Sonach an Ghráinneog

Translations area really interesting and fun. I’ve linked before to Twitch translating pokémon names into Welsh and something I’ve played at before is translating Sonic the Hedgehog character names into Irish.

It doesn’t come with quite the same punning potential as pokémon but the way Sonic character names tend to be ordinary nouns makes it interesting to try to translate, especially trying to capture the relationships between certain names or figuring out what to do with the weirder ones.

If the notes column is blank that means the name is just a straightforward calque of the name from English.

English name	Irish name	Notes
Sonic the Hedgehog	Sonaċ an Ġráinneog
Shadow the Hedgehog	Scáṫaċ an Ġráinneog	Shadowy. Also the name of the woman who trained Cú Ċulainn.
Silver the Hedgehog	Soilseaċ an Ġráinneog	Bright. Chosen to keep the hedgehog alliteration and rhyming going and works as a contrast to Scáṫaċ.1
Miles “Tails” Prower	Myles “Eireabaill” na gCoileáinín	The miles per hour pun doesn’t work in Irish so I changed it to a reference to Myles na gCopaleen. Roughly Myles “Tails” of the Little Puppies.
Knuckles the Echidna	Ailt an Eicidneaċ
Amy Rose	Émí Rós	A transliteration. Rós does means rose, though.
Rouge the Bat	Deargaḋ an Ialtóg	Rouge, but also blushing or glowing.
E-123 Omega	É-123 Óimige
Cream the Rabbit	Uaċtar an Coinín
Cheese the Chao	Cáis an Nord	Chao is obviously a word formed from removing the letter S from chaos. Anord is chaos (and ord is order) and I thought nord sounded better than anor and also that it would be fun than “an nord” would sound a lot like “anord”.
Blaze the Cat	Lasraċ an Cat	Flames/Flaming the Cat.
Big the Cat	Láidir an Cat	Strong the Cat. Chosen to keep the alliteration between Blaze and Big.
Honey the Cat	Lim an Cat	Mil is honey so I am spelling it backwards to keep the cat alliteration going even if that wasn’t actually present in her original name.
The Chaotix Detective Agency	An Ġníoṁaireaċt Ḃleaċtaireaċta Anordúileax	Anordúil means chaotic, ‑eaċ is a suffix which forms nouns with the sense of a person connected to the concept and I’ve subbed in an X like in the original name.
Charmy Bee	Meallaċ Beaċ	Charming
Vector the Crocodile	Veicteoir an Crogall
Espio the Chameleon	Spiair an Caimileon	Spiaire means spy and with the E cut off the end it’s pronounced like “spear” which is cool.
The Babylon Rogues	Rógairí na Bablóine
Jet the Hawk	Scaird an Seaḃaċ
Wave the Swallow	Tonn an Ḟáinleog
Storm the Albatross	Stoirm an Albatras
Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik	Dr. Ivo “Uiḃeaċ” Robotnik	I thought it would work to leave his real name untranslated. Uḃ is egg and ‑eaċ is our favourite noun-forming suffix (or uiḃeaċ can just mean ovate). Fearuḃ or Uḃḟear would be more straightforwardly Eggman but I think that sounds bad.
Metal Sonic	Sonaċ Miotail
Orbot	Glóbat	Globe + bot
Cubot	Ciúbat	Cube + bot