tin ear names

In Soviet SF they used to parade a lot of Anglophone persons, and rarely got their names to sound right. I remember one "Rai Rup" - supposedly a rich American. Ever heard of anyone called Rye Roop? Me neither. But let's see it the other way around. How do the Anglophones imagine foreign names. The days of Soviet isolationism are gone, the Web has covered the Earth, we're supposed to move freely and can access anything in a nanojiffy, right? Not always so - sometimes, nothing beats laziness.

last refresh 08/24/2008 01:38:47 AM
(enough of this, get me back)

Imaginary Known in Serbian as A better alternative
Chekov Čehov Chekhov, assuming that "k" in "kh" means "pronounce the bloody aitch"
Evanovich Ivanovič, Ivanović This attempt in phonetic spelling comes from a language which always puts history above phonetics. There was never an Evan among Slavic names. Ivan, yes.
Kalingrad Kalinjingrad Kaliningrad (two ins, hear that?)
Kawalski Kowalski  
Papadopolis Papadopoulos Of top ten Greek last names, all end with -poulos. -polis is a fitting suffix for an ancient Greek city, not a person living nowadays.
Souvarov Suvorov  
Vaselov Vasiljev Vasilev
Vasic as an Albanian last name Vasić is a mostly Serbian name; any derived Albanian last names would be spelt with -iqi instead of -ić Find a real Albanian name.