[Avodah] Names in Aramaic and other languages

[Micha Berger]

I think we are conflating two subjects: Halachic vs legal names, and
the original question of whether a name should get translated, eg
in targum.

The first category touches home: I bought my dirah before having
Israeli citizenship, so the name on the paperwork is that on my
passport: Mitchel Samuel Berger.

To make ownership easier, we decided I should keep that legal name. So,
my Te'udat Zehut reads "Mitchel Shemu'el Berger", not "Micha".

Notice they refused to recognize "Mitchel" to "Micha". (Which they
shouldn't -- "Mitchel" is "Mikha'el" via French, as opposed to the
Germanic version "Michael".) But "Samuel" vs "Shemu'el" was considered
just a transliteration.

Similarly when an English translation uses "Jacob" for Ya'aqov. It's
not a translation, just a German transliteration.

    A bit of English language history: "J" was a variant of "I" in
    German and Old English. To be used when it was more like a "y"
    sound. Christian Bibles kept the "J" even after the sound changed. So
    "Joseph" is "Joseph" because when it was coined it was pronounced
    "Yoseph". (Now I miss RSM...)

Biblical examples: Yosef / Tzafnas Panei'ach, Hadassah / Esther,
Pesachyah / Mordechai (with nicknames "Bilshan" - the translator,
possibly "Malachi" -- yes, *the* Malakhi -- because he was mishneh
lamelekh).

There there are nicknames in Tanakh:

We don't know which of Yisro's names is the one his parents gave
him.

And Moshe... there is debate about which name his birth-parents gave
him, because we use the name from his adoptive mother. Which may have
been Hebrew, or (IMHO more likely) wordplay between both Hebrew and the
Mitzri word for "son".

RnIE mentioned translated last names: Avraham Rosenstein was a friend and
Chavrusah of R Dovid Lifshitz. (The went to Rosenstein's father's cheder.)
When they were 12, they wrote a peirush on part of Tanakha together.
Rosenstein made aliyah and wrote a dictionary and a concordance under
his new name - Even Shoshan. Notice that he translated, not looked for
a similar sounding name. But then, he wrote dictionaries.

None of which touches on the original question about translating a name.

I don't think Unqelus translates names just as a translation. Rather, if
the location was known by a different name in Aramaic*, he would use that
name. But it's not a translation of the name, it's a different identifier
of the same place. Closer to Hadssah / Esther than a translation like
Yaaqov / Aqiva (same shoresh, Hebrew vs Aramaic diqduq).

(* Given that the gemara (Megillah 3a) suggests that Unqelus was recreating
the translation Ezra suggested making The Torah, perhaps it depends on
whether the place was called something else in Ezra's day, not Unqelus's.)

And writing in Judeo-Aramaic, transliteration was a non-issue.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
Author: Widen Your Tent      again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH