Latinizing Names

[Diaphanus]

Re: General Questions

1. Is there a Latin form for the name "Hugo"?

Yes, Hugo, genitive Hugonis (as someone already mentioned).

2. And I've used the name "Dan Brown" undeclensed ... This is how he's known, all right. However if someone would like to use a Latin version, for Dan I'd use Daniellínus (maybe ...),

The "Names Commemorating Persons" section of Stearn's Botanical Latin and Dan H. Nicolson's Orthography of Names and Epithets: Latinization of Personal Names might be helpful in general.

Iohannes Aurum is right that given names are usually Latinized, while surnames were left in their original forms, which were often indeclinable. But surnames may be Latinized anyway.

When it comes to the the particular name Dan Brown, there are some possible Latinizations:

Dan can be Latinized as Daniel or Danihel (both third declension), Danielus or Danihelus (both second declension). All four forms are cited by Souter's A Glossary of Latin Latin. Personally, I like Daniel best.

It could even be Latinized as Danus (adding the stem vowel -o- to Dan), but I would avoid such a form unless I wanted to be funny.

The surname Brown has been Latinized as Brunonius, as seen in the name Rosa brunonii.

Botanical Latin has some general procedures for Latinizing surnames, and according to those procedures, Brown is Latinized as either a substantive or an adjective:

• Substantive: Brownius, Brownii (name of a man)
  
• Substantive: Brownia, Browniae (name of a woman)
  
• Adjective: Brownianus/Browniana/Brownianum

The reasoning (according to Nicolson) is this:

The remarkable thing about Roman personal nomenclature [...] is that the names of the various noble houses (gentes) are derivable directly from the basis of given names by adding -i- before inflection (stem augmentation), such as Juli-us from Jul-us, Tulli-us from Tull-us, [...]. These derived names are properly adjectives, formed by adding -ius to the base of the given name of the real or supposed original head of the house. [...] The present provision of Recommendation 73C (b) (Stafleu et al., I972) which recommends forming epithets (nouns in genitive) from the name of a man by adding the letters -ii when the name ends in a consonant, is a reflection of the ancient Roman tradition: a surname, like the name of a Roman gens, is signalled by augmentation of the original stem plus the appropriate Latin inflection. In a historical sense latinizing a person's name with stem augmentation (adding -i before the inflection) honors the person by according his name the same treatment originally accorded only to surnames of patrician and noble Roman families. [...] Surnames ending in vowels are not augmented for the practical reason of avoiding creation of strings of vowels that the Romans never used.

"Dan Nicolson" would then become "Daniel Nicolsonius."

 

[Gregorius Textor]

On the other hand, what to do if we encounter a name like DeShawn or Francis. Adding the typical -us is out of the question (though Franciscus is a possibility).

More than a possibility: Franciscus is the actual Latin name of the current pope, the name by which he signs his Latin documents. And since long before that, it is the the Latin name of the pope's namesake of Assisi.

Some more from the Gesta Francorum Guualterius Sinehabere Walter the Peniless

I landed here when searching for an explanation of that very name in that very book. Thanks for solving my puzzle.

Stimulated by the discussion here, I offer a few thoughts of my own on Latinizing names.

The point of language is to communicate (except when it is used to obfuscate).

One can both make properly inflectable names and preserve clarity by Latinizing the name and putting in some parenthetical explanation, e.g.
Galfredus Bolenus (Anglice Jeffrey Bolen).
Catharina Howarda (Anglice Catherine Howard).
Franciscus (Anglice Francis).
Guualterius Sinehabere (Anglice Walter the Peniless).
Georgius Frutex (Anglice George Bush). -- which seems malevolently loaded since Frutex has the secondary meaning "blockhead".
Tonius Blair (Anglice Tony Blair).
Iacobulum Plaustrarius (Anglice Jimmy Carter).

I'm not saying this is necessarily a good idea, or that my particular examples are good Latinizations even if it is a good idea in general.

I note that in many of the examples cinefactus gives from Gesta Francorum and similar sources, the "last names" are not really what we consider last names today, which are passed on (typically) from father to son and daughter, but epithets, nicknames, place names; like honorific agnomina that some Romans received (Africanus, Germanicus). In those cases translating the meaning might make more sense than when it is a hereditary name.

Perhaps a greater degree of Latinization (such as we see in the Gesta Francorum, compared to contemporary Latin writing) was more appropriate in the days when most literate people were literate in Latin, and such names were commonly used and commonly known, and probably they would even use it themselves when signing legal documents.

The English Wikipedia frowns on "original research", and presumably the Latin Wikipedia does too. That frown might extend to the creation of non-obvious, non-conventional Latin names made up by Wikipedia writers. The lack of contemporary Latin writing in which such names would appear outside of Wikipedias is probably what inhibits their use there.

So the solution seems obvious: do not use Wikipedias as a guide to names. Write boldly and creatively in Latin. Some of the names you invent may catch on, even in Wikipedias. And some will fail to catch on. Such is the nature of language innovation.