Treasure Cards of the Underworld
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2010
- Messages
- 680
On the subject of translating names, I just recalled the German dub of Darkwing Duck.
While the title character was named as-is, his huma-- err, duck identity was entirely changed to convey the species-naming and such; therefore he's named "Eddie Erpel" in Germany, Erpel being the German word for a male duck, and keeping the alliteration going (though I guess having the last name mean male duck brings up some oddities with the daughter being named that, too. :V )
Similarly, they named things like St. Canard "St. Erpelsburg" or Honker Muddlefoot "Alfred Wirrfuß" (Wirrfuß being the closest to Muddlefoot, I suppose) in Germany, for the purpose (or so I presume) of conveying as much of that stuff to kids as the native language viewers would have gotten. In that sense, I believe conveying things like meaningful names (if it's not serious, human character names without a pun very "obviously" (to a translator) planted in there) can and should be translated to make the viewer feel more "welcome", for lack of a better term.
Just thought I'd throw in my two medals.
While the title character was named as-is, his huma-- err, duck identity was entirely changed to convey the species-naming and such; therefore he's named "Eddie Erpel" in Germany, Erpel being the German word for a male duck, and keeping the alliteration going (though I guess having the last name mean male duck brings up some oddities with the daughter being named that, too. :V )
Similarly, they named things like St. Canard "St. Erpelsburg" or Honker Muddlefoot "Alfred Wirrfuß" (Wirrfuß being the closest to Muddlefoot, I suppose) in Germany, for the purpose (or so I presume) of conveying as much of that stuff to kids as the native language viewers would have gotten. In that sense, I believe conveying things like meaningful names (if it's not serious, human character names without a pun very "obviously" (to a translator) planted in there) can and should be translated to make the viewer feel more "welcome", for lack of a better term.
Just thought I'd throw in my two medals.