The name game

By Chi-Young Kim

A few months ago, Sun-mi Hwang's "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" was published in the U.S. This month, the book will be published in the U.K. as well. With the release of the English editions, I have been thinking about the experience of translating this compact gem.

Since I typically work on translations a good year or two before publication, I tend to forget the day-to-day experience of grappling with a translation by the time the book is out. Instead, a few memorable challenges stand out, distilled over time.

The most challenging aspect of this particular project was choosing the names of the characters. Never before did I ponder this question, as every other character in my books were Korean names I merely anglicized. Of course, I've gone back and forth between the McCune-Reischauer Romanization system and the newer one, but that is a minor detail.

I can think of only two times when a name became an issue. The first was a character's dog, whose name was either Polly or Paulie. I asked the author if the dog was male or female, and went from there. (It was Paulie.)

Another time, an author referred to a character's boyfriend as just "the boyfriend," and the American editor thought it was odd that the boyfriend's name was never mentioned. I consulted with the author, who agreed and gave him one.

But the names of the animal characters in "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" had to be translated into English, and I had a hard time with all of them. The hen's name, Ipssak, means leaf, but this Korean word connotes more gumption and strength than the English equivalent. The popular animated film based on the book had named the hen Leafie, but I didn't like that; that moniker felt ethereal and diminutive.

Since the inspiration for the name comes from an acacia tree the hen spies from her coop, I initially considered Acacia. However, that name doesn't convey the intrepid bird's personality; I wanted something scrappy and resolute.

A few drafts later, I landed on Sprout. This name signals new beginnings, pluck and brave, encapsulating everything about this independent-minded character, and also alludes to the original Korean name.

The mallard duck, too, was given many different names before I decided on Straggler. Nageune means wayfarer or wanderer, but in English these words seem stuffy and neither rolled off my tongue.

And although he originally came from another place and yearned to leave, he wasn't able to, so Wayfarer or Wanderer weren't quite right anyway.

Also, this name was one given to him by the other animals; I couldn't imagine them giving him such an odd, old-fashioned nickname. Straggler, I thought, characterized both his outsider status and his loneliness, and suggested the derision he faced from the others.

The baby's name is Chorokmeori in the original. Literally, it means Greenhead. This name sounded odd to me. I knew it was because mallard ducks have green coloring on their heads, but Greenhead evoked for me the word greenhorn, the old slang for immigrants. And mallard ducks don't really have green heads; they are iridescent and closer to teal. I looked up photographs of mallard ducks, studied Pantone swatches, and considered all sorts of other names.

Teal was too refined. Cadet, another shade of green-blue, was too esoteric (would people know that it evokes a color?) as well as being an overly militaristic term. Tealhead jumped off the page in an annoying way.

I kept thinking of hammerhead sharks. After going back and forth among the various names, I settled on Greentop. This name is simple, descriptive, not as odd as Greenhead, and, while a bit boring, sounds like a name his straightforward mother might give him. After all, Sprout doesn't display a wide range of knowledge in the variances of different colors.

Although each translation brings its own complex puzzles and unique solutions, this particular one was so enjoyable that it makes me a little sad that I'm not still grappling with it.

I imagine it must be different from an author naming her characters, as I had to work within the parameters of the original novel and language. I miss the sheer satisfaction of landing on the right name. After all, when do translators get to name the characters?

Chi-Young Kim is an award-winning literary translator based in Los Angeles. Her latest translation, Lee Jung-myung's "The Investigation," will be released by Mantle on March 27. Contact her at chiyoung@chiyoungkim.com or via her website, chiyoungkim.com.

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