Already discussed this (was Re: IMPORTANT!!!Outrageous translations)

[rcraigharman at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21279

Go back to message #17791.  The thread on Italian translation names
starts there.  I have a few corrections to your post, though:


--- In HPforGrownups at y..., pigwidgeon37 at y... wrote:
> I just have to write this, partly because I'm doing literary 
> translations myself, but mostly because I LOVE HP and can't stand 
> these wonderful texts mutilated by- sorry to have to say so- STUPID 
> translators.
> As I'm living in Italy, however not yet having read italian 
> translations of HP book (suspecting the worst and being, alas, 
> justified and more than that), I just visited one of the Italian 
> HPhomepages to find THIS: 

> Gilderoy Lockhart- Gilderoy ALLOCK (which doesn't signify anything
> in  Italian,  assure you)

Actually this is probably based on "allocco", which is literally
a "horned owl", but figuratively means "dolt, nincompoop".


> Sibyl Trelawney- Sibilla COOMAN (this name, as Allock, doesn't have 
> any sense in Italian, execpt if you think of the Sibylla of
> Cumae?!))

Yup, that's probably what it is.  The Sibyl of Cumae is called the
Sibylla Cumana and "Cooman" approaches this pronunciation in English.

....Craig