A character in Harry Potter is called the Fat Lady. Do you keep her, or does she become la Grosse Dame?
She becomes la Grosse Dame. But Hannah Abbott stays Hannah Abbott, and Philip Swallow does not become Philip Hirondelle.
Proper nouns have no single rule. They have a set of rules by category, and knowing which category you are holding is most of the work. One rule, though, admits no exception: a proper noun always takes a capital, in both languages, without fail.
1. Place names
Use the conventional equivalent when one exists
Place names are not translated; the established form in the target language is used, which is a different operation.
- la Suisse ↔ Switzerland; Édimbourg ↔ Edinburgh; Venise ↔ Venice; Bruxelles ↔ Brussels
- la Tamise ↔ the Thames; la Manche ↔ the English Channel; les Pyrénées ↔ the Pyrenees
- la Côte d'Azur ↔ the French Riviera; les îles Anglo-Normandes ↔ the Channel Islands; la Bretagne ↔ Brittany
Note that none of these is a translation. The Riviera does not mean la Côte d'Azur word for word, and the Channel Islands says nothing about Normandy. They are conventions, and the only way to know them is to look them up.
When no equivalent exists, keep the name
The Tate Gallery stays the Tate Gallery. Le Moulin Rouge stays the Moulin Rouge — never the Red Mill. The same goes for street names (Downing Street, la rue de Rivoli), stations, and the names of companies, which are trademarks and never translated in any direction.
The French detail English speakers forget: gender and article
French place names carry a gender and usually an article, and both have to be right: le Texas, la Californie, les États-Unis, le Havre. The preposition follows from the gender — en Californie but au Texas, aux États-Unis. English has none of this, so translators working into French have to supply information the source never contained.
2. Names in other alphabets
This category is missing from most guides and causes real errors. Names transliterated from Russian, Arabic, Greek or Chinese follow different conventions in French and in English, because each language spells foreign sounds with its own letters.
- Chekhov ↔ Tchekhov
- Tchaikovsky ↔ Tchaïkovski
- Khrushchev ↔ Khrouchtchev
- Gorbachev ↔ Gorbatchev
Copying the English spelling into a French text is a mistake, not a preservation of the name. The rule: re-transliterate according to the conventions of the target language, and check the standard reference form rather than improvising.
3. First names
Contemporary first names are not translated, even where equivalents exist. John, William and James have counterparts in Jean, Guillaume and Jacques, but John Smith remains John Smith in French.
Three groups escape this:
- Historical figures: William the Conqueror ↔ Guillaume le Conquérant, King James I ↔ le roi Jacques Ier, Richard the Lionheart ↔ Richard Cœur de Lion, Pope Francis ↔ le pape François.
- Biblical and classical names: Plato ↔ Platon, Moses ↔ Moïse, Noah ↔ Noé.
- Figures of folklore and fixed expressions: Prince Charming ↔ le Prince Charmant, Jack the Ripper ↔ Jack l'Éventreur, Mr Know-it-all ↔ monsieur je-sais-tout, Mr Right ↔ l'homme parfait.
The logic behind all three: these names circulate as cultural common property rather than as the identification of an individual. A modern person owns their name; a legend does not.
4. Surnames: never translated
This one is absolute. A surname is not translated even when its origin is transparent.
- geographic: Sonia Atwood, Jean Dumoulin — never Sonia Prèsdubois or Jean Fromthemill
- physical: Marc Leroux, Kevin Short — never Marc Thered or Kevin Court
- occupational: John Smith, George Charpentier — never Jean Forgeron or George Carpenter
The reason is that the original motivation is no longer active. Nobody hearing Smith thinks of a forge. The name has become an arbitrary identifier, and identifiers are not translated.
One small point of grammar: French family names do not take a plural. The Simpsons becomes les Simpson.
5. Titles
Civil titles
Mr ↔ M., Mrs ↔ Mme. Note that Ms has no French equivalent: it was created precisely to avoid signalling marital status, and Mlle does the opposite. Since French administrative forms dropped Mlle in 2012, Mme is the default for any adult woman, and that is what Ms becomes.
Nobility titles
Nobility titles are generally translated, with their own equivalence table:
- Duke / Duchess ↔ duc / duchesse; Count / Countess ↔ comte / comtesse; Viscount ↔ vicomte; Baron / Baroness ↔ baron / baronne
- British peerage has no exact French counterpart: an Earl is rendered as comte and a Marquess as marquis, though the systems do not map onto each other.
- the Knights of the Round Table ↔ les Chevaliers de la Table ronde
Two exceptions worth knowing. British titles used with a personal name stay intact in French: Lord Mountbatten, Lady Howe, Sir Paul McCartney — never le Seigneur or Messire. And symmetrically, English keeps the French title for French historical figures: the Marquis de Sade, the Comte de Saint-Germain, Madame de Pompadour. The title is translated when it designates a rank, kept when it has fused with the name.
6. Kinship terms
Kinship words used as titles are always translated: uncle Geoffrey ↔ oncle Geoffrey, aunt Lydia ↔ tante Lydia, Uncle Sam ↔ l'Oncle Sam. They describe a relationship, not an identity.
7. Fictional characters
This is where judgement replaces rules.
Translate if the name is motivated; keep it if it is arbitrary.
- Kept: Harry Potter, Hannah Abbott — the names carry nothing the reader needs.
- Translated, descriptive: The Fat Lady ↔ la Grosse Dame; The Bloody Baron ↔ le Baron sanglant; Robin Hood ↔ Robin des Bois; Tinker Bell ↔ la fée Clochette; Noddy ↔ Oui-Oui.
- Recreated: Death Eaters ↔ Mangemorts; Muggles ↔ Moldus; Ravenclaw ↔ Serdaigle; Hogwarts ↔ Poudlard. Here the translator keeps the principle of the invention — sound, humour, transparency — rather than its content.
- Culturally relocated: The Care Bears ↔ les Bisounours in France, les Calinours in Quebec.
The false motivation trap
Do not translate a name merely because it resembles a common word. In David Lodge's Small World, the character Philip Swallow is not named after a bird: Swallow is an ordinary English surname, and the resemblance is accidental. He stays Philip Swallow.
The test is authorial intention, not lexical coincidence. English surnames are overwhelmingly drawn from ordinary words, so coincidence is the norm rather than the exception.
The constraint nobody mentions: existing translations
If the work already exists in the target language, its names are fixed. You do not retranslate Poudlard, however good your own idea is, because readers know the school by that name and a sequel that renames it breaks the series.
Check before inventing. Consistency across a body of work outranks the elegance of any single solution.
How to decide
- Does the name mean something in the source language?
- Does that meaning characterise the bearer?
- Did the author clearly choose it for that meaning?
- Can a target-language version preserve the effect without sounding forced?
Four yeses: translate. Anything less: keep the original.
The rules at a glance
- Place names — use the conventional equivalent if it exists, otherwise keep.
- Transliterated names — re-transliterate for the target language.
- First names — keep, except historical, biblical and legendary figures.
- Surnames — never translate.
- Nobility titles — translate, except Lord, Lady, Sir and French titles fused with a name.
- Kinship terms — always translate.
- Character names — translate only if motivated, and respect existing published versions.
Conclusion
Translating proper nouns is an exercise in discernment. Do not translate out of reflex, and do not keep out of laziness. The question is always the same: does this name carry meaning that the work depends on?
If it does, recreate that meaning. If it does not, respect the identity by leaving the name alone.
Because a name is not only a word. It is an identity — and knowing when to touch it is what separates mechanical translation from intelligent translation.