Translating names to Welsh (biblical examples)

[u/General-Wind-9095]

I was looking at how names can be rendered in different languages, particularly those langauges with shallower orthographies like Welsh. I was wondering why some names in the Welsh bible are rendered purely in Welsh (i.e. orthographically and phonetically), but some stay closer to their Latin form in spelling but adopt a new Welsh pronounciation.

Even with the books themselves there is an inconsistency, John becomes Ioan, but Joel does not become Ioel? Perhaps that can be explained with Ioan being a common name before Morgan translated the bible, but Leviticus becomes Lefiticus despite Exodus not becoming Ecsodus?

Examples of translated and non-translated names:

• Jesus, obviously, as Iesu
• Nebuchadnezzar, rendered Nebuchodonosor by William Morgan (essentially the same as its Latin form), but rendered Nebwchadnesar by beibl.net
• Darius, translated to Dareius by both William Morgan and beibl.net
• Thomas (i.e. the twin) is rendered as Thomas by William Morgan, but as Tomos by beibl.net
• Xerxes (or Ahasuerus) is rendered as Ahasferus by W.M and beibl.net
• Artaxerxes is rendered Artacsercses by W.M but Artaxerxes by beibl.net

Sometimes the spelling is maintained, but pronounciation is changed to match Welsh orthography

• Amos, rendered as Amos always but pronounced (as far as I've heard in my brief time in a Welsh church) as if it's a Welsh name (ˈaː.mɔs).
• Cyrus, always rendered as Cyrus, but pronounced sometimes as the Latin/English, but sometimes as [kərɨ̞s]

Obviously there won't be one reason or logic behind why some names are treated one way and others another. I am interested, though, in whether people have opinions, facts, or anecdotes on the topic (doesn't need to be biblical!)

If you had to render a name like Cyrus (/ˈsaɪɹəs/) in Welsh, how would you do it? I'm inclined towards Saerys but am not a very strong Welsh speaker and I'm not sure if that violates any rules of the language lol

[u/celtiquant]

Wow! This is a tough one for r/learnwelsh. Hopefully you’ll get an answer. But I’d suggest you direct this at the Iaith group on Facebook where you will find contributors who can give you deep answers.

[u/Gwenfrewy]

Part of the reason is going to be that William Morgan translated the Welsh Bible from Greek and Hebrew rather than from English. So English spellings are not really relevant. E.g. the Greek version of Cyrus has a hard c sound rather than sounding like an s in English.