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Help[Opinions] Re: Renee vs Renée
in reply to a message by BBCakes
é is not a character in the alphabet used in English, so Renee is transliteration.
If transliterations to English are not real English names, then Katherine, Alexander ... zillions of English names are all to be defenestrated?
I guess that what bothers you is that the transliteration is of a name that is a word in modern French?
Compare Ariel ... when it is written like so, not written with Hebrew characters, is it not still a proper original name in English? Since it literally means lion of God in Hebrew, but "Ariel" doesn't have any English meaning.
Or, is it because you are biased against borrowing to English in particular? Would it bother you to see the name Liv transliterated to Hebrew and used as a name in Israel? It's on the most popular names list. (Maybe it's also a word in Hebrew, but not to my knowledge. Someone inform me if so, I'm curious)
Anyway, to me Renee is a legit English name - it's just especially obvious that it's transliterated from French, because of the relationship between the letters é and e. A lot is lost in borrowed terms between languages. They take on a meaning in the new language without carrying any of the literal meaning in the original one. Or often the grammar, or spelling, or pronunciation. Renee is just a name ... names don't have literal meanings except academically. They refer to people, right? So who cares if an English speaker's name means reborn in French? It's not appropriate to address her as Reborn because that's more "correct." It's incorrect.
You are welcome always to back-transliterate the name of every Renee you ever meet, to Renée, and to pronounce it correctly as the word "reborn" in French. As French speakers usually do, inoffensively, when they encounter a name that has an equivalent in French. What good does it do you, or anyone, to find fault with the English name Renee in general?
- mirfak
If transliterations to English are not real English names, then Katherine, Alexander ... zillions of English names are all to be defenestrated?
I guess that what bothers you is that the transliteration is of a name that is a word in modern French?
Compare Ariel ... when it is written like so, not written with Hebrew characters, is it not still a proper original name in English? Since it literally means lion of God in Hebrew, but "Ariel" doesn't have any English meaning.
Or, is it because you are biased against borrowing to English in particular? Would it bother you to see the name Liv transliterated to Hebrew and used as a name in Israel? It's on the most popular names list. (Maybe it's also a word in Hebrew, but not to my knowledge. Someone inform me if so, I'm curious)
Anyway, to me Renee is a legit English name - it's just especially obvious that it's transliterated from French, because of the relationship between the letters é and e. A lot is lost in borrowed terms between languages. They take on a meaning in the new language without carrying any of the literal meaning in the original one. Or often the grammar, or spelling, or pronunciation. Renee is just a name ... names don't have literal meanings except academically. They refer to people, right? So who cares if an English speaker's name means reborn in French? It's not appropriate to address her as Reborn because that's more "correct." It's incorrect.
You are welcome always to back-transliterate the name of every Renee you ever meet, to Renée, and to pronounce it correctly as the word "reborn" in French. As French speakers usually do, inoffensively, when they encounter a name that has an equivalent in French. What good does it do you, or anyone, to find fault with the English name Renee in general?
- mirfak
This message was edited 11/10/2022, 7:14 PM
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Replies
ליב (Liv/Lib) is the Yiddish word for "love", so that might account for its popularity in Israel.
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