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| User | Thread poster: Cristina intern Off topic: Person's names and their meaning in another language |
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Yaotl Altan 
Mexico
Local time: 01:57
  Member
English to Spanish
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My name, Yaotl, means warrior in nahuatl, the language of the aztec people.
I have studied Italian, French and German and the respective professors could not pronounce it, so they translated it to their respective languages and that was the name they use/used: guerriero, guerrier, and Krieger.
I didn't know which one was harder: the nahuatl yaotl or the super-duper guttural sound of that too-French two syllables guerrier.
A Palestinian friend couldn't pronounce it...neither... and he baptised me with the Arabic word muyyahid. He was excited because in his culture that word refers to a guy who works and study hard for his country and his family and he considered as an original idea.
Unfortunately, many people, Mexicans included, think my name comes from Scandinavia or from the Bible or from China. Well, that final tl is a typical nahuatl ending of proper names and sustantives.
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Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:57
Member (2000)
Russian to English
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| | Potentially embarrassing surnames | Nov 19, 2009 |
At BBC Monitoring, I once listened to a talk by a Professor Bogorov (stress on the last syllable). If someone asked him his name in English, his reply would sound rather rude!
There was also once a mention of a Prof. Vagina - stress on the first syllable, so sounds OK, but looks odd in English when written.
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Mara Ballarini
Italy
Local time: 08:57
Member (2006)
English to Italian
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| | changing your first name | Nov 19, 2009 |
There are many people who have their names (first name or last name) changed because they are rude or don't sound nice together in their own language , and sometimes I wonder what do parents think when they name their babies? (We were just talking the other day about someone whose last name was Mastronzo - which is already not that cool in Italian - and was named Felice, Felice Mastronzo, ie Happy but a A...hole - don't want to be rude but that's what it comes out like in Italian). However, what I wanted to say here was about my experience with Asian students in Australia. True that many have at-our-ears-unpronounceable names, so what they do when they come to Australia (and probably when they go to other countries too, but that I can't tell from experience) is change their first names into an English word - and yes, I mean word, not name, because of course, once they decide to change, and they do that as soon as they set foot on the Land of Down Under, if not even before - they choose whatever they like, which doesn't necessarly have to be a common name, but sometimes they're simply common everyday words (it could be Jack or Ashley, if not J or Moon, or Stella, and so on). The only issue that arises sometimes is that when they get there, their English is often quite low, and they end up finding names sometimes that make you wonder if they really knew what it meant or bothered finding it out before choosing it...
Sometimes I was even asked to give them a name, which of course I didn't do - don't really want such a responsibility...
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aceavila - Noni
Spain
Local time: 08:57
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
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| | Can they be pronounced in your "other language" | Nov 19, 2009 |
For two language families, the issue of choosing children's names which won't get mangled in the "other language" limits our range of choice quite drastically. I was particularly concerned not to have to put up with failed English attempts at pronouncing my boys' Spanish names (I hate hearing "Migwel" or "AlvAro"), and anxious not to choose a name which would make them a laughing stock in English (Dimas is a rather unusual name which occurs in my husband's family, but was definitely not an option since it would come out as Dim Ass in English).
So we chose Cosme and Telmo, which seem to be working out OK so far. Cosme and I don't mind much when he's called Cosmo. We can cope with that! But please don't tell me they mean something horrific in other languages...
Fun and interesting topic by the way - thanks!
[Edited at 2009-11-19 09:40 GMT]
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albie
Russian Federation
Local time: 11:57
English to Russian
| | just to develpop Jack's notices... | Nov 19, 2009 |
In Northern Russia, on a project, we have camp boss with surname- Pestov, and he looks tired pretty often!
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Cristina intern
Germany
Local time: 08:57
Member (2008)
German to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | | Behind the Name. The etymology, history and diffusion of first names and surnames | Nov 19, 2009 |
Dear Colleagues,
Thanks for all your interesting contributions to this topic up to now.
I am sure that almost everyone has plenty of personal considerations and anecdotes to tell about:
- Parents' choice of name for their newborn child
| "Because it involves objectifying esthetic preferences in official records, parents' choice of name for their newborn child is one of the best materials for empirically testing the classical hypothesis of vertical social diffusion of taste." in http://www.jstor.org/pss/3323053 |
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- Etymology and history of first names in http://www.behindthename.com/
- Etymology and history of surnames - International - in http://surnames.behindthename.com/
- and so on.
Looking forward to hearing about. Thanks.
Cristina
[Edited at 2009-11-19 10:16 GMT]
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Melanie Nassar
Palestine
Local time: 09:57
German to English
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| | Lost in translation | Nov 19, 2009 |
A relative of mine with the Arabic name Muna (wish, desire), went to Germany to take a course at the Goethe Institut. There she met a Greek girl. When they introduced themselves, it turned out the Greek girl's name was Khara, which apparently means 'joy' in Greek. Muna started laughing and told Khara that her name meant 'shit' in Arabic. Whereupon Khara told Muna that she couldn't even tell her what Muna referred to in Greek, it was that bad.
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Marie-Claude Falardeau
Netherlands
Local time: 08:57
Member (2005)
English to French
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| | Pronunciation | Nov 19, 2009 |
My Dutch in-laws more or less refuse to call me Marie-Claude, they only call me Marie. Not because the name is difficult to pronounce, but because of the way they pronounce it in Dutch. The 'd' at the end of a word sounds like a 't' in Dutch, so what they hear is, well, equivalent to 'Marie-Kloot'
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Alf Ivar Tronsmo
Norway
Local time: 08:57
Member (2009)
English to Norwegian
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In Norway a very common male name is Odd.
And i also heard of a Norwegian girl on vacation in USA being laughed at when she told her name was Astrid (pronounced Astri). They thought is sounded like Ashtray.
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Ingeborg Gonizzi
Netherlands
Local time: 08:57
Member (2007)
French to Dutch
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| | Pronunciation II | Nov 19, 2009 |
My French inlaws had a very hard time getting used to all the guttural sounds in my first name. My brother in law made his life easier (and left me confused) by just calling me
'ange borgne'.
But I don't know if I should prefer that or the 'In-the-beurre' that my mother in law makes out of it...
As you will understand, we chose the names of our children very carefully
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Katalin Horvath McClure
United States
Local time: 02:57
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
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| | Embarrassing first names - here is one more: Pina | Nov 19, 2009 |
Here it goes: Pina
Once I got an email with this first name as the sender, and I have to say I almost deleted the email right away, as I thought it was a spam for some "adult" stuff.
But then I realized it was a legitimate email, from a very legitimate colleague, somewhere in South America.
Since then I learned it is also a nickname for Giuseppina in Italian.
The word in Hungarian is a slang for vagina, and sometimes used derogatorily to refer to a woman. Sorry, folks...
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Ligia Dias Costa
Portugal
Local time: 07:57
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
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Well, I have clients with names that are impossible to write, let alone say them.
But the champion of them all, is a client of mine whose first name is "Isto", meaning "this" in Portuguese.
To Katalin: I cannot tell you what "Pina" is in Portuguese. It starts with an F... Sorry!
Ligia
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Päivikki Eriksson
Sweden
Local time: 08:57
Member (2008)
Swedish to Finnish
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| | Finno-Ugric confusion | Nov 19, 2009 |
I was taking part in a language course in Hungary and there was this other Finnish girl called Saara. She didn't understand why the Hungarians found her so amusing until she was explained that her name sounded like the Hungarian word "szara" meaning his/her shit...
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Maria Korolenkova
Russian Federation
Local time: 11:57
English to Russian
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| | Twists of fate :) | Nov 19, 2009 |
Some typical Russian names end with "-slav" (like Vyacheslav, Rostislav, Yaroslav, etc). The postfix comes from the verb meaning "glorify, praise", while the first part in the majority of cases represents the name of a pagan deity. Russian knyaz Yaroslav was, however, a Christian devotee - he even had a mortal combat with a giant sacred bear to prove the falseness of the Paganism - and he won! The place of the combat later had grown into a city named after Yaroslav "Yaroslavl". The irony is that this name also glorifies one of the pagan gods Yarilo, the head of the Slavic pantheon, hence resembling what Yaroslav was so furiously struggling with.
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Valery Kaminski
Belarus
Local time: 10:57
Member (2006)
English to Russian
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| | Embarrassing first names, continued | Nov 19, 2009 |
Yuri/Yury is a very popular Russian name. As it is, it sounds OK in English. But used in possessive - Yury's - it sounds Yurin....
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| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > |
The translation workplace 
