: Re: For nonfiction books, do you translate or transliterate names, brands, etc. that aren't in a Romanized language? For nonfiction book translations where the target language does not use the Roman

@Annie587

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Dittos to Cary C.

I'd add that if words in a name are being used as common words and the meanings of those words are relevant, I'd probably translate, while if they are just sounds, I'd transliterate.

To use a Roman alphabet example for simplicity: Suppose I was writing a history book and wanted to mention the German leader, Friedrich der Große. I would almost surely translate this "Frederick the Great". That is, I would translate "der Große" to "the Great", but I would translate/transliterate "Friedrich" to the common English equivalent, "Frederick". The name "Friedrich" comes from German roots meaning "peaceful ruler", but I have never seen an English writer refer to Friedrich der Große as "the Great Peaceful Ruler". Likewise, I have never seen an English writer call him "Frederick the Gross", which would in a sense be a fair transliteration but would completely obscure the meaning of the title.

Likewise, if I was translating a company name that meant, say, "Delicious Fruit Corporation", I'm sure I'd translate that. But if the company used made-up words, I wouldn't try to hack out the root. Like if I was translating "Microsoft" to another language, I'd transliterate, I wouldn't try to translate "micro" and "soft". Even more so if I was translating "Ford": the word "ford" means a place where you can wade across a river, but that has nothing to do with what the company is about, so I wouldn't look for a word in the target language for a river crossing. I'd just transliterate "Ford".

I work on a lot of web sites that get translated into foreign languages, including Far East languages. We usually leave company names in the Roman alphabet, and so will have a string of, say, Japanese characters, than a company name in English, then more Japanese characters. Personally I think this looks very strange, but that's what the translators do. On the other hand, when we have Chinese, Japanese, or Korean companies, for the native language version, of course the name is in, say, Japanese, but for the English version, it gets translated or transliterated into English. I guess far easterners are more accepting of English names stuck in the middle of text in their native language, than English speakers are of the reverse.

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