What do you think of translated names in books?

[Katsunami]

Since the last 15 years or so, I've been reading English books exclusively, except when the original was written in Dutch. However, before that, I've read translated books in Dutch, and sometimes, I encounter Dutch reviews about these translations.

The one thing that always jars me is the translation of names. It seems to be completely random: some names are not translated. Some names are "Dutchified", while other names are translated literally. Some are actually translated wrong. Most of the times, the translations appear to be foolish or out of character.

Some examples from Lord of the Rings and a few from the Shannara series; I can't draw on other fantasy, because it's the only fantasy I read in both Dutch and English that long ago, while still remembering specific names

Not translated:
Tom Bombadil
Elrond, Glorfindel, Arwen, many others...
All the Ohmsfords, AFAIK (Shannara)
Quickening (Shannara)

Literal translation:
Strider -> Stapper
Treebeard -> Boombaard
Walker Boh -> Loper Boh (Shannara)
Whisper (cat) -> Fluister (Shannara)
Rumor (cat) -> Gerucht (Shannara)

Dutchified:
Brandywine Bridge -> Brandewijn Brug
Peregrine / Pippin Took -> Peregrijn / Pepijn Toek
Meriadoc / Merry Brandybuck -> Meriadoc / Merijn Brandebok
Baggins -> Balings
Bree -> Breeg

Wrong/weird translations:
Shire - Gouw
Ranger -> Doler (correct translation: Woudloper)
Sackville-Baggins -> Buul-Balings ("Buul" ?)
Samwise Gamgee -> Sam Gewissies (?)
The Lord of the Rings -> In de ban van de ring (correct translation: "De Heer der Ringen"; the Germans translated the title like that. The Dutch title translated to English would read: "In the grasp of the Ring.")

Actually, I think the "Dutchified" names sound best, but it could be because the original English names sound as if they are English pronunciations of Dutch names. Must have had something to do with the fact that Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in South Africa.

What do you prefer; should names be left alone in a translated work, changed to fit into the pronunciation of the language the work is translated into (such as Baggins -> Balings), or translated literally? Or maybe even... should there be completely new names to fit the translation?

(PS: South African language is actually so close to Dutch that a South African and a Dutchman could just speak their respective languages, and still understand each other easily. Actually, to a Dutchman, South African sounds like "Dutch with the grammar of a 4-year old" )

[DiapDealer]

I usually read a translated work because I can't read the language of the original. As such, I tend to have no clue if personal named have been translated ... literally or otherwise.

I've always been confused that some names would be "changed" while others were left alone, but I always assumed it was because of a perceived change in connotation (or lack thereof) that could be distracting or confusing. Or perhaps there's some sexual innuendo implied or something that might seem silly in another culture in a book where silliness wasn't appropriate.

I usually don't let it bother me. Perhaps if I could read more than one language it would be different.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I've always been confused that some names would be "changed" while others were left alone, but I always assumed it was because of a perceived change in connotation (or lack thereof) that could be distracting or confusing.

In case of LotR, I think it may be because of the fact that many names can be easily pronounced in Dutch. For example, one can just pronounce "Frodo" as if it was Dutch. The same is true for "Arwen", or "Elrond", and many other names as well.

Obviously, names such as Pippin, Merry, Brandybuck can be translated like Pepijn, Merijn, Brandebok, which are all proper Dutch names, actually (apart from the fact that they would be VERY old and out of fashion today).

However, there is no way to pronounce "Strider" or "Ranger" in Dutch, so they have to be translated. Still I deem it strange that they translate "Strider" literally, while they used a wrong translation for "Ranger".

[susan_cassidy]

And, Ranger is not a name, so much as a description of his job. A Ranger, not just Ranger, if I recall correctly.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

(PS: South African language is actually so close to Dutch that a South African and a Dutchman could just speak their respective languages, and still understand each other easily. Actually, to a Dutchman, South African sounds like "Dutch with the grammar of a 4-year old" )

I had an office mate who described Portuguese as "Spanish with a potato jammed in your mouth".


Just quoting, not endorsing!

But I do remember an old Reader's Digest (in Spanish) article that listed a handful of easy rules for Spanish speakers to navigate Portuguese.

[Cyberman tM]

As usual, done right it can enhance the translation. Done wrong it'll make everything worse.

From personal reading experience, I can say that the discworld books are rather good with translated names - mostly constistent, mostly useful translations.
Mainly because the original names were puns which wouldn't be understood in german.
Although they seem to have introduced a pun or two on their own? (Vimes - does this have a meaning in english? It was translated to "Mumm", meaning "courage (slang)".)

[Antoinekamel]

A name is a name is a name.

[Istvan diVega]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

As usual, done right it can enhance the translation. Done wrong it'll make everything worse.

I agree. Ideally I very much prefer that names are left alone, but if they are to be translated then all must be translated. I don't think I've ever read a book where some names were translated and others not, but if I come across one I think I'll just put it away. It's the sort of thing I find really annoying.

[Rumpelteazer]

It's one of my pet peeves in reading, and also one of the reasons I read almost exclusively English books. I can understand it for children's books but for adult books it often annoyed me.

What even bothers me more is with film adaptation of books that in the Dutch subtitles they use the Dutchified names. Again, I can understand it for films as Harry Potter (though it does annoy me) but with Lord of the Rings, IIRC, it just frustrates me and is the reason why I hardly ever watch films on tv but rather on dvd where I can either choose to have no subtitles or the English ones.

[Geralt]

They do this nonsense (and it is nonsense) in my language as well => from English. Idiotic.
Which is why I read fantasy originally written in English, only in English. Never in my language. For example Croatian editions of Game of Thrones, have translated all the names of places and cities. I have no idea where is where in this edition. For example

King's Landing - Grudobran (literally means clod defense - but actual meaning is defense of homeland) - nothing to with King or Landing. Correct translation would be Kraljevo sletište. Dumb. Just write Kings Lending. Sounds the same!
Winterfell - Oštrozimlje ( it's a combination of two words: sharp and winter). Closer translation would be Zimopadište (which, again, is not a real word, but a combination of winter and fell). And even that sounds stupid to be honest and should be transcribed as Vinterfel.
Eyrie - Orlovo Gnijezdo (actual meaning is eagle's nest). Correct thing here would be to transcribe it as Iri, and not go for literal meaning in English.

How people read this, and are able to keep up is beyond me, and this particular series is popular in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, which share one and the same language basically.

They do this for places and leave names like Tyrion not touched. We don't have letters y or w or x, and in our language you must not have double letters like in a word apple for example. So if you want to transcribe, you can do it phonetically, for example Tyrion = Tirion, or Jamie = Džejmi. Or in Cyrillic Џејми and Тирион. But you can't have both original names of people and translated names of places. That's madness!
I am of opinion though, that because we dont have letters W and Y, we can replace them with V and I or J (for x it's iks (like Asterix = Asteriks), and transcribe phonetically sticking to the grammatical rule of no double letters. Everything else should stay the same, so
Winterfell is Vinterfel and it's fine that way! It sounds exactly the same.

I don't think English translations do that though. Except for things you have to translate, like this for example:

Антон Городецкий
You have to translate this to Anton Gorodetsky.
Maybe translate is a bad word, more like transcribe or something.

Same thing with Japanese for example
中嶋陽子 - Nakajima Youko

[soulfuldog]

Part of the attraction of reading books set in other countries (or indeed other worlds) is the different names, whether its people, street or place names, so why would you want them 'translated'?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by l_macd

Part of the attraction of reading books set in other countries (or indeed other worlds) is the different names, whether its people, street or place names, so why would you want them 'translated'?

Tolkien would undoubtedly WANT his names to be translated, in that he was an linguist and etymologist; the names in his books all mean something, and he'd want that meaning to get across to the reader.

[Yapyap]

I understand translating names (when it's names-with-meanings) for children's books, although even as a child, I preferred it when the names were left as is and a footnote was added with an explanation/translation of the meaning.

On the other hand, I can't really imagine people's names getting translated in Dickens' novels, for example, although they're very often directly meaningful.

I felt The Hobbit - the translation from back when I was a child - got the balance right, at least for me: personal names (Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, first names of the dwarves) were left as they were, while descriptive names and place names (Rivendell, Oakenshield) were translated. From what I've seen, a new translation of The Hobbit that came out after LOTR was translated (decades after The Hobbit) had many more names (including Baggins) translated, to go with what the LOTR translation did. To me, that felt awfully wrong, but it could well be also because that was not what I grew up with.

In Harry Potter, from what I recall (I only read the first four in translation), all personal names were left intact, other than Tom Marvolo Riddle which turned into Tom Marvolon Riddle due to needing to fit the translation of "I am Lord Voldemort", and Fluffy), as were the names of the Hogwarts Houses; Hogwarts itself got translated, as did Hogsmeade, IIRC. Again, I thought that was a better balance than what I've seen in many other translations where half the character names were left as they were in the original while half were either translated or changed - but I might just be biased in the "our way is best" way. ;-)

In general, I think it's a complicated issue, and I don't envy any translator of children's-fantasy-with-meaningful-names, especially if half the names are perfectly ordinary names already in the original and half are fantastical/meaningful. Nicknames are easy; given or taken names ... much less so. Where do you draw the line? What do you go with? It gets especially tricky if the translation opts for a translated version and then the later books in the series explain the origin of the name or otherwise go into it, and it's either difficult to translate in keeping with the translated name or it turns out the original translation wasn't even accurate / didn't get the meaning right.

My personal preference is definitely "never translate people's actual names". Nicknames, if appropriate, yes (that goes for things like Strider or Ranger as well - names that aren't the person's actual given name but a descriptive name they've adopted); place names - especially in children's books, if they're not-real-place-names but made-up names with meaning, yes; characters' given names, no. Add a footnote if it's significant enough.

In books aimed at very young children (preschool), I'm okay with translating also character names (if appropriate), but only if done consistently. I really do hate the mix-and-match thing where half of the names are translated and half are not.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tolkien would undoubtedly WANT his names to be translated, in that he was an linguist and etymologist; the names in his books all mean something, and he'd want that meaning to get across to the reader.

Fair enough, for some certain genres of book it maybe makes sense but generally speaking? And even in that case, like Yapyap has just posted, not everything needs translated. It detracts from the feel of the book.

[DrNefario]

The version of War and Peace I read had the names anglicised. It didn't really bother me when I was reading it, but it does seem remarkably pointless. They were still in Russia. And it became annoying when I heard/read other people talking about the book, and didn't recognise the character names.