Star Wars characters: different names in different languages

[Brian G Turner]

As I'm currently studying French and Italian, I thought it might be worth checking out Star Wars in those languages as a learning resource - not least because I recorded an audio version when it was first shown on domestic TV, and listened to it over and over to the point of almost learning the script line by line.

However, checking out the transcripts to the original Star Wars film, I noticed some major changes to character names:

Italian:
C3-PO = D3-BO
R2-D2 = C1-P8
Darth Vader = Darth Fener

French:

C3-PO = Z6-PO
R2-D2 = D2-R2

Apparently there is also the following:
Darth Vader = Dark Vador
Chewbacca = Chicktaba
The Death Star = L'Etoille Noir (The Black Star)

I'm under the impression that some names may have been changed to make them sync better.

I'm curious, though - does anyone know of any other interesting changes to character names in different languages?

 

[Toby Frost]

I believe a couple of names were changed in the Witcher series when it was translated into English from Polish - again, for ease of reading. And of course many of the punning names of Asterix characters were made up by the translators.

Some film titles are interesting. I think the French title of Jaws was "The Teeth of the Sea", and the Hungarian title for Alien was the rather philosophical-sounding "The Eighth Passenger Is Death".

 

[Harpo]

(This space is reserved for a long list of 'hilarious' titles from the Far East, which is not the same thing)

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

does anyone know of any other interesting changes to character names in different languages?

In the French dub of Episode 4, "Chewbacca" indeed became "Chiquetabac" (literally "chewing tobacco") and "Chewie" "Chico" as a result. But curiously, Episode 5 rectified this and kept the original English name. The same thing happened to "The Millennium Falcon" which became "le Millénium Condor" in A New Hope only.

In Episodes 1, 2 and 3, "C-3PO" was in fact "C-3PO", even though he had been known as "Z-6PO" up to that point (throughout the Original Trilogy).

All the "Darths" become "Dark" in French (Maul, Sidious, etc.). Probably because the French are notoriously bad at pronouncing the "th" sound. "Han Solo" is also pronounced "Yan Solo".

I was surprised to learn that the Dutch kept "Darth Vader" in their country, since "Vader" means "father" in the Netherlands... A bit too on the nose, right?

The Death Star = L'Etoille Noir (The Black Star)

"L'étoile noire" ;-)

This was only the case of the Death Star in Episode IV, the one in Return of the Jedi was called "L'étoile de la mort" (the Death Star).

I think the French title of Jaws was "The Teeth of the Sea", and the Hungarian title for Alien was the rather philosophical-sounding "The Eighth Passenger Is Death".

Yes in the case of Jaws, but Alien was simply "The Eighth Passenger", which I believe was also the movie's working title in English (in fact, there's a making of out there called The Beast Within which has a chapter titled "The Eighth Passenger")

Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter also make for good case studies.

- Bilbo Baggins > Bilbon Sacquet (not sure why they added that "n" at the end of Bilbo, but "Sacquet" is quite a literal translation of "Baggins" (bag means sac in French)
- Mad-Eye Moody > Maugrey Fol Œil (again, quite literal: "maugrey" is based on "maugréer" = to grumble, and "Fol Œil" literally means Mad Eye)
- Tom Marvolo Riddle > Tom Elvis Jedusor (a very interesting example, since his full name needed to be an anagram of I am Lord Voldemort in French, "Je suis Voldemort". "Jedusor" appears to be a mixture of "jet de dé", or dice roll, and "coup du sort", which is a blow dealt by fate)