Information Highways

Peculiarities of the translation of personal names

At first sight it may seem that the translation of the personal names into Russian is not difficult enough. The Russian translation can be rather provisional, because private names are usually translated with the help of transliteration or transcription. In modern linguistics personal names are often defined as denominative lexical units unlike the nominal words that are defined as indicators. In other words personal names have the main nominative function in order to differentiate the objects of the same type unlike the nominal names, which have the main function of naming the meaning of the word that is to connote it. Moreover naming people and geographical names are not the primary lexical units in their origin as they are formed on the basis of the nominal units.
In every day communication and any other context where personal names perform their usual functions, their inner form is not accepted. It is neglected. Even if the sense of this form is clear enough it does not have any characteristic and merit functions as their potential evaluation is always preserved. Inner form remains the part of the word structure itself that is used, as it was mentioned above, to name some concrete objects, but not to define them by means of their notion and lexical meaning. That is why from the theoretical point of view the semantic Russian translation of “usual” personal names, which have their own denominational “twins”, can lead to considerable informative text wrench; and from the practical point of view it could lead to great confusion in the toponimy first of all.

So, if the inner form of the word is not taken into account, personal and geographic
names are translated into Russian with the help of some new and old rules of transcription or traditionally.

Traditional equivalents are presented in the dictionaries. For example: Moskau – Москва. The special layer of traditional equivalents is biblical names. Diminutive names are translated into Russian with the help of transcription: Gretchen - Гретхен; Коля – Kolja (translation from Russian). There is one older tradition of substitution of German diminutive suffixes chen, -lien into Russian: Hanschen – Гансик.

The nicknames of people are historical and do not depend on the context; the nicknames of the characters in the literary texts, which are used to describe the characters preserve the semantic of the root morpheme while translation into Russian: Карл Лысый- Karl Bald (translation from Russian), Филипп Красивый –Philip Handsome, Карл Великий Karl the Great. The pen-names are translated with the help of transcription except those cases when they are charactonyms.

The names of animals (zoo names) are translated into Russian in the case if their inner forma are clear. In other cases they are transcribed. International names are transcribed on the basis of the original text: Рекс-Rex, Джек-Jack.

There are no certain rules, but some precise traditions while Russian translation of geographical names. The biggest part of the names is transcribed despite of the charactonym nature of the inner form. For example: the mountain Jungfrau.
But for the translation of the names of seas, lakes and big bays into Russian, traditional Russian translation of separate components is used. For instance: Ладожское озеро – Ladoga Lake.

Microtoponyms that are the names of the streets and squares are transcribed as usual, for example: Postgase – Постгассе. There are also traditional translation equivalents in Russian, such as Champs Elyses - Елисейские поля.

The names of public places and organizations are transcribed as well as the names of shops, hotels and trade names: Volkswagen - “фольксваген”.

The names of ships and spacecrafts are transcribed; the exotic coloring of the name that points the priority of people in the sea or in space is on the first place while translation into Russian, but not the image itself: Voyager - Вояжер.