Named by the Translation

[TheMidgetMoose]

Hopefully you were able to gather what this thread is about from the title. It's not the best title for this thread, but it's the best I could come up with. Also, if we already have a thread about this topic, please feel free to direct me to it!

Anyways, I want us to use this thread to discuss any instances we know of in Duck/Mouse comics where a character had no name in the original version of a story and was given a name in a translation of said story into a different language. For example, this fellow from Don Rosa's Last Sled to Dawson has no name in the English script, but is apparently given the name "Benny" in the French translation of Last Sled to Dawson. Can you think of any other times something like this happened?

Personally, I'm curious about a character from Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers. A one-eyed accomplice of Mr. Slicker who is not Butch or Snake (the two named members of Slicker's crew), I'm curious as to if he's been given a name in any foreign translation of the story. Does anyone here know?

[LP]

This made me think of Seppi Deppi Duck, who wasn't just named but also invented by the German translation of Barks' High Wire Daredevils. I don't know if that counts, though.

[Orora]

The nameless (I think?) inventor from Carl Barks's The Mysterious Stone Ray was called "Robinson Cuizoé" in the 1993 French translation.

However, the French Picsou wiki page doesn't take this as canon and still refers to him as "cabbage professor".


A Daisy Duck story with no specific title had two young cousins of Gladstone and Shamrock appear. They were just called "cousins" in English but were named "Elise" and "Rose" in French.

[Thomas]

The Phantom Blot's identity is revealed at the end of Gottfredson's "Mickey Outwits the Phantom Blot". We get to see the face of the man under the hood, but his name remains a mystery. Not so in the German translation, where the unmasked Blot is known by the name of Plattnase ("Flatnose"). This name was carried over as Platneus in the Dutch pocketbooks, since the translators relied on the German version.

According to German tradition, Plattnase is actually an impostor! This serves as an explanation to reconcile two different approaches to the Phantom Blot. In Egmont stories, the Phantom Blot is never seen without his hood and Mickey doesn't know his identity. In Italian stories, the Phantom Blot frequently appears unmasked. The Germans decided that whenever Plattnase appears, he is only pretending to be the Phantom Blot!

- Source: www.comicforum.de/showthread.php?73967-Sind-Plattnase-und-das-Schwarze-Phantom-ein-und-dieselbe-Person

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

So in the German tradition the original Phantom Blot from Gottfredson's "Mickey Outwits the Phantom Blot" is the impostor?

[Thomas]

May 12, 2020 0:17:41 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

So in the German tradition the original Phantom Blot from Gottfredson's "Mickey Outwits the Phantom Blot" is the impostor?

That's right!

>> Plattnase ist das Ur-Phantom und verkleidet sich als schwarzes Phantom, welches er aber nicht ist.

Plattnase is the original Phantom Blot, who pretends to be the "real" Phantom Blot, who is actually someone else.

[Orora]

May 11, 2020 21:58:17 GMT Thomas said:

The Phantom Blot's identity is revealed at the end of Gottfredson's "Mickey Outwits the Phantom Blot". We get to see the face of the man under the hood, but his name remains a mystery. Not so in the German translation, where the unmasked Blot is known by the name of Plattnase ("Flatnose"). This name was carried over as Platneus in the Dutch pocketbooks, since the translators relied on the German version.

According to German tradition, Plattnase is actually an impostor! This serves as an explanation to reconcile two different approaches to the Phantom Blot. In Egmont stories, the Phantom Blot is never seen without his hood and Mickey doesn't know his identity. In Italian stories, the Phantom Blot frequently appears unmasked. The Germans decided that whenever Plattnase appears, he is only pretending to be the Phantom Blot!

- Source: www.comicforum.de/showthread.php?73967-Sind-Plattnase-und-das-Schwarze-Phantom-ein-und-dieselbe-Person

Ah! And in many older French translations, they gave unmasked Phantom Blot a different name, as if he was a separate character. Called either "Jo Crisse" or "Jo Larapine".

This became confusing when I later read another story where Mickey unmasks a Yen Sid actor... to be revealed as hoodless Phantom Blot.
It was the first time I ever saw hoodless Phantom Blot, and Mickey calls him "Fantôme Noir" (French name for Phantom Blot). And I was like, "Wait, who's that? Wasn't that this Jo guy or something?"

Let's just say I was confused. Especially when I was used to Phantom Blot constantly wearing his hood, even in prison, even in his prison uniform, even when impersonating someone else by wearing a realistic mask over it.