BEWARE TRANSLATED PERSON AND PLACE NAMES

One of my gripes about historians is the translation of people’s names. I maintain that the name someone was given in his or her native land cannot and should not be translated — doing so only confuses things. This translation of names goes on in various languages.

Most recently Ken Berger, my friend in San Diego, noted that “Isabella is Elizabeth in Spanish,” Well, no. Isabel is Elizabeth in Spanish and Isabella (also sometimes Isabela) is Isabel in English. And while we are at it, her husband and co-ruler was Fernando not Ferdinand.

Confusion abounds when names are translated. When I read the Spanish press journalists often refer to Isabel II as the Queen of England rather than using Elizabeth. This only adds confusion because the only other Isabel who served as Queen in Spain was Isabel II 18_ )

Here a rant from my 2015 Spanish-English numismatic dictionary Numiscadero:

A modest 21st century proposal: let’s translate words, not names
In this book we let each country decide how its place names will be spelled and pronounced — and we think the rest of the world should follow that. Not Londres but London. Not Seville but Sevilla. Not Rome but Roma. Not Nueva York but New York. Not Sarragossa but Zaragoza. Not Lisbon but Lisboa. Not Brazil but Brasil. Not Naples or the Spanish Napole, but Napoli. Not Castile but Castilla. Not Inglaterra but England. Not EE. UU. but USA or the U.S. Not dólar but dollar. (There is no English word for peseta, peso or centavo.) Not Peking but Beijing. Not Bombay but Mumbai. Oh, wait — those two have already been fixed. Not Guisqui but whiskey. An exception in this book: We will keep Spain and España. But France, you need to work on that Espagne word.

This process deals with people too: Not Pope Francis but Pope Francisco. There have only been two women named Queen Isabel, (not Isabella) both in Spain. That name translates to Elizabeth, and sometimes in Spanish writing we see Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain referred to as Reina Isabel II, and that baffles readers for a few seconds. And her son is not Principe Carlos but Prince Charles. Spain’s King Juan Carlos’ name is not translated English language press largely because no one is named John Charles in English. Now we have his son, King Felipe VI of Spain — but, please, he is not King Philip.

These translated names go far back in time. Centuries ago when it took two months to return home from a grand tour of Europe a wealthy traveler could easily forget how to spell all the places visited. So city of Livorno in Italy since the 1500s has been called Leghorn by the British.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: APRIL 8, 2018 : Joint Monarchs on Coins (http://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n14a11.html)

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