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Dub Name Change / English and Other Languages to Foreign

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Regional Examples

  • Planes: Happens repeatedly with Rochelle, accompanied by a Palette Swap each time. In the North American and UK versions she's Canadian with a Quebec accent and a Maple Leaf paint scheme, but most export releases change her nationality, paint scheme and usually name to suit the home audience. In the Australian and French versions she's still named Rochelle, but her name gets changed to Azzurra in Italian, Carolina in Latin American Spanish, Heidi in German, Sakura in Japanese, Tanya in Russian and Yun Yan Fei in Chinese.
  • In Czech, most women have a different surname ending in "ová" or "ovská".
  • Before the mid 20th century, it was standard for foreigners' names to be partially or fully translated into Spanish. Examples included Adolfo Hitler. Jorge Washington, Carlos Marx, Juana de Arco, Alberto Einstein, José Stalin, etc.
  • While Charlie Chaplin's famous character is known in English only as "The Tramp", in European languages he's Charlot and in Brazilian Portuguese, Carlitos — both meaning "Little Charles", in French and Portuguese, respectively.
  • Classical Mythology: The Roman Mythology was in part influenced by the Greek one, making this the reason why the Roman Gods are better known than their Greek counterparts, and making this trope Older Than Feudalism: For instance, Zeus was renamed as Jupiter, Athena was renamed as Minerva, Poseidon was renamed as Neptune, Ares was renamed as Mars, etc. Oddly enough, the God of Light, Apollo, was so important for both Greeks and Romans, that this was the only God whose name remained unchanged. This is also why Heracles is frequently called by his Roman name Hercules in Western media.
  • For various reasons, male European monarchs are usually referred to by their Latin names in Russian history books. In addition, names that start with "H" typically become a hard "G" due to passing through the Polish-Ukrainian filter on the way to Russia. This tradition remains to this day, although some are arguing for transliteration instead. Thus, we have Karl the Great, King of the Franks and Lombards and Emperor of the Romans (more widely known as Charlemagne), King Genrikh VIII of England (that would be Henry VIII), King Iakov VI and I (Mary Stuart's son James), King Ludovic XVI of France (Louis XVI). This can lead to some confusion, especially in the case of Prince Charles, who was referred to as "Charles" in Russian. However, after he's been crowned, he is referred to as King Karl III. This doesn't apply to female monarchs, whose names tend to be translated rather than transliterated (e.g. Queen Yelizaveta II instead of Queen Elizabeth II), and popes, whose names are usually translated into the appropriate (somewhat archaic) Eastern Orthodox names (e.g. Pope John Paul II was referred to as Ioann Pavel II; however, any pope named Benedict is referred to as Benedict, while any saint in the Orthodox calendar with the same name is Venedikt, e.g. Venedikt of Nursia). There is some of that going on in reverse too, which is why Tsar Nikolai II is known as Nicholas II in the English-speaking world and why Aleksandr I is called Alexander I (conversely, the name "Alexander" is almost always translated as "Aleksander" into Russian). Yet Ivans are almost always Ivans, not Johns, although there are occasional references to "John the Terrible".
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: The Japanese dub changes the names of Uhura, Sulu and Scotty to Ura, Kato, and Charlie.
  • Super Smash Bros.: "Duck Hunt" in Japanese and American languages to "Duck Hunt Duo" and language-appropriate variations thereof in European languages.
  • When translating into Latin, first names are almost always required to become their Latin form.
  • Even tropical cyclones get this; while there is a list of names for Pacific typhoons, the Philippines always get hit by tropical cyclones the local meteorological agency give them a different Filipino name altogether when said typhoons passes to Philippine territory.

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