Translating languages

I think it doesn't matter. There are even some readers who will not realize that Juan is Ian is John, so sticking to the person's name in his or her own language makes more sense.

After all, when Pablo and Maria come to visit, I don't call them Paul and Mary. Those aren't actually their names.

Maryn (Psst, it's not actually my name, either!)

Hemingway and Steinbeck, among others, have handled such matters in an elegant way. I recall a story, I think by Hemingway, in which he has a Spanish-speaking character admiring "los Dodgers de Brooklyn". It would be worth your while to check out some of their work.

caw

You mean like Running Bear? Or Icefalcon, in Barbara Hambly's Time of the Dark books? I kind of like the translations; they're easier to spell and remember. And you can do interesting things with them. (Icefalcon's name doesn't literally mean ice falcon in his own language; it means the bird that the people in the book call an icefalcon. His own people call it something else and that's what his name is in his own language. So you could have someone whose name is Bidouaq, which means Marsh Runner in his own language, and Rail in ours. Or whatever.)

Just call them by their names, don't Anglicise it...do you mean that the name you've chosen is a translation of an English word or looks like an English word or something?...

A name is a name in any language. That is, you say it the same old way in one as in the other, never mind the meaning. So one of my names is Michael. That's all anyone's called me (at least among those who bothered to use that name, as I have others). Whether speaking English, German, Vietnamese, Spanish, or any other language, no one has ever said, “Who is like God*, come over here.” Or, “Hey, who is like God, take out the trash.” Or, “Yo, sup, who is like God, I need to borrow five bucks.”

*This, by the way, is supposedly the translation from the Hebrew of the rhetorical question, which is said to be the origin of the name.

I'm a translator so I have to deal with it very often. As everybody else have already said, if certain names are common for many cultures, like Biblical ones, you'd be better off not translating them and calling your chars Pablo, Juana, etc. Also, although these names have initial meanings in Hebrew, Greek, etc, nobody really realizes it any more so these widely used names are sort of "meaningless" to us, as summonere has so elegantly put above But if an original name is part of another country's culture and has a specific meaning they understand, I personally think it's a good idea to translate it literally, the way we do with American Indian or some other names: Black Feather, etc. Also, it adds to the char's characterization: it's a big difference whether he's called Boom-Boom-Bah (absolutely meaningless and characterless) or Son of the Wild Bull (which can be a great characteristic).

Agree with Fresie.

Also, it depends on who and where the MC is.

If John is the main character and he is in Latin America, it may be easier for John to go by Juan.

On the other hand, if John is the big shot who doesn't take no for an answer, he might insist on being called John.

(see how it hints at the personality of the character?)

Summonere said:

A name is a name in any language. That is, you say it the same old way in one as in the other, never mind the meaning. So one of my names is Michael. That's all anyone's called me (at least among those who bothered to use that name, as I have others). Whether speaking English, German, Vietnamese, Spanish, or any other language, no one has ever said, “Who is like God*, come over here.” Or, “Hey, who is like God, take out the trash.” Or, “Yo, sup, who is like God, I need to borrow five bucks.”

*This, by the way, is supposedly the translation from the Hebrew of the rhetorical question, which is said to be the origin of the name.

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In our culture, names are just names. In other cultures, they may be more (or less) meaningful. My brother's Japanese wife named their dog something like Six because he was the sixth dog they'd had. The dog's name just wasn't important.

A Turkish friend named her son Bora, which is Turkish for Storm. We don't translate it, but if you invent a whole culture where all names are like that, you might translate. It would depend on how they get their names and how they think of them.

(If you name your dog Killer, you probably want it translated.)

We think of names as just sounds to call someone, but we don't give the name April to a baby born in December.

Bonita