Ashgabat is called ''Aşgabat'' in Turkmen, () in Russian from 1925 to 1991, and ''Ešq-ābād'' () in Persian. Before 1991, the city was usually spelled '''Ashkhabad''' in English, a transliteration of the Russian form. It has also been variously spelled Ashkhabat and Ashgabad. From 1919 until 1927, the city was renamed Poltoratsk after a local revolutionary, Pavel Gerasimovich Poltoratskiy.