In translating the Vedanā Saṃyutta, I came to SN 36.19, and then I wondered: could we translate Pañcakaṅga’s name? Something like Fivelimbs. Unfortunately this works less well in Spanish, my target language, where all I can think of is “Quintópodo” (quintopod, just like eight-limbed animals are ‘octopods’), which sounds like a Roman emperor… But what do y’all think?
I see @sujato ventured freely translating Yodhajīva as ‘Dustin’, so I figured… why not Quintópodo? (I could add a note on the first occurrence explaining it.)
Sure, yes, we could do that. I’d want to look deeper into it: why is he called “fivelimbs”? There’s probably a story in the commentary. Maybe it’s his occupation? Or family? Or some personal event? Maybe we find something related in a Vedic text?
The interesting reason for translating names (apart from the occasional homage for a good friend!) is that names in Pali often have meanings that pertain to the context.
Buddhaghosa says (MA.ii.629; SA.iii.86) that Pañcakanga was the Thapati’s personal name, and that he was so called (“Five tools”) because he carried the five tools of a carpenter: vāsīpharasu (adze), nikhādana (chisel), danda (measuring stick), muggara (gavel), and kālasutta (blackened thread). He explains Thapati by vaddhakī jettha.
So I was wrong with aṅga: it’s not five limbs but five tools. I’ll see what I can do with that!
That’s the trouble: There are some names that are difficult to interpret, or they were understood to mean different things to different people. So, there are edge cases that we might want to leave untranslated, but nothing says a name with a clear meaning can’t be translated. It’s really a matter of what style and voice we want the translation to have. Myself, I’ve opted to try to transliterate names as much as possible and provide interpretations in notes, but it’s just the policy I settled on. Many names are symbolic and play a role in the narrative, as Sujato says.
My two cents here:
I think it really depends. There are several aspects to consider and professional translators usually are well aware of them.
→ Who is the audience/the reader?
→ Is the audience/the reader familiar with the source language (to a certain degree at least)?
→ What’s the target language?
→ Most importantly: What are the payoffs/the drawbacks of translating proper names? (e.g. in terms of readability; faithfulness to the text, aptronyms, proper names with meaning etc.)
Some examples:
For the sake of the argument: Suppose you are to translate a story where the main character’s name is William Wordsmith. If a) the plot/the story has nothing to do with the character’s ability to use words , you might want to leave it untranslated. If it b) does have a bearing (Mr. Wordsmith is a professor for poetry - or - in order to create a pun because Mr. Wordsmith is utterly ineloquent), I think it’s best to translate the name if the target language allows for a good rendering.
I dunno if people outside of Europa are familiar with Pipi Longstocking. She’s a a fictional character in a series of children’s books and she wears long stockings (surprise). In the Swedish original, her last name ist Langstrump (with a diacritic mark on the letter “a”). It would really not make any sense to not translate her last name. An opportunity missed.
I had a look at how Ven. Sujato dealt with the name Jivaka Khomarabacca in MN 55. He left it untranslated but an explanation is offered when clicking on the name. I think that’s a good way of doing it. If one is not familiar with Pali (which I believe is the case for most people) there is no way of knowing what jiva or jivaka means. You can still follow but a layer of meaning would have been lost.
Pipi Langstrum is known in Spain both by the original name and the translated version: Pipi Calzaslargas.
In the end I left Pañcakanga untranslated because while the name (in Buddhaghosa’s interpretation) reinforces his being a carpenter, his profession doesn’t matter to the text, as you suggest. I did, though, adjust the spelling so Spanish speakers pronounce it correctly, which wasn’t an easy choice either but for now I settled on it.
