What do you think of translated names in books?

[hansl]

Thanks for analysing my teeny perception of LOTR names. Actually, the Carroux translation is also my favourite one.

Streicher as tramp was not in my mind then. Landstreicher were homeless people with plastic bags to me. BTW Julius Streicher is the name of a Nazi war criminal hanged in Nuremberg. His antisemite agitation was probably too far away from the notion of a tramp to be noticed as a burdon for a hero name. I would probably have used Waldläufer (in the glossary), a ranger in the woods or so.

And thanks for the enlightenment regarding Bag End/Dead End. Funny enough, the German word for dead end, Sackgasse (literally translated to English: bag alley), is closer to Bag End than Carroux's Beutelsend.

hansl

[Baumi]

The worst case is actually if the translator has no idea about the meaning or origin of a name. For example, in Stephen King's novel "Christine", there's a cat named "Captain Beefheart" (named after the musician, of course). The translator of my German edition (not sure if they fixed it in later ones) obviously did not have a clue about experimental music, and so they literally translated that into "Kapitän Rinderherz".

I'm a bit torn about the translated names in fantasy books. I didn't mind them as a child reading LOTR – even now the German names sound mystical and sometime a bit quaint to me.
I could never bear to read the German versions of the "Song of Ice and Fire" books, though. "Casterlystein" instead of Casterly Rock? "Schnellwasser" for Riverrun? And Theon Greyjoy becoming "Theon Graufreud"? Sorry, it just sounds all wrong to me.

[Komavary]

If a novel is a secondary world fantasy, then we can assume that they are not speaking any Earthian language there.

Therefore if a name has any meaning in, let's say, English, then it is already translated from the "original". If it is a fantasy name, it is transcribed from the "original".

That's why I am fond of seeing translated and transcribed names in translations, and do not mind if the transcription doesn't follow strictly the supposed English pronouncination.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Was this the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude? I remember that particular translation uses names like "Andrew" and "Mary". I generally liked that translation with the exception of the names.

It looks like it, yes. I no longer have the book, but I've just looked up a later edition and does give those two as the translators.

I didn't have a problem with the translation of the text, it's just that I don't always follow conversations about the characters because I don't know them by the same names.

[WillAdams]

Finally remembered. Tolkien's essay on name translation is in _A Tolkien Compass_, or rather, was in the original edition.