I disagree. Hispanics translate our own names all the time when dealing with foreigners, because we’d rather people say something they can pronounce and we can still recognize as “our name”, than have people half-choke themselves mangling the original pronunciation. I even give different versions when dealing with people from different English dialects: whichever spelling comes out less mangled and choked-on in pronunciation is the one I happen to prefer at that time.
It’s in part a matter of what do you think of as “a name”. Spanish law doesn’t even have the concept of “legal names” for either physical or legal persons, it does have the concept of “illegal names” and any name that’s not covered by that is legal; many of our former colonies have inherited that view. American companies tend to have policies forbidding nicknames; there are many cultures where nicknames are perfectly normal and even desirable (they indicate acceptance into the group). And so forth.
People who write or speak in Latin (including the Roman Catholic Church, the hosts of contemporary news programme Nuntii Latini, and the editors of Vicipaedia, the Latin edition of Wikipedia) routinely translate the names of modern and contemporary people. For example, the main page of Vicipaedia today announces the death of former Uruguayan president “Georgius Batlle” (Jorge Batlle Ibáñez). Its article on American presidents lists them all, from “Georgius Washingtonius” to “Baracus Obama”.
If we insist on actual translation, full name, the name that comes to mind for the OP is “Crazy Horse”. While chiefs like Tecumseh have kept their name in their original language - I know I’ve seen Crazy Horse’s name in its original language, but without Google I bet nobody outside of a small group would know or recognize it.
Side note: Crazy Horse is I think about to beat the record set by Ramses II for total cubic yardage of statues of his image.
The OP has generally been answered – “The current British Royal Family” is as good an answer as any. I don’t really think there can be one single definitive answer anyhow. The discussion has been fascinating all the same.
I wish I had thought to check Washington’s Polish Wikipedia page. Though the header is titled George Washington … the first thing they get out the way in the article is that he is known in Polish as Jerzy Waszyngton – just as you wrote.
In contrast, John Calvin’s first name is translated even in the header on his Polish Wikipedia page – Jan Kalwin. The Czech page is similar. The Russian page, however, doesn’t go with Иван Кальвин, but with the transliteration Жан Кальвин.
If you mean people whose name is always translated, no matter what, you may be right. But other Indian leaders are in the same category. Sitting Bull, one of his contemporaries, is one that comes to mind. Black Hawk, a Sauk leader from earlier in the 19th century is another. I’m sure there are others.
That I assume applied to everyone with a Christian or Bible name that has local language variants in each European country - Jorge is George is Jerzy, Enrique is Henry, Jan is John is Ian is Jean, etc. Whether then name is translated is more a matter of the inclination of the speaker than common usage.
It`s interesting to wonder why Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse had their names literally translated, while Tecumseh (precedes them) and Geronimo (after them) did not.
Papal names, as mentioned tend to get the Christian Name translation treatment, but the numbers are left in the original Roman.
“Red Sleeves”. His real name apparently translate as “He Sits in Place”, which is not the most appropriate name for a military leader, so I can see why he changed it.
In Israel, they call Popes by their Latin names, except when those names are Hebrew in origin. Thus, the current Pope is Franciscus, and the one before him was Benedictus, but the one before *him *was Yochanan Paulus (and before you ask, the name “Paul” is not considered a variant of “Saul”).
Israelis also occasionally “Yiddishize” the names of non-Israeli Jews, like Steven Shpielberg and Albert Einshtein. It’s less common nowadays, though.
You could, but then the possibilities are endless, and ongoing. Every language has native sounds that don’t exist in English, or foreign-to-English ways of pronouncing sounds, so just about any foreign name will settle into a “translated” version among most English speakers, going by your looser definition of “translate.”
That’s a good point. Still, English-speakers could pronounce “Enshtein” just as easily as they pronounce “Einstein”, so I don’t think it’s just a matter of native sounds.
