2772: Translating Names: People and Places Jul 23, 2024

In country names, there are endonyms, the same name as a country uses for itself such as France, and exonyms, which are those applied totally foreign such as Germany (native: Deutschland) and Japan (native: Nihon). The trouble is, the concept of endonyms exactly is somewhat tricky to nail down: Italy is the English version, or equivalent, of ‘Italia’ from normal language change, but is still considered an exonym because it does not totally resemble it. Either way, in recent history, the trend has been sharply moving towards endonyms. 

While that is an ongoing debate, this is matter is basically settled when it comes to personal names, i.e. we don’t anymore. This used to be commonplace to translate names, like the Roman, Mark Anthony (Marcus Antonius), Genoese-born Christopher Columbus (Cristoffa Corombo), and a very exceptional case wherein English name of Guy Fawkes was actually adopted in the reverse as Guido Fawkes even in his lifetime because he fought for Spain in the 8 Years War. This practice was common across Europe and indeed the whole world, and everyone from merchants up to heads of state were addressed by different names when they traveled.

Perhaps one of the last major examples of this was with Joseph Stalin, born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, but certainly for most of history through to the early 20th century, this was the norm. This practice died out both for leaders, and around the same time, for people moving into new countries like the USA where previously people’s names were anglicized not by any official pressure, but social expectations, which lessened over the years.