Language desk
< October 5	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 7 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 6

Lithuanian naming customs for foreigners

Somehow I ended up on Lithuanian Wikipedia and saw they adapt foreign names to Lithuanian language: Harry Kane becomes Haris Keinas and our local talisman Ivan Perišić is Ivanas Perišičius. I respect it but also find it amusing, if not hilarious. My questions: who decides what the Lithuanian version will look like and is there something of a defined protocol in renaming of foreigners? Splićanin (talk) 22:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian is even more notorious than Lithuanian for modifying foreign names; you can read about it in the book "Lingo" by Gaston Dorren, or several old Language Ref. Desk discussions... AnonMoos (talk) 00:40, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Other examples are Serbian when written in the Latin alphabet (which is one of the things that differentiate Serbian and Croatian), languages such as Azerbaijani and Turkmen, and traditionally also Albanian (although the customs are changing). You transcribe the name phonetically, and where necessary you add a case ending (in Lithuanian and Latvian even for the nominative case). Yes, there are regulations and traditions as to how particular sounds from particular languages are or should be adapted. In fact, this is not unlike languages using non-Latin alphabets, which have to transcribe all foreign names anyways. --Theurgist (talk) 10:17, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What does Serbian do, actually? I think some languages tend to change the names, since they're difficult to implement with the cases and general grammar, and for Czech (I think), all female personal surnames/ famiy names had an -ova added (which feminists argued against, since it implied a woman was owned by her husband). But for Serbian, I thought that the name only was orthographically changed, in order to preserve a 1-to-1 mapping between Latin and Cyrillic, such as writing 'Michael' as 'Majkel' and so on. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Lithuanian doesn't change the names either, it just changes the orthography and adds endings even for the nominative. --Theurgist (talk) 13:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Polish language is also notorious in that it adapts regnal names to native form, such as Charles III - Karol III or George II - Jerzy II, but when it comes to ordinary people's equivalents, the names remain in original form (Charles, George, etc). Brandmeister^talk 17:02, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think Swedish does that for historical regents, but not current. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:13, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English too; John of Denmark was actually called Hans or Johannes, while Charles I of Austria was really Karl. Alansplodge (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many languages still do this with papal names: Ioannes XXIII becomes Giovanni XXIII, John XXIII, Jean XXIII, Juan XXIII, ... --Lambiam 20:23, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alansplodge -- You can see the different practices over time from the article titles Philip V of Spain vs. Felipe VI... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:07, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed; perhaps British people are better able to cope with foreign names nowadays. Alansplodge (talk) 11:48, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, you're spilling ink here. Being a Slav, I know what Czechs, Serbs and others do with foreign names. The question was Lithuanian-specific and I did receive some related answers, for which I'm thankful. I disagree with TheUrgist who says that "Lithuanian [language] doesn't change names" when it actually does; Keinas in English would be Caners, not Kane. I don't have time for reading a book by Dorren, but would love to be directed towards old Ref Desk discussions. Splićanin (talk) 23:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't. The stem is Kein-, which serves to phonetically resemble the English original, while the -as is an obligatory ending for the nominative case (the citation form). The name is declined thus: Keinas, Keino, Keinui, Keiną, etc, which is akin to Serbian Kejn, Kejna, Kejnu, Kejnom, etc, the noticeable difference being that Serbian has a zero ending for the citation form. On an unrelated note, my username is the word theurgist, and is not formed as the + urgist. --Theurgist (talk) 01:11, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It does change and I'm glad you pointed out Serbian which doesn't by leaving the nominative unscathed. You know when commentators say a few names in a row of players who've touched the ball in quick succession? Keinas is somebody else. I don't care about your username. Splićanin (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to care, but maybe you too would want to correct someone if they misunderstood and misspelled yours (which I understand perfectly). --Theurgist (talk) 00:22, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, a Germanic name such as Hlūdawīg was Latinized in two steps: (one) approximate the Germanic with Latin sounds, resulting in the stem Lūdovīc-; (two) append the Latin suffixes for the second declension (in the nominative singular -us), resulting in Lūdovīcus, Lūdovīci, Lūdovīcō, ... . --Lambiam 17:29, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting thing is that when Lithuanian names themselves are cited in other languages, the original nominative ending is reanalyzed as part of the stem, so they can end up technically having two case endings. With the same patterns as above, in Lithuanian there's Valdas, Valdo, Valdui, Valdą, and in Serbian/Croatian Valdas, Valdasa, Valdasu, Valdasom. In Georgian there would be the double nominative Valdasi. --Theurgist (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]