Question about rendering names

[beltspinner.livejournal.com]

I know that names aren't supposed to change that much, but what about when the name contains "W", "H" or "th" sounds? Names like Haley, Heather, and Will?

Thanks!

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Will - Уилл or, less frequently, Вилл (you can see Уильям Шекспир and Вильям Шекспир)

Haley and Heather will start with Х (Хейли). I am not that sure about th, though, just because there is no such sound in Russian, so it has to become either т or c.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

I always thought H-names were transliterated into Г, i.e. Hamlet - Гамлет, Hitler - Гитлер.

[oryx_and_crake]

It rather depends on the established tradition, e.g. names that were borrowed from English sources in XIX century and earlier would transform H into Г, W into B and so on, while latest tendency is to have H as X, W as У etc. (see the example of Хаксли and Гексли below). That's why Harry Potter becomes Гарри Поттер (the book is a new one, the traditional rendering of Harry was established in earlier times), but Arthur Hailey stays Артур Хейли.

[justaduck.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and I noticed when I was there the infamous, Гарри Поттер was spelled with a г as well.

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

My Russian teacher said that my friend's name (Matthew) was spelled something like Матю.

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

Or was it Мэтю? I forget. o.o

[cincinnat.livejournal.com]

Мэттью. Quite precise.

[aravir.livejournal.com]

IMHO:

Haley - Хэйли
Heather - Хезер (Хизер, Хитер etc) - most complicated one. I saw such transcriptions before.
Will - Уилл

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Ach, yeah, forgot about the languages that don't have þ and ð turning them into s and z ...

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

That's not a rule.
Greek θ moved to Russian т or ф: Фёдор ~= Theodor, Фома ~= Thomas, theatre = театр, thesis = тезис...

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

but modern names Theodor and Thomas are translated as Теодор and Томас respectively

[cincinnat.livejournal.com]

I suppose we have театр because it wasn't taken directly from Greek...

[ob-ivan.livejournal.com]

i can't see any other reason too

Heather

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

If you're name is Heather, I would almost suggest going by your middle name. I wish I had while I was in Russia, because I just hate the sound of "Heeter" and "Heezer." As my friend Annie put it: "It's such a pretty name in English, and sounds so awful in Russian!" And to make it worse, the X at the beginning of a word sometimes sounds awkward to Russians, who will turn it into a G!!!!! Which meant my name was being pronounced "geezer"!!!!!

Going by Erin would have been so much easier...(sigh)

[neurokinetic.livejournal.com]

w=у
h=ч

Хейли, Уилл.

And i am not sure about "th"

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Russian does contain an H sound ... it's just harder than ours. You use х instead of h, usually.

Th is usually reduced to т, from what I've seen, and w is usually transliterated to в, because of the whole w vs. v thing (look, for example, at the slavic languages that use the Roman alphabet: a lot of them use w a lot. And German uses w to represent the sound expressed by в.) So, I'd say:

Хейлий (maybe?), Хетер, and Вил.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Not exactly. Хейли, Хизер / Хитер, Уилл /Вилл.

[staring-frog.livejournal.com]

Хетер and Хедер are also legitimate.

It depends.

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

Hudson River - река Гудзон
Ms. Hudson - мисс Хадсон
Thomas Huxley - Томас Гексли
Auldos Huxley - Олдос Хаксли
Walter Scott - Вальтер Скотт
Walt Whitman - Уолт Уитмен

Does it make sense? Thought so.

Re: It depends.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The first ones in those couples represent the older transcription from the 19th and even 18th century. In the 17th century, British merchant Harold Harvey would be called Гарольд Гарвей in Moscow. English is not alone - 19th century German poet Heinrich Heine still is called Генрих Гейне in Russian.

Re: It depends.

[ex-ex-zhuzh.livejournal.com]

That's true. However!

Sir Walter Raleigh somehow managed to end up as сэр Уолтер Рэли (Рэлей, Ралей, Рали, Роли, depending on phase of the moon). Whereas Sir Walter Scott is still being called сэр Вальтер Скотт, despite him living much later. Likewise, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) would be сэр Филип(п) Си́дни today, but Walt Disney is Уолт Дисне́й. Tradition! Tradition, tradition!

So, if you want to name a historical person in Russian, you have to look him up in a Russian encyclopedia or something.

Re: It depends.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>So, if you want to name a historical person in Russian, you have to look him up in a Russian encyclopedia or something.

This is correct. And not only in the names area. If a literate Russian tourist comes to Paris, he starts looking for площадь Вогезов, because he knows that famous place -- only driving nuts the guides who cannot get how площадь Вогезов can be connected to Place des Vosges...

Re: It depends.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh, the french names are an absolute nightmare!
The English ones don't change this much when translated into Russian.

[http://users.livejournal.com/__marginal/]

Some example:

Rutherford - Резерфорд