Who is RAB again. WAS:Re: Snape and Regulus/OFH!Snape

[spotsgal]

No: HPFGUIDX 140835

> Geoff:
> (1) Just for accuracy, the German equivalent of Black is Schwarz. 
> Zwart or zwarts is Dutch. Even so, I doubt whether the German 
> version would translate a surname. Has Sirius' family name been 
> translated in the earlier books?
 

Christina:

As much fun as I've been having speculating on who RAB is, I've always
just figured that we'll find out soon enough, since the translations
should tell us pretty clearly whether or not we're right about the
Regulus Black guess.

>From what I've seen floating around the Internet about HP
translations, most names have been translated in most editions,
including "Black" (which makes sense when you think about the meaning
behind Sirius's name).  Here is the list of translations for "Sirius
Black" that HP uses, according to answers.com,

    * Dutch: Sirius Zwarts
    * Finnish: Sirius Musta
    * German: Sirius Schwarz(book I)/Sirius Black(book III-V)
    * Indonesian: Sirius Black
    * Latvian: Siriuss Bleks
    * Norwegian: Sirius Svaart
    * Polish: Syriusz Black
    * Welsh: Siriws Ddu
(the Greek and Russian characters weren't supported by Yahoo!, so the
link to the site is below if you're interested)

I should note, though, that according to another site
(http://www.eulenfeder.de/int/gbint.html), the Polish translation of
"Sirius Black" is "Syriusz Czarny."

I can't find anything listed for Regulus (he was too obscure a
character before HBP to merit a place on a list of translated HP
names, I guess), but someone who has the HP books in translation would
certainly be able to check.

According to this list, the Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, and
Welsh translations would feature a Regulus Black whose last initial
would NOT be "B."  The Dutch and Norwegian translations (according to
Veritaserum.com) come out on November 19th.  Is there anyone that will
be getting a copy of either of these?

I am confident that if RAB *is* Regulus Black, the translations will
give us initials that correspond to whatever "Regulus Black"
translates into.  According to the Eulenfeder.de link I posted above,
"Tom Marvolo Riddle" was translated in other editions so that his name
would still give an anagram of a sentence along the lines of "I am
Lord Voldemort."

I'm sure JKR figured on the translation issue when she wrote the book,
and either just accepted that we would figure out who RAB was, or made
the initials so obscure (ala "Remember Amelia Bones") that we couldn't
guess even with the translated copies.

Anyway, for anyone that's curious, the full answers.com article can be
found by going to the main site and typing "List of characters in
translations of Harry Potter" in the search engine (I think the actual
information comes from Wikipedia though).

I have no idea how accurate it is, but it's really fun to look over
(especially the TMR/LV anagrams).


Christina