Latinizing Names?

P

Prince_James

Plutarch (Mickey's Dog)
Registered Senior Member
Anyone know a good resource for latinizing both first and last names?

I'd like to see what my full name would be Latinized, ala Renee Descartes being Renatus Cartesius.
 
Yes, exactly.

There ought to be a proper way, considering the latinization of last names during the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment.
 
Probably the programming

Tim840 said:

How come it doesn't translate last names?
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I figure it can't identify the relevant components. My family's name, for instance, is actually made up. Once upon a time, it was Petersen. And then the first generation arrived in the country, and at some point wound up in the Seattle area, and when my ... great-great grandfather, I think ... saw all the Petersens and Petersons, he just made up a name. We're always surprised to find someone with our last name, though most of them we're somehow related to.

And even though it seems obvious how Mr. Petersen arrived at the name, I wouldn't expect a computer program to necessarily know the difference. We aren't prominent enough for developers to notice us.

(Note on Edit: Well, it was a nice theory. I should have tested it before I sounded off. Whoops. Anyway, I tried a simple name, and it couldn't figure it out.)
 
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Let's see if it works on a name known to have a Latin form:

Descartes.

Nope.

I am going to put a last name in the first name category.

Nope. It doesn't seem to recognize last names whatsoever. It works purely on a database level.
 
Prince_James said:
Oh craptastic...

It doesn't translate my last name. :( It keeps it.
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It doesn't "translate" mine, either... and I dare to say I have a 100% Latin name (Valente). I believe it should be "Valis" or something like that. My second name (Darini) is also an Italian name (it came the way as follows: persian > greek > latin > italian).

cheers
 
You can only "translate" a name from one language into another if:
  • The name in the source language is derived from an older form in an ancestral language AND
  • The target language also has an equivalent derived from the older form.
So if your name is John, you're in luck because it came from Hebrew Yohananan and every European language has an equivalent. German Johan, Greek Ioannes, Gaelic Sean, Russian Ivan, French Jean, Spanish Juan, Italian Giovanni... the last three of which derive from Latin Johannes. Biblical names are easy to translate.

Many names of Germanic origin have been adopted by non-Germanic people over the centuries so they have equivalents too. Karl becomes Charles, Carlos or Carlo--back-formed to Carolus in Latin. Ludwig becomes Louis, Luis or Luigi--back-formed to Ludovicus in Latin. (The proper English form is actually Luttwidge but most anglophones these days name their boys Louis or Lewis instead.)

But what if you're from India and your name is Sridhar, or from Persia and your name is Gholam, or from Japan and your name is Kiyoshi?

Last names are generally impossible. The best you can do is "Romanize" them with a Latin grammatical ending, like turning Descartes into Cartesius.

It would be more fun to translate them when possible. Author Greg Bear would become Gregorius Ursus. Actor Morgan Freeman would be Nauticus Homo Liber.
 
Fraggle Rocker:

Last names are generally impossible. The best you can do is "Romanize" them with a Latin grammatical ending, like turning Descartes into Cartesius.
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What would be the proper way to add the grammatically correct ending?
 
Prince_James said:
Fraggle Rocker: What would be the proper way to add the grammatically correct ending?
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Latin isn't one of my languages. But in general, Latin nouns in the nominative case end in -us, -o, -um, -a, -is, -or, -ex and a few other endings you can glean by looking at a list.

Look at the names of the more recently discovered chemical elements: gadolinium, ytterbium, einsteinium. Or the genera in species names in biology: Dieffenbachia, Escheria, Wistaria.
 
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