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LonelyJar
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28 Feb 2016, 3:45 am

I know this is going to stir up some controversy, but let's take some proper nouns with non-English etymologies and make them more English (as in the language, not necessarily of or pertaining to England). English dub names for people and places from animé or other non-English media do not count, unless the dubbers chose something that was a rough translation or sound-alike or look-alike of the original name. The Anglicized name can be an original idea or something based on real life or from a work of alternate history.

Person: Joseph Stalin --> Joe Steele
Place: Los Angeles --> Angel City

P. S.: Feel free to make your own threads about making names more French, Spanish, Japanese, etc. if you want.



naturalplastic
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02 Mar 2016, 9:31 am

The oldest city built by European colonists in what is today the USA is Saint Augustine Florida.

Its also one of the few foreign language named towns that were Anglicized.

Americans took over Spanish owned Florida, and the vast French ruled areas of the prairie midwest, and the lower Mississippi, that were the Lousianna Territory, and we seized the Spanish (later Mexican) ruled regions of Texas, the Southwestern states, and California. But oddly enough we rarely Anglicize the names of the towns in these regions.

Saint Louis Illinois is spelled the same in French as in English: "Saint Louis".

I think "new" is spelled the same in French. So its still "New Orleans". But Baton Rouge was never changed to "Red Stick".

Florida's "Boca Raton" was never changed to "Rat Mouth".

I guess the local real estate interests would never stand for that! Lol!

We never changed the California cities to "St. Francis", "the Angels", ''Saint James/Jacob", nor "Sacrament".

Kinda glad that they never changed the "Sangre De Christo" Mountains to "the Blood of Christ" mountains. Its more musical sounding.



Trogluddite
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02 Mar 2016, 10:05 am

River Avon = River River (from the Welsh 'Afon' = River) According to Wikipedia there are 16 of them!

Nova Scotia = New Scotland (from latin)


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naturalplastic
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02 Mar 2016, 3:15 pm

Classical composer Giuseppe Verdi.

In English he would be "Joe Green". No to be confused with the NFL's "Mean Joe Green".

The first Neanderthal fossil was found in the Neander Valley Germany. "Neander" mens "new man".
So a "Neanderthal Man" is literally "a man from the valley of the new man".



LonelyJar
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31 May 2016, 5:46 am

"Benjamin Netanyahu's late brother was named Yonatan Netanyahu. Considering that 'Yonatan' is a contraction of 'Yehonatan', and 'Netanyahu' is a reversal of the same name with a slightly different transliteration, his name was basically Jonathan Nathanjo — or Jonathan Nathaniel."
- TV Tropes



lisa_simpson
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31 May 2016, 4:22 pm

Just for a bit of correction:

naturalplastic wrote:
Florida's "Boca Raton" was never changed to "Rat Mouth".

Ratón=Mouse
Rata=Rat

So the translation for Boca Ratón would be Mouse Mouth.


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LonelyJar
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19 Oct 2016, 9:17 pm

Here's another westernized place name: Montréal -> Mount Royal



SilverProteus
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02 Nov 2016, 2:20 pm

"Peru" is "Turkey" in Portuguese.


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mausmaus
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02 Nov 2016, 6:20 pm

Somewhat related.
Around the 70s or 80s in Latin America, when globalization wasn't as pervasive as it is now, everything imported got translated. You could read a book by "Carlos Marx" (some people still call him that) or listen to a vinyl record of "Los Rolling Stones" with songs like "No puedo estar satisfecho" (I can't get no satisfaction).



EclecticWarrior
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05 Dec 2016, 5:16 pm

Here in the UK it used to be common for Ashkenazi Jews to anglicise their names due to antisemitism. For example, the famous Lawson family's original name was Leibsohn, with "Lawson" an anglicisation based on phonetic similarity. Others anglicised their names based on meaning, for example Schneider>Taylor. Still others shortened their original family names- Katznelson>Nelson.

I know this happens a lot in other Anglophone countries, but in the UK it's extremely common. Not so common for other ethnicities to anglicise their names though, going to show just how badly Jews were treated here for centuries.


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IstominFan
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18 Dec 2016, 2:49 pm

I have been studying what my favorite tennis players names mean in English:

Federer-Feather Seller
Nadal-Christmas
Ferrer/Ferrero-Iron

I can't find out, for the life of me, what "Istomin" means. Does anyone know Russian, and can they tell me?



IstominFan
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20 Dec 2016, 10:43 am

My cats' names and their meanings-

Samantha: She who listens (Greek/Hebrew)
Peter: Rock or stone (Greek, "Petros")
Paul: Small one (Hebrew)
Prince: First, also a royal title (Greek)
C.C. (Plain everyday American-Christmas Cat, Calico Cat)



LonelyJar
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05 Apr 2017, 4:39 am

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film from 2014 featured the character Eric Sacks... who originally was going to be a white-washed version of The Shredder (Oroku Saki).



LonelyJar
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16 Apr 2017, 3:30 am

Pablo Rivera = Paul Rivers

Also, if all 50 states of the Union were to have their names Anglicized, there would be some redundancies here and there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_name_etymologies_of_the_United_States



naturalplastic
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18 Apr 2017, 5:42 pm

LonelyJar wrote:
Pablo Rivera = Paul Rivers

Also, if all 50 states of the Union were to have their names Anglicized, there would be some redundancies here and there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_name_etymologies_of_the_United_States


Geraldo Rivera would be "Jerry River"

And the singer Johnny Rivers and the comedian Joan Rivers have the opposite gender versions of the same name (I just realized).



IstominFan
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20 May 2017, 10:30 am

Juan, Ivan and Janko are all variations on the name John and all of these are names of famous tennis players.

The name "Yankees," is a Dutch variant of "John Cheese," a name the Dutch gave the Americans of English descent.

So "Janko," a common Eastern European name, is actually very close to "Yankee."