Ioff

Ioff is a surname of Slavic origin that appears in English-language sources with several transliterations. The most common modern rendering is Ioffe, but the form Ioff also appears in older documents or in contexts that favor simplified transliteration from Cyrillic. The syllable structure reflects the Russian surname Иоффе, with alternate romanizations arising from different transliteration standards.

The name is found among people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as among descendants of emigrants who retain the original spelling. Because transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin letters varies, Ioff and Ioffe may refer to the same family lineage or to different branches within a broader root name.

Notable uses of the root include institutions and individuals associated with the name Ioffe. The Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is one of the country’s leading research centers in physics and materials science. It is named after Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, a prominent Soviet physicist who played a key role in early 20th-century science and in the development of the institute. In English-language contexts, the institution is commonly called the Ioffe Institute, reflecting the transliteration variant Ioffe; older texts may use Ioff or other spellings depending on the chosen transliteration system.