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Person's names and their meaning in another language
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Thread poster: Cristina intern

Off topic: Person's names and their meaning in another language

Aleksandar Gasic
Montenegro
Local time: 06:30
English to Serbo-Croat
+ ...

Scott Bakula

Nov 19, 2009

In southern Montenegro, bakula means cockroach; and generally in BSC, skot (as it is pronounced) is an offensive term, "animal", or "beast" used to insult. Basically, his name would mean something like "bastard cockroach".
BTW, back in schooldays, kids had lots of laugh with my name when someone figured out that Aleksandar, read backwards, gives Radna Skela ((workers') scaffold).

mjbjosh
Belgium
Local time: 06:30
English to Latvian
+ ...

On a different note

Nov 21, 2009

Cristina intern wrote:

we all know that person's names should not be translated.

Unless they are popes' names or royals. These are translated in all languages known to me. Moreover, the former German king Karl V. is known as Carlos I to the people of Iberian peninsula. Also, in literary texts names are often translated if they have a certain connotation to them.

[Edited at 2009-11-21 11:05 GMT]

Trisha F

United Kingdom
Local time: 05:30
English to Spanish
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A tad drastic

Nov 21, 2009

Cristina intern wrote:

we all know that person's names should not be translated.

It's not really that drastic, as mjbjosh said, royals' names are usually translated. According to Christiane Nord, names in books for children are also translated quite frequently. Javier Franco Aixela devoted a whole book to the translation of names, for example, so I wouldn't go as far as to say they are untouchable.

Aleksandar Gasic
Montenegro
Local time: 06:30
English to Serbo-Croat
+ ...

Agree

Nov 21, 2009

I definitely agree with mjbjosh and Trisha. Although, I'd say names are more often adapted than translated. E.g. for the speakers of Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, Charlemagne is usually not a recognizable name, but Karlo Veliki (veliki= big, grand, great...) is well known.
Or, take Marc Anthony in English... definitely not the name his contemporaries used to address him with.
There are so many examples.
As for the books... not just names in books for children. The first thing that comes to my mind is Lord of the Rings. A whole lotta names were translated, and it nicely added to the experience of reading it.