Maybe it doesn’t quite count as a “different” name, but many Russian names for U.S. states (and cities) do adjust the phonetics to better fit Russian pronunciation:
Вайоминг (vie-oh-ming) = Wyoming
Огайо (oh-guy-oh) = Ohio
Нью-Гэмпшир (nyew gem-sheer [hard g]) = New Hampshire
Айдахо (aye-duh-kho [where kh is like the beginning of Yiddish chutzpah]) = Idaho
Well, the map of Canada in wiki-français uses these terms, so I would assume that they are in general use in French, not just in Canada.
There’s no h sound in Russian, so they use the next best letter, often “г” (the Cyrillic letter derived from the Greek gamma, and sounding like g). I once saw a Russian movie of “Hamlet” with the title “Гамлет”, i.e. “Gamlet”.
Lithuanian modifies the endings of foreign proper nouns including foreign place-names, so that they can be declined according to the requirements of Lithuanian grammar. So Texas becomes Teksasas (adding a 1st declension “-as” ending); Chicago becomes the 2nd-declension “Čikaga”, and so on. Strict phonetic spelling rules mean that the Lithuanian version can appear quite different to the English: can you recognise the states of “Juta”, “Aidahas”, and “Vajomingas”?
Irish has “Nua Eabhrac” for New York. In Canada you have “Talamh an Éisc” (Newfoundland) and “Nua Albain” (Nova Scotia).
“Newfoundland” is “Land of the Fish” ? How bizarre.
I’m afraid it’s not obvious to me. Please explain.
Not when you remember that that’s how Cabot sold his discovery of Newfoundland and the Grand Banks to King Henry VII, as recounted in this Canada History Minute:
Well it was settled by fishermen.
It should be “obvious” to forum poster even sven, I don’t imagine it would be terribly interesting to anyone else.
People living along the south eastern coastline of China are generally the first people to have contact with words like “California”, so the Chinese phonetic transcriptions of the word will usually follow the pronunciation in a Southern dialect.
To use his example, The first character, “Jia” of “Jia Li Fu Ni Ya” does not sound like the first syllable “ka” in “California” when pronounced in Mandarin. The actual Mandarin pronouciation uses a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate [t̠͡ɕ] that has no English equivalent, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
However when pronounced in Cantonese, the sound is more akin to “ga”, so when pronounced in Cantonese, the English speaker can easily recognize it as “California”.
It’s not a “translation”. Canada is bilingual. Those are the names in French for the provinces we Anglophones call Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, etc. One is as official and fully the name as the other – granted that primary Anglophones greatly outnumber primary Francophones.
her
Uh…unless you’re claiming that the British and French happened to name the same area “Nova Scotia” and “Nouvelle-Ecosse” completely by coincidence, I think it’s clear that one was a translation of the other.
I don’t know Russian, but it looks like their version of “Wisconsin” (Висконсин) would also start with a /V/ sound. Is that the case?
Japanese has two words for America itself: one is written phonetically in katakana as アメリカ Amerika, and one is 米国 Beikoku, which literally means “rice country.” Like with all kanji-based country names, the first kanji was chosen for its pronunciation more than its meaning. (Further example: France is “Buddha country.”)
For states, however, AFAIK there are only names written phonetically with katakana. For instance, Wisconsin is ウイスコンシン Uisukonshin and Illinois is イリノイ Irinoi.
No – in Russian В has a V sound; if you want a B sound, you use Б.
(And in Modern Greek beta (Β) has a V sound too: if you want transliterate a B sound, you write ΜΠ – mu and pi)
I’m afraid you misread my question — but fortunately you gave me the information I wanted anyway. 
So, thanks.
Here are the ones I am aware of in Quebec (can’t say about France or other French speaking lands):
L’etat de New-York (as opposed to (La Ville de) New York
Pennsylvanie
Caroline du Sud/Nord
Don’t know if they say Georgie
Floride
Californie
Virginie (and Virginie de l’Ouest)
Illinois and Vermont are already French names
Louisane
Presumably they say Dakota du Sud/Nord, but not very often
Presumably they say l’Etat de Washington for the same reason we always say Washington State
A few cities have French names too. For example, my home town of Philadelphie. Also Nouvelle Orleans.
Viskonsin (where i = ee)
but again, as with the /h/, Russian has no /w/, so it’s no change in any real sense - what else are they supposed to short of not transliterating non-Cyrillic words?
BTW for a more complete answer, it is helpful to go to wikipedia’s list of american states and click on the different languages that that list is offered in (left hand column when you scroll down), from Afrikaans to Vietnamese. Doesn’t look like there’s much variation though; some of the words that mean something in English get translated (but never ‘Island’, in Rhode Island, apparently), some endings get changed around or the spelling gets changed to deal with non-existing letters/sounds, but by and large that seems to be it
