Regarding Rachmaninov / Rachmaninoff, Joel Hill asked:

>How come most records use the "off" ending, but most search engines don't
>work unless you use the "ov" ending? Maybe someone with a Russian
>background can explain.

I had some high-school Russian, so I'll try to explain a little, although
someone with more knowledge about the subject may correct me.  Also, an
informative URL about this specific subject appears below--

In Rachmaninov's native Russia, his name was spelled with the cyrillic
alphabet of course, not the Roman one.  Using our Roman alphabet to
approximate the Cyrillic (Rachmaninov's name did not use any of the more
unusual Cyrillic characters--those for which there is no similar-looking
Roman character), it looked much like:

PAXMAHNHOBb

In Cyrillic, the following letters on the LEFT sound like those of the
Roman alphabet listed at RIGHT--

Cyrillic    Roman
--------    -----
P           R
A           A
X           H (a gutteral H, like a gargle)
M           M
A           A
H           N
N           I
H           N
O           O
B           V
b           (no sound, makes previous letter "soft")

A URL that explains why "Rachmaninoff" is now usually spelled "Rachmaninov"

   http://home.flash.net/~park29/rachspell.htm

Steve Doonan
Portales, NM US