Our family kitty
for six years was named in Esperanto: «Aminda Kateto»,
which means “a lovable kitty”. We called her
“Mindy” for short, though.| Home — Hejmen | Up— Supren | Back — Reen | Next — Sekven |
Names, of course, are nouns, and by Esperanto grammar, nouns end with −o, so you might imagine Esperantists calling each other Bilo, Tomo, Ĝako, and the like, but the situation is not that simple. Here is a bit of official word on the matter, with an English translation:
| Oficialaj Informoj de la Akademio de Esperanto, n−ro 10 | Official Information from the Academy of Esperanto, #10 |
| Rekomendoj pri propraj nomoj el «La Letero de l’ Akademio, n-ro 7, APR - MAJ - JUN 1989, p. 6» | Recommendations on proper names from “The letter from the Academy, #7, Apr-May-Jun 1989, p 6” |
| 1-e) La Akademio agnoskas, ke ĉiu ajn rajtas esperantigi sian nomon laŭ sia bontrovo. Ĉiu rajtas ankaŭ elekti pseŭdonimon aŭ plumnomon por si. | 1-e) The Academy recognizes that everyone has the right to Esperanticize his own name according to his own wishes. Everyone has also the right to choose a pseudonym or pen name for himself. |
| 2-e) La Akademio ankaŭ agnoskas, ke ĉiu ajn rajtas konservi sian aŭtentan nomon laŭ la originala ortografio, se nur ĝi estas skribita per Latinaj literoj. Li tiam devas toleri, ke la specialaj supersignoj aŭ aliaj signoj de lia lingvo eventuale malaperos; ankaŭ ke lia nomo estos prononcita en alia maniero ol en lia lingvo. | 2-e) The Academy also recognizes that everyone has the right to keep his authentic name according to the original spelling, if it is written with Latin letters. He should therefore not be upset if the special diacriticals or other signs of his language happen to disappear, or if his name is pronounced other than as in his language. |
3-e) Se la kvar ne-Esperantaj Latinaj literoj Q, W, X, kaj Y aperos
en la originala skribo de nomo, la Akademio konsilas prononci ilin
jene:
|
3-e) If the four non-Esperanto Latin letters Q, W, X, and Y appear in
the original writing of the name, the Academy recommends pronouncing them
as follows:
|
| 4-e) La Akademio konstatas, ke la granda plimulto de personoj el aliaj skribo-regionoj jam kutimas transskribi siajn nomojn per la Esperanto-alfabeto. Tamen malplimulto transskribas siajn nomojn laŭ kutimoj de aliaj lingvoj; ordinare temas pri la Angla aŭ la Franca; sed povas esti ankaŭ laŭ la preskribo de la oficiala Latina transskribo por la koncerna nacia lingvo (kazo de la ĉina kaj de aliaj). | 4-e) The Academy notes that the vast majority of persons from regions with different writing systems are already accustomed to transscribing their names according to the Esperanto alphabet. However, a minority transcribe their names according to the customs of other languages; ordinarily, this means like English or French, but it can also be according to a prescription of the official Latin transcription of the concerned national language (such as Chinese and others). |
| 5-e) La Akademio konsilas, ke neniu trudu al aliaj personoj manieron ŝanĝi aŭ transskribi sian nomon eĉ skribe. Propra nomo estas apartenaĵo de ĉiu individuo. | 5-e) The Academy advises that no one impose on another’s personal way of changing or transscribing his name, even in writing. A proper name is the property of each individual. |
| Por la Akademio, ties Prezidanto D-ro André ALBAULT |
For the Academy, Dr André ALBAULT (President) |
So on the bottom line, it’s up to you how (and even whether) to write your name in Esperanto, so please note that the following are only suggestions.
Very many Europeans have names that come from the Bible. So, just look up a name in a concordance, see what verse it’s in, and look up that same verse in an Esperanto Bible to see how it’s already been Esperanticised by someone else.
One result of this is that many names are Esperanticised the same. For example, John, Johannes, Juan, João, Ιοάννες, Jean, Ian, Eno, Иван, Giovanni, and יוֹחָנָן all collapse into the single form Johano. I believe it’s an error to try to come up with a different Esperanto form for each of these.
If you try this Bible method, by the way, you may find, especially in the Old Testament, that people’s names just don’t look like Esperanto. You’ll find names like Ahimeleĥ, that don’t even attempt to end with an −O. Treat these as having an −O at the end, for naming living persons, or use them as-is. Think of them as having that −O, but with the −O replaced with an apostrophe, according to rule 16 of Esperanto grammar, and then leave out the apostrophe. If the name occurs somewhere in a sentence where it should be in the accusative case, always put on the −on ending. This leaves the accent of the name on its last syllable, instead of on the next-to-last, as on all well-behaved Esperanto words. Well, they’re proper names, and don’t need to follow all the rules.
Many women’s names are feminized forms of men’s names. Two ways of representing these especially are to end the name with −ino, making a normal-looking feminine noun, or by ending it with −a, making it look like an adjective. Despite objections to this, it has the advantage of making the names not look strange, compared to the original.
For example, a lady named Janet asked me once what her name would look like in Esperanto, and this is the explanation of my suggestion to her:
Three feminine forms of “Paul” are “Paula”, “Pauline”, and “Paulette”. I would recommend Paŭla, Paŭlino, and Paŭleta as the Esperanto forms.
Some names can just plain be translated, if they mean something that can be pinned down. For example, the woman’s name “Esmerelda” means “emerald”, so she could just use the Esperanto word, Smeraldo, and not worry about feminization, as men aren’t named that.
An official Esperanto way of forming nicknames is with the suffixes −ĉj− (for men) and −nj− (for women). These two suffixes are unique in Esperanto, because they alone almost require that what comes before be shortened somewhat, generally by trimming back to the last vowel before the last consonant. Many names, of course, generate the same nickname by this method, but there are some people named William, Wilhelm, Guglielmo, or Guillermo who go by Viĉjo or Vilĉjo in Esperanto.
This at least ensures that men and women have different nicknames, so Paul and Paula could be called Paŭĉjo and Paŭnjo; Stephen and Stephanie could be Steĉjo and Stenjo. Also, the words patro and patrino (father and mother) take these suffixes as paĉjo and panjo (daddy and mommy).
Note that I have only suggested Esperanticising the given name; the family name can be left unchanged. This is because people often use modified forms of their given names, standard nicknames, and having an Esperanto nickname in addition to others is no big thing. My official given name is Stephen, but I go by Steve in English, and Stefano in Esperanto.
Our family kitty
for six years was named in Esperanto: «Aminda Kateto»,
which means “a lovable kitty”. We called her
“Mindy” for short, though.
There is a custom among some to put the family name in all-caps, allowing it to be the first name or last name, as customary in the person’s own country, so an Englishman may give his name as “John or Johano SMITH”, while a Japanese might give hers as “KAMBAYASHI or KAMBAJAŜI Haruko”. It can be helpful to respell the family name using only valid Esperanto letters, to give others a clue as to how to approximate its pronunciation. For example, I sometimes give my name in Esperanto circles as Stefano MAC:GREGOR /ma-GRE-gar/. The above two names might be written as Johano SMITH /SMIT/ and KAMBAYASHI /kam-ba-ja-ŝi/ Haruko.
Questions or suggestions? Please write, and I’ll get back to you.
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