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

[Jaja Redor]

No: HPFGUIDX 140961


bboyminn:

OK, this is old news, I've ranted about this before, but I honestly
don't know why they translate the names. No matter what country I live
in, my name is my name, and that doesn't change. 

Of course, I understand that some names won't have the necessary
impact or implied cleverness in other languages, so I can understand
some name changes. For example, in another language 'Sirius - the Dog
Star' many have another name. In order to make the connection between
Sirius and dogs, his name might need to change. 

But JKR herself pointed out incomprehensible name changes. For
example, in Italian (I think) Professor Dumbledore has been changed to
Professor Silencio. The translators couldn't make head or tails out of
the deconstruction of 'Dumbledore'. The best they could do was make an
association between 'dumb' and 'silent' and came up with 'Silencio'.
In that case, the name should have simply been left alone. His name is
Dumbledore, which, while it may have meaning in it self, has no
meaning in the story, and therefore shouldn't be changed.

Other names are in-between, names like Remus Lupin. Both Remus,
regarding the legend of Romulus and Remus, and Lupin are, directly or
indirectly, wolf related references. If the translator couldn't come
up with new names that had the same 'wolf' implications then they
should have just left it alone. 

Just out of curiousity, in the legend of Romulus and Remus, two
infants raised by wolves, are their names changed in the various
foreign language version of that fable? 

I guess my basic point is that unless there is a compelling reason to
do so, names should not be translated.

Just one man's opinion.

Steve/bboyminn

 

Jaja:

 

You really have a point there... but this site really got me thinking. You might want to check it out too.

 

http://www.eulenfeder.de/int/gbint.html

 

When I found out that Black was actually Zwarts in Deutsch version of Harry Potter, it got me thinking. Regulus Black is not there but it mentioned Sirius Black and was written as:

 

Dutch - Sirius Zwarts

Norwegian - Sirius Svaart

Polish - Syriusz Czarny

Finnish - Sirius Musta

 

Jaja, who agrees with you at some point but still is thinking about that translation



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