Star Butterfly in the Norwegian dub of Star vs. the Forces of Evil is called Sara Sommerfugl ("Sarah Butterfly"), and Pony Head is translated literally as Ponnihode. The Swedish dub of Sailor Moon also has some interesting character name changes which you can read here. Though I think character name localizations in anime and other cartoons are probably most associated with DiC and 4kids type stuff what with the Dorie Goodwyn for Doremi Harukaze, Serena for Usagi Tsukino, Sakura Avalon for Sakura Kinomoto, et cetera.
Ultimately, I think character name adaptations exist on a spectrum, and how you "should" localize a character name depends on what your translation is trying to do. Like a big part of why people react to Dorie Goodwyn type names is because those sorts of localizations seem to come from a really patronizing and xenophobic attitude where kids "can't" like a cartoon from another culture, so any traces of that culture has to be erased; or they "can't" pronounce a name as simple as Harukaze because it's not an Anglo name. But that isn't really the same philosophy as that behind a localization like Star Butterfly → Sara Sommerfugl, is it?
But yeah, I've just been thinking about this stuff because I've been very slowly working on a Norwegian-language fandub script for Touhou Gensou Mangekyou: The Memories of Phantasm, and that means thinking about how to render the names of Touhou characters in Norwegian. The plainest approach would simply be to use the English names already familiar to most Norwegian Touhou fans, but I still find myself drawn to the idea of localizing some of the character names.
As follows:
| Japanese | English | Norwegian | Rationale | |
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| | チルノ | Cirno | Kjølina | Å kjøle ("to cool") + -ina (forms feminine given names). Phono-semantic matching that reflects the pun on EN chill found in the original Japanese name, as the character is an ice fairy. | | 大妖精 | Daiyousei | Storfe(en) | Calque of the Japanese. Doubles as a pun on storfe(et) ("(the) cattle"), which is not relevant to her character at all, I just thought it was funny. | | レミリア・スカーレット | Remilia Scarlet | Remilie Skarlagen | The given name is adjusted by analogy with EN Emily/Emilia → NO Emilie. The surname is a calque of EN scarlet. | | フランドール・スカーレット | Flandre Scarlet | Flandra Skarlagen | The given name is a blend of Flandern + Sandra, reflecting the pun in the Japanese on Furandoru ("Flanders") + dôru ("doll"). | | ルーミア | Rumia | Lumia | Variant of the English name. The Japanese name is believed to be a pun on LA lumen ("light"). | | パチュリー・ノーレッジ | Patchouli Knowledge | Patsjuli Allviter | Allviter means "person who knows everything". | | 小悪魔 | Koakuma | Smådjevel(en) | Calque of the Japanese. | | 橙 | Chen | Chéng | Pinyin of Standard Chinese reading. | | リリーホワイト | Lily White | Lilly Hvitveis | Hvitveis is the Norwegian name of European thimbleweed, a plant associated with early spring in Norway. This reflects how Lily White is the herald of the coming of spring. Hvitveis also happens to include the Norwegian word for "white", as well as what sounds like the German word for "white". | | レティ・ホワイトロック | Letty Whiterock | Letty Snøhvit | Snøhvit is the Norwegian name of Snow White. This keeps the "white" motif and reflects how the character is only seen in the winter. | | 高麗野 あうん | Aunn Komano | Aum Komano | Reflects the reference to the sacred syllable Aum in the original Japanese; this character guards places of worship. | | メディスン・メランコリー | Medicine Melancholy | Medisin Melankoli | Calque of the English. | | 水橋パルスィ | Parsee Mizuhashi | Palusi Mizuhashi | Blend of the original name and sjalusi ("jealousy"). I suspect the original Japanese name was a pun on EN jealousy as this is the character's defining trait, but I couldn't confirm this. | | プリズムリバー三姉妹 | Prismriver Sisters | Søstrene Prismevière | Blend of NO prisme ("prism") + FR rivière ("river"). The sisters keep their English given names. |
Any other characters for the time being could just as well be referred to by their English names with a Norwegian accent. I'm not sure if all of these characters I've come up with new names for are even namedropped in the scripts I'm translating, I haven't read through all of them yet. Whether I'm even qualified to write a fandub for Memories of Phantasm is questionable, but I'm doing it for fun and will leave my translations publicly available, anyways.
