How sadly lacking in imagination! 
Actually, I think literalism in places names–as opposed to imagination–is usually a good thing.
What!!! Do you want to change my address from 123 Calle Bonita Estrella to…
7368SE House Tract Lot 5 Street #13S?
My relatives back East will start to suspect that Shangra La isn’t what I’ve made it out to be.
I went to a High School named San Jean Baptist, it was french, and the Jean was pronounced JON. Sounded like John, and was the french word for John. Just as Pierre is Peter, or Etienne is Steven. ETC.
Pronounced “JON”, or “Zhon”?
And if you want boring street names, take a look at Salt Lake City some time. Most of the street names, in both directions, are just numbers.
No. Most abstract numberings aren’t literal at all, with respect to real features. They’re arbitrary, depending on where some planner first set his pen. Numberings make sense only when they’re counting from a readily-understood and important real starting point, like Second, Third and Fourth Street counting away from a genuine Main Street (or equivalent). Many numberings would be better replaced by literal descriptions of where or what they are, or (for roads) where they go.
And Jankin -> Janke -> Yankee (New York City was originally called New Amsterdam, and “Yankee” started out as a pejorative catch-all name for its residents, similar to the way Germans as a group were, at times, called “Fritz” or Russians “Ivan”).
I’ve heard tell that there are more Second Streets than First Streets in the US, primarily because First Street so often gets named Main Street instead.
In my city, we have a series of streets named Adams, Buchanan, Cleveland, Delaware, Emerson, Franklin, and Garfield. A while back, while walking one of the streets that crosses all of these, I glanced down at the ancient sidewalk — we still have a lot of the original sidewalks in the older residential neighborhoods, and the street names are embossed/engraved into the cement — and discovered that these streets were originally called, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Not coincidentally, these streets (avenues, actually, running North-South) form a grid with First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth streets (running East-West). What’s now called Washington Street was the original First Street, but at some point it was renamed and the numbered streets all got shoved one block north. Washington divides the city into North and South addresses.
Probably the closest Canadian equivalent would be Johnny Canuck, although he’s been out of use since the early 20th century (with a brief makeover and revival for WW2). In the 1800s he was very much the counterpart of Uncle Sam as a convenient national symbol for political cartoons and such.
Canada has a lot of Main Streets, but the term doesn’t really have the same cultural force as in the US.
If the name was indeed in French, it was “Saint-Jean-Baptiste”. And “Jean” is pronounced somewhat like [ʒɑ̃].
My school didn’t use the english word ‘Saint’.
No. But presumably they used the corresponding French word “saint”. “San” isn’t a French word.
Never heard of 'im. You say he’s the big guy up north?
Actually, in the first picture, he looks like Teddy Roosevelt, and it seems that Uncle Sam, John Bull, and Pete the Prospector are about to steal his boots.
Can’t say I’m aware of this character, but I don’t know of any personification of the Canadian government (or of the “Canadian character”) so it’s probably as good as any a choice.
BigT said:
Well, that hits on an essential point of what it means to translate something. What you are pointing out is that French is constructed differently than English, works differently than English - so congratulations, French isn’t English.
I can agree that there’s a semantic difference between the English version telling the guy “the morning bells are ringing so wake up”, whereas the French version is telling him “get up and go ring the morning bells”. I don’t think there’s value in pointing out that French grammar works differently.
English has plenty of similar elisions. Those are contextual phrases.