I don’t know the original spelling, I back-formed it, surmising that it went through the Greek standardization and then back to Roman alphabet. But what I said would work if that were the original Nigerian spelling. The N before the MP is a mystery, maybe they couldn’t put two Ms back to back that way. But -mbo is a common ending in Nigerian names. In any case, the guy is a valid answer to the OPs question, of a person in recent times whose name got respelled .
Spanish has a much greater tendency to translate names than English does. English formerly had a greater tendency to translate names than it does now.
My favorite example is the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, known in Spanish as Fernando and Isabel. In English they are known as Ferdinand and Isabella. To be consistent, it should probably be Ferdinand and Elizabeth in English.
Elizabeth I of England is known as Isabel I in Spanish. Even Elizabeth II is known as Isabel II.
Juan Carlos of Spain is always known by that name in English; he is never called John Charles. However, Elizabeth I’s contemporary Felipe II is generally known asPhilip II in English.
Not merely “respelled” or “transliterated” … but “translated”.
Respelled/transliterated: English *John *to French Djanne, Italian Gian, Spanish (very roughly) Chan (Nonexistent spellings of “John” to make a point, except I think Gian is out there in the wild)
Translated: English *John *to French Jean, Italian Giovanni, Spanish Juan
So, I checked and sure enough, the history books I read in the eighties say “Jorge Washington” and “Benjamín Franklin” (with a tilde).
However they are reprints of books originally published in the sixties.
Nah, not necessarily “dead”. I just meant prominent persons with international fame. It’s looking like one of the answers to the OP is, in fact, Queen Elizabeth II.
I had assumed, upon typing the OP, that the practice of translating names had largely ended ~1700-1800. What inspired the OP directly was looking at various articles about the 16th-century John Calvin (aka Jean Cauvin, Juan Calvino, Johannes Calvin, etc.). I got to wondering we call John Calvin … that … and we don’t call the 20th-century oceanographer “James Cousteau”.
Hilariously enough, Nehru’s son-in-law (Indira’s husband) was a Parsi named Feroz Ghandy, he changed his name to “Gandhi” to (I would assume) try to associate himself with Gandhi’s legacy.
Thank you. I did not know that.
I found these interesting, as well:
Carlos, príncipe de Gales
Príncipe Guillermo, duque de Cambridge
Catalina, duquesa de Cambridge
Príncipe Enrique de Gales
Will and Kate’s kids are even Príncipe Jorge de Cambridge y Princesa Carlota de Cambridge … at least on Wikipedia español.
At least for the British Royal Family, Portugese Wikipedia seems to translate the names much like the Spanish site. Italian and French Wikipedia keep the English names.
And Latvian Wikipedia, as **Colophon **pointed out, does respell all the Royal Family names but does so in a way that at least approximates the original English approximation. Not translation, but interesting all the same.
Seems like with at least Spanish (and Portuguese?), translating the names of European monarchy is simply tradition. French and Italian sometimes does it, as well.
This doesn’t seem to extend to non-monarchy European leaders, though – Belgian prime minister Charles Michel is never Carlos Michel. Polish president Andrzej Duda is never Andres Duda. And so on.
How would something like “Mother Teresa” qualify? Obviously, the original Portuguese or Hindu word was not “Mother”. I must confess that I don’t know if she actually qualified for the title “Mother” or even if she could. (Although some leaders of a herd of nuns are known as “Mother Superior”) Teresa is obviously(?) the original Portuguese. It follows the reverse pattern like some Euro-royalty, where the name is translated but not the title - “Tsar Nicholas”. it’s more like “Chairman Mao”.
(Off topic) In grad school I took a semiconductor physics class from an SK Ghandi. Heaven help the poor student who accidentally spelled his name “Gandhi” - retribution was swift and merciless…
Hmm, I guess it was just leaving out the first h of SK Ghandhi’s name that led to swift and merciless retribution? He was totally relaxed about the second one, saw it as pretty much optional among his close friends?
Proper names should not be translated.
Maybe Qaddafi/Gadhafi/Gaddafi/Qadhafi ?
Doesn’t really seem to be a matter of “should” or “should not”, but rather a matter of tradition and custom for some speech communities at various times (even up to the present). See posts #14, #24, and #28 above.
Transliteration between Arabic and Roman alphabet with that one, not translation. If English-language media referred to the former Libyan leader as Muammar Bowman or Muammar Archer, then it would be more in line with the OP.
Many European languages refer to her as various translations of “Teresa of Calcutta” or “Mother Teresa of Calcutta” (e.g. Spanish (Madre) Teresa de Calcuta, similarly in Italian and Portuguese). In French, she is Mère Teresa (keeping *Teresa *instead of Thérèse).
In Hungarian, she was Teréz anya before canonization, and is now Kalkuttai Szent Teréz. Hungarian is one of the apparently few languages that does translate “Teresa”.
The -ova ending is a feminine form and the Czechs have a habit of adding it to all foreign female surnames. J K Rowlingova always makes me smile when I see it on posters. (rolling over)
It used to be compulsory for all women to take the feminine form of their husbands surname upon marriage. That rule was relaxed only a few years ago and it’s now optional. But you can’t change your mind later and any female children you have must be named the same way. i.e. if you choose -ova they will have it too, if you just take your husbands name as it is, your daughters will be the same.
We have a newsreader who doesn’t use the feminine form of her married name, yet still pronounces all foreign names with the -ova. She gets a lot of flak from people over it on both sides of the feminist divide.
Google is right, Pan is the equivalent of Mr, I can see it on my electric bill from here, right next to the two street numbers for my apartment. The surnames I can understand, the dual house numbering is still a bit strange to me,
That’s probably just the Wikipedia editing standards. George Washington is, in fact, known is Poland mostly as Jerzy Waszyngton. There really seems to be no rule about this sort of things as (e.g.) Thomas Jefferson or John Adams are known under their original name.
As an even weirder example, The UK’s Prince Charles’s name is translated as “Karol” while Princes William and Harry’s name are never translated. Oh, and the reigning monarch’s names are usually translated, but for some reason Juan Carlos of Spain was an exception.
I see there is no complete answer yet… how many names does the OP need ? 200 million ?? 
Many peoples names are autotranslated even when they are written in original, or close enough (russian to latin?), alphabet.