Name: Only known as Le chat de MoulinsartStomping Grounds: Tintin (comics); also as a resin statue
Side: Good
Breed: Siamese
Cat Powers: Beloved of both Captain Haddock and dog owner Tintin. Good relations with those of the canine persuasion.
Skills: Eat 3, Sleep 4, Mischief 5, Wit 2, Jumpy 8
Cat Weaknesses: Any noise will set kitty off running. Causes false endpage cliffhangers (Hergé red herrings).
Comments
I, naturally, think of it as Marlinspike...
I could never get my head around the English names for people and things.
I always enjoy watching people and companies trying to change names that have puns in them, wondering whether to stick with the original or go for more accurate names. An example is the Transformers character "Ramjet". He's called such because he's a jet who likes to ram into things. However, a ramjet is also a type of engine. Apparently his French name is based on the engine, but it then loses the original pun.
I bet the original dubbers of DragonBall were glad that pretty much all the name puns were in English. Although then you get the anal-types who insist that, for example, the character of Vegeta (who's name is supposed to sound like "vegetable") should be called "Bejita" because that's a technically more accurate translation, despite the original writer saying that it's a pun on vegetable, should be pronounced as such and actually writing "Vegeta" IN ENGLISH on some of the pages.
Wow, that was a long post about name changes.
As for good/bad pun translation, I think the Asterix books, which are filled with puns, were very well translated into English. When I found those in the public library, it was like discovering a new story with all new jokes.