Quick opinion poll - English vs. French name

Hey!

1. Armée Secrète
2. Diana
(3. I'm not American)



PS. I think that Secret Army, in English, sounds a bit... too on the nose? and generic? The French name is the real deal. And it's easy to understand.

Sometimes, if a pronunciation is easy to miss, it can be worked into the story so that the reader knows how to pronounce it in his head. (Think of how it took four books for us to learn how to pronounce Hermione! And when the movie pronunciation came out, it still didn't match the book pronunciation!) (I was always "Her-mee-own-ee" in my head. Others were "Her-mone". The movie was "Her-mine-ee". The book called it "Her-my-oh-nee".)

If you plan on using a lot of French, you might put in a glossary with pronunciation and translation, sort of like how some authors would put in a character list with people's names and roles. So you might write down "French word" - "pronunciation" - "translation". And do it for things like personal names, place names, organization names, and so on.

When I was in undergrad, I'd wait in the hall for a certain class, and the class in the room before us was French. They'd always come out speaking conversational French with their teacher. It always sounded like marbles. So if you ever pick a language that needs a developed ear to understand it-- unlike languages where they're careful to enunciate all their syllables in the way they're written--- you're probably doing your reader a favor!

French pronunciation can be really hard, so I like lonestarlibrarian's suggestions of a pronunciation guide. There's one in the books by Manda Scott about Roman Britain, because Celtic names very often sound NOTHING like they're spelled. Likewise, French has a tendency to not be pronounced how an English-speaker would expect based on spelling (Spanish, in contrast, is pretty much pronounced as it's spelled).

For "Diane", I wouldn't change it, because it's a real person. I would try to work in a way to give your readers a hint about the pronunciation (though if she's American, would she pronounce her name the French way? or is she of French extraction?). Also, it's not the end of the world if readers pronounce the name wrong in their head.

Armée Secrète seems fine; it's pretty evident what it means, and as it's a proper name, I wouldn't change it.

[I was faintly surprised when a reader wasn't sure how to pronounce Eliezer. I guess it's an unusual name, but it seemed evident to me that it was a Biblical name and pronounce El-ee-ay(as it hay)-zer. And actually, one of my characters has a French-inspired name, Mazarine. Properly, it'd be maz-a-reeen (or something like that). But in my head, it's maz-a-reen because he's American and that's how he would've pronounced it, because I damn well say so, lol. ETA: I know in French it'd be close to how an American might pronounce it, but it wouldn't be the same, really; I imagine it with a quite flat American pronunciation.]

1. Secret Army or Arme'e Secre'te? (Pardon my inability to find the proper accents)
I'd definitely go with 'Armee Secrete'. First it reminds the reader that we are in France, and seeing things from a French POV. (Especially if you are bringing in an American character later, it helps to remind the reader why she isn't finding things just as they were back home.)

2. Diane - I'd be tempted to mess with the spelling a little. Either drop the 'e', leaving
Dian, or spell it Deanne, with is neither proper French or American English, but has been used as a name (Deanna Durbin, actress, sprang to mind when I was thinking of variation.) How do you think it would read if the narration refers to her as 'Diane' and the French speakers refer to her as 'Deanne'?
Is there an accent in French that would change the 'ia' to 'ea'?
Because, honestly, I don't know if the reader has to be able to pronounce it correctly, but to see that it's meant to have a different pronunciation. (And what's the first thing we think when we see an accent over an 'e'? Fancy French word!)

Im a bit (read a lot) pedantic about this kind of things. If I read for example a book about Ireland and all the Irish names have been changed to make it easier for the reader I would assume that the author think their readers are dumb. I hate it when things are dumbed down by fear to put people off. If people are not too sure it takes 2 seconds to check online a pronunciation or what something means. And to be honest Diane is not that hard of a name.

Sorry my honest opinion.

You could always add a bit of dialogue between characters that explains the proper pronunciation . . .

"So, you are the Dionne we were told to expect? You have the papers?"

"I am, and I do." She produced the documentation. "You'll see my previous contact misspelled, and usually mispronounced, my codename--sorry about that."

"A pity, no?"

"Oui . . . I prefer the French."

SwallowFeather said:

Hey all - can't believe I haven't hung out in this subforum, I'd like to start!

I'm doing WWII France, I have a character who's in the Maquis. His division of the Maquis was called the Armée Secrète, which translates to Secret Army.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I generally use French names where they make sense and they aren't too baffling for the English reader and or don't conceal horrible French puns. So something simple with a story where Henry and Henri are different people would be just the thing for me.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I'd want the French phrase for the army and the actual spelling of the name, since it's a real person, with a bit of written in dialogue (or whatever) for how the name is actually pronounced.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I'm not sure I understand the rationale for wanting to change "Diane" to "Diana". An American is going to pronounce them both pretty much the same except Diana has an extra syllable. I've known people called Diane and people called Diana, so it's not like one is less likely than the other to remind me of someone I know. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Since this "Diane" was a real person, and you've chosen to keep "Armée Secrète", I don't see any reason why you should not keep "Diane."

If it's the pronunciation you're getting hung up on, just -- forget it. You're never going to be able to predict or control how people pronounce names -- *any* names. Even if you give them explicit pronunciation instructions in the text. It's not a battle that's worth fighting or stressing over, because the writer ALWAYS loses to the reader.

I'd prefer the original French name and the American woman's as it really was.

On the Leader thing, I see where the author was coming from, but it would strike me as too nonspecific. Führer is a normal word in German used in many situations, but there was only one Der Führer. It became a title in its own right, so I would use it. But I'm off topic, sorry!

Your book sounds really interesting. I wrote a WW2-related book too, though with all fictional characters. The time period is my playground.