some of Croatian written language’s unique features.

English alphabet has 26 letters, while Croatian has 30. However, four of the English letters are not found in the alphabet used by Croats: X, Y, W and Q. So the total difference between those two alphabets amounts to eight letters, which should be taken into consideration while researching family history records.

The first specific of Croatian alphabet is it’s diacritical letters Č, Ć, Š, Ž and Đ, which had been devised because of presence of some of distinguished sounds in pronounciation of words. (It is important to note here that Croatian alphabet is almost fully phonetic, which means that each written letter represents a sound that typically doesn’t change depending on a position in a word or a sentence.)

Another Croatian specific are digraphs or letters consisting of two signs that are treated as one, inseparable letter. Those letters are LJ, NJ and DŽ and their inseparableness have some interesting consequences for genealogy research. For example, when listed in alphabetical order, surname Ljubić comes after surname Lovrić, and Njirić comes after Novak. So, if you cannot find a surname on a list you think should be there, take this specific into account and you may have success.

Here is the table with all letters of Croatian alphabet in proper order, together with English Alphabet, pronounciation and examples of surnames begining with the respective Croatian letter.

Croatian Alphabet	English Alphabet	Pronounci- ation	As in English word	Example of Croatian last name (surname)
A	A		car	Anić
B	B		bat	Babić
C	C		cats	Cindrić
Č	–		chalk	Čavlović
Ć	–		church	Ćurković
D	D		dig	Delić
DŽ	–		gin	Džajo
Đ	–		jack	Đaković
E	E		let	Erceg
F	F		fit	Filipović
G	G		game	Grgić
H	H		heaven	Hrvatin
I	I		east	Ivanković
J	J		year	Josipović
K	K		cut	Kovač
L	L		love	Leko
LJ	–		million	Ljubić
M	M		mice	Milas
N	N		nice	Novačić
NJ	–		onion	Njirić
O	O		autmn	Oreški
P	P		pick	Petrić
–	Q	–	–	–
R	R		Fritz	Radić
S	S		sound	Starčević
Š	Š		shut	Šarlija
T	T		time	Tkalec
U	U		shoot	Udovičić
V	V		verb	Vrbanić
–	W	–	–	–
–	X	–	–	–
–	Y	–	–	–
Z	Z		zest	Zadravec
Ž	–		pleasure	Žugec

Image: Onderwijsgek, Wikimedia Commons