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From: bruck@actcom.co.il (Uri Bruck)
Subject: Re: Names
Organization: ACTCOM - Internet Services in Israel
Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 21:42:55 GMT
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Daniel von Brighoff (deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu) wrote:

: 	Furthermore, sometimes the set of things which, for example,
: "Jos'e" is true of and the set of things for which "Joseph" is true of
: *do* overlap; in the US, for instance, plenty of people are known by
: a different name in their native language than in the national language.
: Some months ago, there was a discussion in this newsgroup about "trans-
: lating [one's] name" [sic] when speaking a foreign language.  Plenty
: of posters said that they used different but cognate forms of their 
: given names when speaking different languages.  Once again, since you
: object to calling this "translation" (although general usage dictionaries
: of English do not) what term do you suggest for the equivalence?  Why 
: isn't it true to say that Giuseppe *sometimes* translates "Joseph" just 
: as it is true to say that "deutsch" *sometimes* translates "German" (not 
: in "German shepherd," though) and that "fare" *sometimes* translates 
: "doing"? 
: 	

There is a concept of name translation - although it is not exactly the one 
you were reffering to in the original post.
Jews living in the Diaspora are often given two names, a 'regular' name, which
conforms to the local language, and a Jewish, or Hebrew, name. The Hebrew
name is not always related to the 'regular' one, but we often find pairs
of local and Hebrew names that go together, and many of these pairs have
similar meanings in their respective languages.
Uri
