Question: I know that the title is a little weird, sorry about that. The thing is that one day I asked my russian instructor, who's russian, how to pronounce Kolmogorov in russian (because it has too many o's) and she told me that is *Холмогóров*, but in the [wiki article](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2,_%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87) says that his name is *Колмогóров*, why is this?

Answer: 
Your Russian teacher was not a mathematician, so she probably guessed that the name is "kholmogorov", as there is a Russian word "kholm" meaning a hill.

The correct name is Kolmogorov, and you pronounce it roughly as "Kalmagoraf"
Происхождение фамилии «Колмогоров» связано с топонимом «Колмогоры», а он, вероятно, происходит от финского kolme «три» (т. е. «Трехгорка»), или от kalma, «могила», и kari, «утес». «Холмогоры» – русификация
Происхождение от топонима
Кроме Колмогор (Холмогор) в Архангельской области, топоним известен в Кемеровской. Деревни Колмогорово также существуют в Сибири
Женская форма фамилии - Колмогорова.