Anglicized Puns

I know China has roots in the historical Qin dynasty, but why is the English word China and not something like Zongo or something that seems closer? Especially since the Qin dynasty was so far back in history that the people who formed the English language would have pretty much no contact with them.

I've been able to track one line of my family up to when they arrived here from Norway. I was even able to find the village they were born in from their arrival/naturalization papers. But I'm struggling to now track the line in Norway. This ancestor's name on all the US censuses was John Johnson Haugen. I believe I may have found a match on the Norwegian census. The year of birth matches and it's the village he was born in. But the name on the Norwegian census is Jon Jonsen Hougen. Clearly this is very close, bit how do I verify it's the correct person? I'm running into this issue with other lines as well, any tips?

I've always noticed, Desis that are born in America/UK/etc. tend to get Desi names like Gurpreet, Pranav, Priya, etc. The ones who immigrate here also keep their names. While East Asian parents will name their kids Daniel, Kevin, Vivian, or even some old school name like Susan. And the ones that immigrate here also change their names a lot of the time.

The only Desis I see that change their names to something white sounding are conservatives like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley. And even then some still keep their names (like Dinesh D'Souza).

For example, all Arabic and Chinese and Indian and Korean and Japanese names are rewritten in the latin alphabet so people who don't speak those languages will be able to read them. In fact, even cyrillic names are romanized. But when reading names from languages which do use the latin alphabet but with a different phonology, the names are typically left the same.

During some genealogical research, I noticed that it seems to be frequent that the (mostly Sicilian) given named "Calogero" and "Pellegrino" were often given the nicknames "Charlie" or "Chas" for Calogero and "Benny" for Pellegrino. Does anyone know how Pellegrino could become Benny (Biagio seems more likely).

Are there other names that got Anglicized after immigration in a non-intuitive way when the same name was uncommon or non existent in English?

My grandparents changed our name because they thought they’d be accepted. It’s a shame bc I feel there are a lot Jews whose names have been changed especially in Hollywood.

I'm trying to decipher what town this could be. https://imgur.com/a/G8eKnY7

I've only found three references to this specific name spelling online, to my eye they seem like phonetic mispellings. But a reference to Kreis ___ and Posen leads me to believe it is a Prussian town or district, potentially Leszno? Leszno = Littnow?

I'm assisting a researcher who has supplied a citation in Russian but using the Latin alphabet. I think there are too many spelling deviations for Google Translate to figure this out. Any help translating to English or Cyrillic Russian would be great.

Vera Kazarina, "Visantiiskie tradicii ikonografii plashanic i vozduhov konca XX - nacala XXI veka." V izd. Trudi Gosudarstvennogo Ermitaga: materiali konferencii, posviashennoi pamiati A.V. Bank (1906-1984), red. Vera Zalesskaia i dr., 81-100. SPb.: Izd-vo Gos. Ermitaga, 2015, t. 74: Vizantia v kontekste mirovoi kulturi.

It seems particularly odd as Horatio is a name that English adopted unlike, say, Pompey

I am currently trying to do a United Kingdom of Great Britain and France playthrough (I keep and integrate France as England. I would like to anglicize the names of some of the cities once I integrate them, could you all please give me some suggestions?

I am huge into roleplaying in the sense of history and town etymology, and this would really help a lot!

Anyone else notice this? Gamora and Dax now have anglicized facial features and voices. Just..... why?

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In English, it’s customary to keep the spelling of foreign names (provided the language in question uses the Latin alphabet) and expect the reader to know the pronunciation rules of all the languages to pronounce such names correctly. Trying to do so with names like Siobhán or Jacques while following the rules of the English language (famous for their consistency to begin with) isn’t likely to end up resembling the original pronunciations much.

What examples of foreign proper names are particularly different from what a native English speaker might attempt, possibly to the point of being unable to attract the attention of the bearer of the name, or to ask for directions if it’s a place name?

I learned from a name article years ago - thanks, Laura Wattenberg - about the common pressure/trend to assimilate by changing one’s first name during immigration at the turn of the century - for example, Isaac might become Isidore, Herschel might become Harry.

Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of common “English/American” equivalents for Yiddish/Jewish names? I’m hoping this could help my husband with tracing his genealogy.

Thanks for any info!

Edit: thank you all for this info! The impetus - we recently found out that my husband’s grandfather, who we knew as Robert (assimilated last name), was actually born Aaron Schlingenstein. Unfortunately many of his family members are no longer with us and can’t provide context, so we’d like to try and map out his family history. This is a great place to begin!

As a native English speaker, I find myself avoiding, wherever possible, the many anglicized words that exist in the German language. For example, I will always say "schlau" instead of "smart" or "clever" and I'll say "ausgezeichnet" or "hervorragend" instead of "exzellent."

I think part of the reason is I secretly worry that the German I'm talking to will think that I just used the English version of the word and "got lucky" that it happens to be used in German as well. Also, I think part of me is kind of annoyed to see that English is being so strongly incorporated into the German language.

Sometimes it seems like American/English culture and language is too dominant, and when I speak German I don't want to use English words if possible. I can see incorporating the word if there's no suitable German counterpart (e.g. I'm not aware of an exact German word for "publicity") but that's usually not the case.

Any other English native speakers do this?

Essentially making a name sound more Spanish.

Especially with Spanish names, for example, why is San Francisco still San Francisco and not Saint Francis? Was there ever a desire to change the names in the new territories?

What if Britain decided to completely abolish the Indian languages and replace all of it with English and send a mass migration of British settlers to the Indian subcontinent? They also abolished Hinduism and decided to convert all of the population to Christianity.They also renamed Indian cities and started to force their culture on the natives and force them to become British.How would India be like today if all of this happened? Would the population mainly be descendants of British settlers? Would they speak a different accent? Would they develop their own culture? What kind of country would India be after it becomes independent from the UK? How would it be called?

My fiancé was listening to a podcast where a woman from Korea claims that she was given an English name by a judge when her and her family were becoming Canadian citizens.

She claims they had no choice in the matter, and that the name was also chosen for her.

I was always under the impression that people sometimes chose to have an "English" name that they might use in work/school settings that mostly functions like a nickname and not legally changing their name.

Can anyone shed light on whether this was ever an actual practice?