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I love the little maybe by "Immortal Love Rodd".

Confession time: this was from Reddit, and I'd have just dumped it in the Harry Potter Memes thread, but there's a lot of interesting discussion about the Voldemort anagram issue in other translations.

Relevant webcomic:

All content has been stolen from Reddit, to spare you from having to go towards that godawful place. And partly because Reddit users get hilariously bitchy about their content getting relinked like this, despite it being half of all Reddit threads. Or perhaps because of it - they're protective of their niche in the internet.

Realistically, Rowling probably came up with Voldemort first. Especially since Tom Riddle didn't appear until the second book. Then again, knowing how thoroughly she planned some things, it's not unfeasible that she did invent Tom first, then upon finding the Frenchy vol and mort while anagramming came up with the idea of Voldemort's key motive: his fear of death.

An interview somewhere probably has the answer. Interesting to consider, in any case.

Sauce

 

This would be more interesting if I could make out any of them names on the first pic.

Btw, the Greek translation also changed Voldemort's name to Anton Morvol Hert, for some reason. I'm not even sure if the anagram works in Greek.

 

There's a fic that is exactly like this, except I'm sure it's a lot older. Too bad I'm too lazy to find it an link it.

 

Is this the one you're thinking of, Anarchy?

 

Possibly this one? A Histrionic Prat By Any Other Name, by Twisted Biscuit. Same premise, at any rate.

 

Probably. Since it's Nonjon, I know I've read it before. Shame it's not as funny as I remembered it being.

 

The swedish version changed his name to "Tom Gus Mervolo Riddle" in order to fit the latin anagram Ego Sum Lord Voldemort.

Quite ingenious but it does unfortunately make his true name even sillier.

 

Actually there is another version in Russian:
Том Ярволо Реддл = Я лорд Волдеморт
(Tom Yarvolo Reddle = I am Lord Voldemort)

 

Huh, the one I read had Том Марволо Риддл.

 

I always assumed it had something to do with midgets.

 

The Finnish translation is "Tom Lomen Valedro", which is an anagram of "Ma olen Voldemort" (= "I am Voldemort").
Although "ma" is a poetic form of "mä", which in turn is a colloquial form of the word "minä" (= "I").

Needless to say, I much prefer the original, English version of his name. The Finnish one is downright stupid.

 

I wonder if there is a comprehensive list out there of Voldemort's true names?

 

Sounds like a project. I wonder what his name translates to in Chinese or Japanese.

 

In the Polish translation, it is simply "Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort"

They didn't bother translating that part and I say that's a good thing, because it's closer to the original book that way.

(Though they translated some spells in the book, which pisses me off, but that's another story.)

 

In any of the translations did they translate Hogwarts?

 

Sure did. In the Finnish translation, it's "Tylypahka".
I have no idea where the "tyly" (= 'harsh', 'brusque') came from, but 'wart' translates into "pahka".

Again, I very much prefer the original name.

 

In Turkish translation it was Tom Marvoldo Riddle = Adım Lord Voldemort.

Kinda funny, I hadn't even noticed that there was a difference in translation 'till I looked it up.

 

Not sure about Japanese or Chinese, but in Korean translation they just sounded out the syllables in Korean letters (Vol-de-mor-t; yes, with a distinct 't' sound) and replaced "Lord" with the Korean word "Kyung". When they did that scene in the Chamber, they put his English name in brackets next to the Korean translation so the readers could see the original English anagram since it doesn't work with Korean.

I imagine they did something similar with Japanese and Chinese, since neither of them use English letters.

 

Here's an interesting set of comparisons between the Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese versions:

Harry Potter @ CJVlang

They look at how the translators dealt with character names, chapter titles, various word plays, etc. Every once in a while the translators do something rather clever given the large language barrier. Other times they play the lame/safe route or make a mistake.

edit: here's the specific page dealing with Voldemort's name: "Tom Marvolo Riddle"