Duck names
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Variation across across Europe and the Middle East in the names of Donald Duck's three nephews:
I'm a little surprised that Disney gives such freedom to local adapters.
From the same source, here are the names for Donald himself:
They've also got the Flintstones covered.
Now I wonder about Duckology in India, China, Japan, Thailand, …
[h/t David J. Lobina]
Robin Saikia said,
March 16, 2021 @ 1:36 pm
"I'm a little surprised that Disney gives such freedom to local adapters."
Who knows what they exacted in return… ☺️
jin defang said,
March 16, 2021 @ 1:46 pm
in China, Donald is Tang Laoya and Mickey is Mi Laoshu
Laoya= "old duck"
Laushu="old rat"
they're very popular, but less so these days than Japanese anime figures like Doraemon and the various adventure figures
Peter Taylor said,
March 16, 2021 @ 2:25 pm
I knew that some familiar Disney characters have translated names in Spain, but I didn't realise that some characters have three (are there others with more?) distinct translations.
Scott P. said,
March 16, 2021 @ 3:23 pm
I knew that some familiar Disney characters have translated names in Spain, but I didn't realise that some characters have three (are there others with more?) distinct translations.
I'm assuming that the "Donald Duck" translations are being given for Castellano, Catalan, Gallego, Bable(?) and Basque.
David P said,
March 16, 2021 @ 4:09 pm
I remember Kalle Anka (Charlie Duck) from my Swedish childhood. The Karl Magnus Anka (Charlemagne Duck) is new to me, although perhaps it just went over my head.
john burke said,
March 16, 2021 @ 4:18 pm
I recall that Snap, Crackle, and Pop on the Rice Krispies box are Knisper, Knasper, and Knusper in Germany.
Peter Taylor said,
March 17, 2021 @ 3:08 am
@Scott P, you are partially correct, but that's not what I meant. The group over Cataluña (Joanet, Jordinet, Jaumet) is Catalan; the more northern group roughly centred on the Iberian peninsula is Castellano, and the more southern group roughly centred on the peninsula is Portuguese and probably also Gallego. But both of the latter two groups have one set of names in black and then two alternative sets in light grey. Similar alternatives in light grey can be seen in France, the Faroes, Flanders, and the group in the Middle East which I take to be Arabic.
Magnus said,
March 17, 2021 @ 3:19 am
Fun fact: Swedish distinguishes between maternal (morbror) and paternal (farbror) uncles. Huey, Dewey and Louie always call Donald "farbror Kalle", and likewise Donald calls Scrooge "farbror Joakim". At some point the lore developed to reveal that it should have been "morbror" in both cases, but the phrases were so ingrained already that the translations didn't change.
Oscar Jantti said,
March 17, 2021 @ 3:28 am
The Turkish names are proper names as well
Bob Ladd said,
March 17, 2021 @ 3:54 am
The fact that "Disney gives such freedom to local adapters" must be due in part to the fact that Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck & Co. go back to the 1930s, long before English took on its current status as number 1 lingua franca, and long before cultural fads could be instantly transmitted around the world. So translators were free to adapt names as well as content. To take the case of Topolino and Paperino in Italian, when they were introduced in Italy few Italians would have understood English words like mouse and duck, and they would have had no idea that the same characters were called Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in the original. As for what Disney gets out of it, that's easy: in countries with thriving comic book scenes, Topolino and Paperino still sell, and there are even local spinoffs. (In Italy, there's a Disney spoof of the successful non-Disney comic Diabolik called Paperinik, featuring Donald Duck in a different guise.)
The effect of immediate cultural transfer on this kind of translation/adaptation was seen more recently with Harry Potter. The Dutch translation of the first Potter book was one of the first, and the translator did a very nice job of translating the word play involved in Rowling's invented proper names. By the time a German translation was in the works, Harry Potter was a world-wide phenomenon, and most of the names are in their original English form.
Scott P. said,
March 17, 2021 @ 4:24 am
But both of the latter two groups have one set of names in black and then two alternative sets in light grey. Similar alternatives in light grey can be seen in France, the Faroes, Flanders, and the group in the Middle East which I take to be Arabic.
It's possible that the translations have changed over time, as they have for Asterix characters (Panoramix in English has been Getafix, Magigimmix, Readymix, Vitamix, and the original Panoramix).
Graeme said,
March 17, 2021 @ 5:45 am
Forgive my ignorance – but when and where was 'Dewey' a first name.
And here's to Topo Gigio (Louie the Italian Mouse). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/arts/television/maria-perego-dead.html
David Morris said,
March 17, 2021 @ 6:20 am
I wonder how long it took the Slovak and Bulgarian translators to think of those names!
I pronounce Dewey, dew and due with a /dj/. Does anyone pronounce Huey as 'hoo-ey'?
I have just noticed that the three names in English are spelled with different endings.
Rodger C said,
March 17, 2021 @ 6:45 am
@Graeme: American boys have been named Dewey since, I suppose, 1898.
cM said,
March 17, 2021 @ 7:03 am
I would be interested in a map like this for Scrooge McDuck.
I'd expect it to be even more varied than the one for Donald.
In France for example, he's "Balthazar Picsou", so doesn't even share any part of his name with the rest of the extended family.
Mark P said,
March 17, 2021 @ 8:11 am
I’m 70, and I have know two men named Dewey in my life.
Not a naive speaker said,
March 17, 2021 @ 9:20 am
The best translation (in rhymes!) of The Flintstones was created by Romhányi József.
Francois Lang said,
March 17, 2021 @ 9:35 am
@Graeme
> Forgive my ignorance – but when and where was 'Dewey' a first name.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_(given_name)
J.W. Brewer said,
March 17, 2021 @ 9:48 am
Just for the German version, for example, you can check out this comprehensive wikipedia article on the personalities of the Duck-Kosmos, which explains that Uncle Scrooge is Onkel Dagobert, Gyro Gearloose is Daniel Düsentrieb, uzw. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Bewohner_Entenhausens
Perhaps because of shifts as the 20th century went on, the German version of die Muppet Show has fewer changes (other than transparent translations/calques) of the original character names, but I was struck when I first saw it way back in '82, and remain struck today, that the Swedish Chef got turned into der dänische Koch, presumably because Danes are funnier than Swedes in German, but the other way 'round in American English?
Dewey is a given name that has come and gone generationally for US-born boys – it dropped out of the 500 most common boys' names after year-of-birth 1967 and out of the top 1000 after 1986, but I was listening to a jazz radio station the other night that was featuring some excellent live recordings from the '70's of the late saxophonist Dewey Redman (1931-2006).
Robert Coren said,
March 17, 2021 @ 10:23 am
@David Morris: Not only are the endings spelled differently, so is the accented vowel. I can't help thinking this was deliberate.
I think I knew that "Dewey" as a given name was not that rare, but I certainly knew that it was the widely-used nickname of long-time Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans.
Possibly amusing anecdote: When my husband was a child, his family acquired a dog. He wanted to call the dog "Dewey", but this was New York in the late 1940s, and his Democratic-leaning mother didn't want the name of the Republican governor in the house, so the dog got named "Huey".
Rick Bryan said,
March 17, 2021 @ 10:37 am
SpecGram once suggested that in Russia, Harry Potter is Naggu Rotteya (“Наггу Роттэя”).
cameron said,
March 17, 2021 @ 11:27 am
Note that the transliterations given reflect different English pronunciations of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They vary with regard to the presence of a /j/ after the initial consonant. In some cases the /j/ is there for either Huey or Dewey, or both. In no case is there a /j/ after the initial consonant in Louie. The Albanian and Georgian transcriptions have Hjui, but Dui and Lui. Azari and Bulgarian have both Hjui and Djui. The transcriptions given for the Persian are bizarre, but looking at the Persian itself, the spelling reflects something like Huji, Djui, and Lui, though the Persian rendering of "Dewey" is very strange.
cliff arroyo said,
March 17, 2021 @ 2:52 pm
Since no one else has mentioned it….
Huey without a /j/ before the /u/ is going to look/sound inappropriate for children in a number of Slavic (and neighboring?) languages where it could be mistaken for an obscene word for penis.
Apparently Slovak is not one of those but it might have something to do with the maintenance of the /j/ in some versions.
Paolo said,
March 17, 2021 @ 5:24 pm
The information on Donald Duck for Italian is not correct. As pointed out by Bob Ladd above, in Italy Donald Duck is called Paperino, which means "little gosling" (papero = gosling). Donaldus Anas is the Latin name, supposedly used in the Vatican.
Scott P. said,
March 17, 2021 @ 5:27 pm
The information on Donald Duck for Italian is not correct. As pointed out by Bob Ladd above, in Italy Donald Duck is called Paperino, which means "little gosling" (papero = gosling). Donaldus Anas is the Latin name, supposedly used in the Vatican.
Doesn't that explain why Italy is labeled "Paperino" while Vatican City is labeled "Donaldus Anas"? What is incorrect here?
David Marjanović said,
March 17, 2021 @ 6:22 pm
It's Donald Duck's superhero identity, outfitted by Gyro Gearloose. Finally the explanation for why Donald sleeps so much during the day! It's not limited to Italy (the German name is Phantomias, after a long-forgotten Fantomas), and as bad as the idea sounds, it's actually really good.
And he's Dagobert Duck, losing the distinction between Duck and McDuck of the original. He's also not explicitly Scottish anymore (…nor is anyone explicitly American anymore, it's all delocalized).
"Jet propulsion", rather more flattering than "Gearloose"!
Slovak and Czech have a /ɦ/ separate from /x/.
It does, but Italy is labeled "Paulino" in black, followed by "Paperino" in poorly visible gray.
Jarek Weckwerth said,
March 18, 2021 @ 4:11 am
An interesting (tangential) twist is that the Polish for Mickey Mouse is Myszka Miki, and myszka is feminine. Really changes your perspective.
And wrt Bob Ladd's (spot-on!) cultural hegemony remark: Keeping the original names and cultural references creates quite a few non sequiturs but also missed opportunities. My favourite example is Peppa Pig; many (all?) translations miss the fact that Pig, and all the other animal names in the show, functions as a surname.
Gunnar H said,
March 18, 2021 @ 4:38 am
Translated comics characters having many different names in one country is not unusual. Usually it means that there have been several different attempts to publish them before they caught on, by different publishers (who in many cases folded).
There's also the complication of appearances in different media and formats (e.g., newspaper strips vs. comic books, cartoons on TV and in cinemas, and even full movies). These translators often do not reference each other's naming choices.
As a curiosity, the Norwegian translation of Huey, Dewey and Louie (Ole, Dole & Doffen) is taken from a children's counting rhyme similar to "eeny, meeny, miney, moe":
Ole, dole, doff
kinkeliane koff
koffeliane birkebane
ole, dole, doff
This is almost all nonsense words ("birkebane" should mean a "birch track," whatever that is), and highly corrupted from whatever its original form was, but Ole is a common name, and Doff was apparently a nickname for Adolf when that name was in use. Doffen, however, is used as a nickname for Kristoffer, so we may hope that the third nephew's given name in Norwegian is not in fact Adolf Duck.
Jim M. said,
March 18, 2021 @ 5:08 am
The Indonesian names are Kwik, Kwek, and Kwak, apparently taken from Dutch. So yes, many of these may go back to the 1930s.
Rodger C said,
March 18, 2021 @ 6:52 am
@Francois Lang: All of them born after (and two in!) 1898. For the non-Americans here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dewey
Fred said,
March 18, 2021 @ 8:06 am
Interesting that Donald Duck had been translated into Erzya Mordvin (Яку Яксярго, i.e. 'Jacob Duck'; on the map it's the little orange blob in Russia). There've been translations of Donald Duck into North Saami (Vulle Vuojáš) already for a while, but pretty new (and not on the map) is Donald Duck in Lule Saami (Vuollli Vuojatjis) and South Saami (Tjalle Tjååtsele).
David Arthur said,
March 18, 2021 @ 8:11 am
David Marjanović said:
> And he's Dagobert Duck, losing the distinction between Duck and McDuck of the original.
In Swedish, he's Joakim _von_ Anka, with the aristocratic prefix both semi-replicating the distinction and reflecting his wealth.
Antonio said,
March 18, 2021 @ 8:42 am
Interestingly, in Paperinik's origin story, Donald is following the footsteps of a burglar/vigilante named (in the Italian original) Fantomius, clearly also inspired by the French Fantômas.
Agreed, Paperinik was my favourite character as a kid :)
He evolved from a vigilante/avenger figure to an actual superhero – he even got his own "proper" series of full-sized comics for a few years in the late '90s, titled PKNA ("Paperinik New Adventures"), where he was also known as Pikappa (Italian transliteration of the letters P and K).
That's not entirely true in Italy, where Uncle Scrooge is called Zio Paperone (literally "Uncle Big Duck/Gander/Gosling", while Donald's name Paperino means "Small Duck/Gander/Gosling"); but his full name is Paperon De Paperoni, with "De" doing the same job in Italian as "Mc" in Scottish names.
His Scottish ancestry is well-known because of translations of original works, but I suppose the more recent Italian comics are indeed de-localised/de-Americanised as well.
His Italian name – Archimede Pitagorico – is also quite positive.
Paolino ("Little Paul") Paperino is Donald's full name in Italy, albeit he's mostly known simply as Paperino. The map is just using grey to indicate which part of the translated names means/refers to Duck – or Uncle, in the case of Turkish.
Jacob Christensen said,
March 18, 2021 @ 3:41 pm
The nephews’ Danish names (Rip, Rap og Rup) make sense when you know that a duck “rapper” in Danish. So the names are the sounds of ducks quacking.
Joakim von And probably has his name after Joachimsthal (Jachymov) in the Czech Republic – the home of the silver Thaler/Daler/Dollar (very clever by the translator)
Gyro Gearloose is Georg Gearløs (Georg is pronounced like Geho (with a hard g) in Danish.
Among the minor characters, Ludwig von Drake is Raptus von And – besides the obvious play on the duck’s rappen, it is also a tip of the hat to the Danish (Norwegian) 18th century writer and philosopher Ludvig Holberg who wrote a number of popular comedies and poems in Moliere’s style during what he called his “poetiske raptus” (poetic frenzy)
Hans Adler said,
March 19, 2021 @ 5:22 am
I think it's important background information that Donald Duck comics are largely a European phenomenon nowadays, as they have long been far more popular here than in the US, and that this started not too long after the end of World War II. I believe most of the new stories are produced in Italy, France and Denmark. Denmark because it was Egmont, a Danish publisher, who secured the rights for large parts of Europe in 1948. Many major innovations such as introducing Donald's alter ego Avenger Duck or giving great prominence to Magica de Spell come from Italian studios. There are enormous amounts of stories from anonymous European authors that are comparable in quality to those by Carl Barks. I think this is important because a large part of the comic strips coming out of the US (especially the Mickey Mouse stories, which don't have as much of a tradition in Europe) is about as bland as all that superhero trash.
In post-war Europe, comics still had a serious image problem in Europe and were rejected by many parents. I think thorough localizations were part of a strategy to deal with this problem. In Germany this was extremely successful due to the ingenious work of aptly named translator Erika Fuchs (real name, but translates to "Erica Fox"; active 1951-1988). Sometimes she elevated relatively boring originals to the level of literary gems full of word plays. I think she started by revising all the names that had been used in the few publications that had appeared in German earlier. *Not* translating the name Donald Duck in retrospect seems rather visionary for the time. On the other hand, she did not shy away from completely independent reinvention when naming more minor characters or concepts such as Uncle Scrooge (Dagobert Duck), Gyro Gearloose (Daniel Düsentrieb – "Daniel Jet Propulsion") or the Junior Woodchucks (Fähnlein Fieselschweif – something that doesn't make much sense but perhaps sounds roughly similar to how "Meaniet[r]ail Patrol" would in English).
I guess the answer to why Disney allows this variation is that it is historically grown and originated at a time (late 1940s) when international brand recognition wasn't really a concern yet and Disney delegated the difficult European market to a Danish publisher, giving it a lot of freedom.
Graeme said,
March 19, 2021 @ 6:20 am
Thank you RodgerC and Francois.
I did not realise Dewey was used in the US for boys.
Let alone it was a Welsh diminuitive (Dewi) of Dafydd ie David.
It seems then to be a variant of Davy/Davey/Dave, which is common in broader English, including Welsh diasporas. Not to mention undersea Lockers.
J.W. Brewer said,
March 19, 2021 @ 1:47 pm
@Graeme: Not quite. "Dewey" as an American given name is a repurposing of the surname Dewey (part of the larger trend in American onomastics of repurposing surnames as given names), which may have first come into vogue c. 1898 (as suggested above) because of the prominence of Admiral George Dewey in the Spanish-American War. So the parallel is not to given names like Davey, but to derived surnames like Davidson, Davis or Davies. I assume the ultimate Welsh etymology is completely opaque to most Americans. The Ur-Dewey for American purposes (said to be ancestor not only of the admiral but of the politician who didn't actually beat Truman and of the namesake of the Dewey Decimal System) is a fellow named Thomas Dewey who came over from England proper (possibly Dorsetshire, but not everyone seems to be in agreement on that) to New England circa 1633.
Julie said,
March 19, 2021 @ 10:13 pm
The names used in Ukraine should be considered onomatopoetic. Кря (krya – part of крячик) is the sound made by a duck, and ква (kva – part of квачик is the sound made by a frog. I think кру (kru – part of кручик) might be the sound a crane makes?
KevinM said,
March 20, 2021 @ 10:45 am
@ Hans Adler. Yes indeed – I learned of the local fondness for Donald Duck/Kalle Anka, and the old quacker's role in Christmas festivities, when representing a Swedish client (I'm from the US).
See "Nordic Quack," https://slate.com/culture/2009/12/sweden-s-bizarre-tradition-of-watching-donald-duck-kalle-anka-cartoons-on-christmas-eve.html.
Philip Anderson said,
March 23, 2021 @ 11:39 am
@Graeme
I don’t know how Dewey is pronounced in the USA, but to me it’s the same as ‘dewy’ (dyoo-ee), which is quite different from the Welsh Dewi, which has a short ‘e’ (de-wee).
Historically Dewi isn’t a diminutive of Dafydd or David (Daí may be), but an older name derived directly from Latin (hence the ‘W’, which was preserved in British loan words, rather than becoming ‘v’ as in Romance languages). St David is Dewi Sant in Welsh, but otherwise Dewi wasn’t a common name until recently.
Dafydd was later borrowed from Norman French David, and became popular; the surnames Davis and Davies arose from its use as a patronymic.
Doug Bayer said,
March 24, 2021 @ 9:13 pm
> Now I wonder about Duckology in India, China, Japan, Thailand, …
Well, in Japan, the niblings are transliterated quite traditionally:
ヒューイ・デューイ・ルーイ
hyuui, dyuui, ruui
[çɯː i dʲɯː i rɯː i]
(HLL HLL HLL)
Quite standard transliteration. Because native dyu ヂュ"di+yu" is pronounced d͡ʑɯ and transliterated as "ju," this combination is written as usual デュ "de+yu" to block affrication.
And Donald Duck is
ドナルドダック
donarudodakku
(LHHHH-L)