History Main / ThisIsMyNameOnForeign

* Anime/LycorisRecoil: The LycoReco crew help a {{Hackette}}, who goes by the alias "Walnut", fake her own death. Afterwards she ends up joining them, with Chisato insisting she tell them her real name, claiming that "Walnut is the name of a dead man". Eventually Walnut begrudgingly gives the name "Kurumi", which Chisato points out is walnut in Japanese. Interestingly, this seems to be an alias derived from an alias, rather than her real name. Kurumi is clearly very young, but the elite hacker known as "Walnut" has been around for atleast 30 years, and has seemingly died multiple times, so it's likely some sort of legacy.

** This is an example twice over. German-born Heinrich Nestle (no accent) became Henri Nestlé (with accent) when he came to the French-speaking Swiss city of Lausanne to seek his fortune (He founded the company bearing the French version of his name in nearby Vevey where it is still headquartered.).

** This is an example twice over. German-born Heinrich Nestle (no accent) became Henri Nestlé (with accent) when he came to French-speaking Swiss city of Lausanne to seek his fortune.

** This is an example twice over. German-born Heinrich Nestle (no accent) became Henri Nestl&eacute when he came to French-speaking Swiss city of Lausanne to seek his fortune.

-->'''Alexander''': I think I'll call this one Iskanderun.\\
'''Hephaestion''': Why Iskanderun?\\
'''Alexander''': It's Turkish.\\
'''Hephaestion''': Is it Turkish for ''Alexandria''?\\
'''Alexander''': [[BluntYes Yes.]]

** In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresTimewyrmExodus Timewyrm: Exodus]]'', the Doctor translates his occasional makeshift identity of "Dr John Smith" into German, presenting himself as "Dr Johann Schmidt".

* ''LetsPlay/EmpiresSMP'' Season 2: This trope is mainly used in regard to Sausage's unnamed kingdom of origin and Sanctuary, its refugee-built successor, as both regions' architectural style and culture are based on Latin America.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Marvel 1602}}'', an AlternateUniverse taking place in the year, you guessed it, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 1602]], ComicBook/CaptainAmerica (aka Steve Rogers) is actually from a dystopian future of the normal [[MarvelUniverse 616]] timeline, but was sent back by the evil "President-For-Life" to get rid of him. He is taken in by a local Native American tribe and takes on the name Rojhaz, which isn't actually a word in any Native American language, but it would sound enough like one to the new European settlers to pass as one. (Of course, these are the same people who manage to HandWave the fact that he is apparently a ''blond-haired, blue-eyed'' Native American, so perhaps he needn't have tried so hard.) The series also includes characters 'local' to 1602 whose names would be this trope if they were aliases, like Carlos Javier (Charles Xavier), Roberto Trefusis (Bobby Drake), Hal [=McCoy=] (Hank [=McCoy=]) and Scotius Summerisle (Scott Summers). Magneto's name, "Enrique", is probably the biggest offender. (Although [[spoiler:it's not his birth name. It was given to him when he was abducted from the ghetto and forcibly converted to Christianity.]])

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''{{Transformers}}'' comic artist Pat Lee translated his name into Japanese katakana. However, rather than properly translate it, he used a letter replacement font without knowing how katakana works, resulting in 'Michiyamenotehi Funana'. After the fandom dug up an old website of his featuring the katakana, it became a mocking nickname.

** In an interesting case, the company did ''not'' change the name for the german market. Even advertisment has succumbed to the fact that all germans pronounce the company as Dan-On-Ee and most germans that go out of country react confused when seeing a brand they are familiar with, just to hear that person "mess up" the pronounciation.

* The Norvegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik went on English-speaking forum by the name Andrew Berwick.

*** This gets flipped in the German version, where Twoflower's name is Zweiblum. The alternate-universe Zweiblum is named Twoflower.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[TheNameIsBondJamesBond The name is Bondov. Jerzy Bondov]] [[note]] [=FIY=], "Jerzy" is "George", not "James". In Polish, not Russian.[[/note]] ]]

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan: India'', a four-issue AlternateUniverse mini-series, showed how Spider-Man might look if he was born in modern-day India. Character names include Pavitr Prabhakar (Peter Parker), Nalin and Hari Oberoi (Norman and Harry Osborn) and Meera Jain (Mary-Jane).

* ''Literature/{{VALIS}}'' contains a character named "Horselover Fat", which is a translation of "Philip Dick" (given name from Greek and surname from German).

[[caption-width-right:350:[[TheNameIsBondJamesBond The name is Bondov. Jerzy Bondov]]]]

* We don't know what the original surname of Nicolaus Copernicus was, since Copernicus is clearly a Latinized version of what was originally in Polish or German (and possibly related to the once-large copper industry in his ancestral region of Silesia, although some contend that it may have been related to the wild dill plant, or ''kopernik'' in Polish, common in Silesia.). This was a contributing factor to the still recurring dispute as to his "correct" nationality.

* '' ComicBook/{{Commando}}''. A British officer by the name of Taylor is revealed to be a German spy called "Schneider" which, he points out, is German for [[{{Pun}} tailor]]. The man [[JustBetweenYouAndMe he's revealing this to]] exclaims: "Schneider, Taylor--of course!" as if that's somehow significant--it's not like he'd heard the spy's German name before.

** Most of the residents of Sanctuary have Spanish names, and Sausage sometimes switches between their names in Spanish and English. Sausage himself does so indirectly by naming his Elytra-wings "''El Chorizo Volador''", i.e. "The Flying Chorizo"[[note]]The Spanish word for 'sausage' has feminine grammatical gender, so a direct translation isn't advisable.[[/note]]

* French food conglomerate Danone operates in the US as Dannon, a presumably more English-sounding name. The Danone name change was for phonetic reasons. If an American were to read Danone aloud they'd say Dan-On-Ee or Dan-One or some variation. In French, Danone sounds (almost) exactly like the American pronunciation of Dannon. Hence they maintained the phonetics of their original name by altering the spelling to fit the phonetics of another language, emphasizing the sound of the brand name over its written form. It makes sense, as you can enter a store and ask for Danone/Dannon and be understood, accent or no accent. In theory. Similarly, the Japanese Kashio is Casio in the US. And in fiction, Gojira becomes Godzilla.