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After reading this question, I wondered what I could do to some names vital to my translation of D. Gray-Man, a recent project. Some names are fine, such as Allen becoming Alenus, Moa easily remaining already feminine and declinable, and various online sources claiming some link to the names of Charles and Carolus. However, the names of many main characters are indeclinable and hard to convert without sounding a bit repetitive (like "Komuius, Sumanus, Tykius").

  1. Are these acceptable?
  2. Are there better translations?
  3. Is Carolus a correct conversion or simply a similar name for "name Romanizers?"

Here are the names that I've had trouble with, followed by my attempted translation:

Count Krory - ? Kroryus/Crorius

Millennium Earl - Comes Annorum Millium

Lenalee Lee - Lenalia Lee (I don't know how to translate this and be similar to the original enough for one to infer.)

Komui Lee - Komuis/Comuis Lee

Mana Walker - Manaus Valcer/Ambulator (masculine)

Eliade - Eliada

Road Kamelot - Roada Camelota???

Tyki Mikk - Ticis Miccis (sounds like a joke spell)

Valcer certainly sounds better than the hilariously literal ambulator. Anyway, some assistance in the naming of these characters is appreciated, even if they're still an annoying mystery. Ah, but who cares? When has Stack Exchange never answered my foolish questions with the limitless knowledge of people who actually went to schools for this language?

The importance of this translation is due to the ability to decline these rather than act like some Spanish historian and change the letters, adding in some prepositions, and calling it a day. I need to be able to accurately convert those names so that my retelling feels less like generic TV subtitles.

Notes and Stuff:

-I've confirmed that Tyki is pronounced as tee-kee.

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A couple quick observations:

Millennium is a New Latin word, so I don't know why you wouldn't just use that.

The Latin word for Camelot is Camuladonum, so you could do "Via Camuladonum" (assuming Camuladonum works like the name of the road rather than "a road in Camelot" or "the road to Camelot").

"Count" is comes, but I think you must know that as you translated "Earl" as comes, too.

The standard in ancient Latin, with very few exceptions, was to transliterate to a normal-sounding name. Valcer is acceptable. In Neo-Latin, you sometimes have individuals taking a Latin equivalent. Johannes von Königsberg, for example, took the name de Monteregio (and later concerning his works he was called Regiomontanus).

Eliade is clearly from Elias, Eliadis, so go with Elias for that one.

Good translation today doesn't necessarily try to mess with names except to make them conform to rules of pronunciation or to assimilate to related names when they sound similar enough. So the Russian Александр is often spelled "Alexander", when, if you were to transliterate it letter-by-letter, you'd get "Aleksandr." But I can't imagine these days translating 毛泽东 as anything but Mao Zedong (excepting only the archaic Mao Tse-tung). Can you imagine calling him Meow Seadong?

With that in mind, try not to make them too "Latin". What's wrong with Mana Valcer, for example? Mana is a fine phonetically, though perhaps it could use an S (compare the name of Sulla in Greek: Σύλλας).

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  • Thanks! But, I have another question. How is Elias declined? Online, I was able to find an entry for Elias as the name for Elijah. It's declined differently. Genitive: Eliae, Dative: Eliae, Accusative:Elian/Eliam, Ablative: Elia, and the vocative is Elia. What is Elias as a feminine name declined? Is it the same, just with feminine adjectives? My definition was from the Online Latin Dictionary site. Lewis and Short shows both Elijah and Eliade, but gives no information other than the genitive. Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 17:36
  • @MiddleSchoolHistorian I recommend asking that as a separate question. I think I wasn't the only one to never see that question because it was in a comment. I would also rather see answers to that question listed separately to make them easier to find.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Nov 4, 2018 at 1:24

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