Well, I had my next Finnish lesson and asked for the political name I was sure would illustrate my point about changing the spelling of proper names. I am not sure if there is a logical explanation for this one as well, but here goes:
The king of Sweden is either Kaarle Kustaa XVI (in Finnish) or Carl Gustaf (in Sweden). It seems to me that this is an arbitrary change, though I'm sure that someone somewhere sees a reason for it. They sound similar, yes, but why the change? I am used to a "c" changing to a "k" and such, but this change seems a bit excessive, and quite frankly a bit rude, given that it is a proper name.
Anyway, this is the example that I found. I hope you enjoy.
Hey - that's a good one, and you are right about it too ! Way back in history Finland was ruled by Sweden and thus we had Swedish kings, and to make it easier for Finns in those days (no foreign languages about much) "our" royals' names were translated (and then also other European royals).
ReplyDeleteThis outdated practice has carried on to current days with some of the older royals, but I believe it was sometime in the 70's that it was ruled that only Scandinavian royalty can be called (in Finland, in Finnish language/text) by their translated names...and if I'm not completely mistaken, today those translated names are "forbidden" for the younger royals regardless of what region they're from.
There are maybe a few examples remaining such as the one you mentioned, also probably from the Norwegian royal family, or if you'd read history about Russian tsars or whatever -- but in general this kind of translating should not be used anymore (eg. Prince William, Princess Diana) -- and definitely not with other names than those of the royals. I think this is just one of those things that has carried on from the history, and yes, it is really stupid in this day and age.
I don't think the royals take offence though, because Europeans generally know about the history and reasons behind it...but I can understand it must be confusing to someone who comes from another part of the world and basically just sees two different names pertaining to one person.