Trivia: Christian Slater may not be aware of this

but in Israel his name has become a metaphor for mistranslation ever since someone translated it literally in the subtitles of a TV show.
So now it's "Will someone tell me whether I'm interpreting this right and save me from committing a Christian slater?"
מניח רעפים נוצרי
or for short
מר"ן
Thought you might like to know. Have a great day!

Ha! Google translate has that Hebrew as "Christian lays tile", taking the family name too literally as well as the um Christian name.

How is מר"ן pronounced?

Maran (short As as in European languages rather than in English), with accent on the second syllable.

Adam and Joe had a skit where they translated into English the names of well-known foreigners. Often a fancy sounding foreign name comes out very mundane.

Composer Giuseppe Verdi: Jeff Green.

And that famous singer, Betty Blackhead.

Joe Green, not Jeff. Geoffrey is Goffredo.

It's a nice way to pass the time. Montefiore is Bloomberg. The Pet Shop Boys (in Afrikaans) are famously though not seriously named Die Troeteldierwinkelseuntjies.

Edited by: babygiraffe

Leo Rosten illustrated the Yiddish word pisher with this (brackets as in original):

In France, an elderly Jew, tired of hearing young Maurice La Fontaine boast of his ancestry, finally grimaced, “Listen, La Fontaine: I knew your grandfather, who changed his name to La Fontaine from Schpritzwasser [Squirtwater]. And he told me that his father changed his name to Schpritzwasser from what everyone called him, which was 'Moishe the Pisher.' So don't put on airs 'La Fontaine'."

The literal definition of pisher should be clear in context, but it also means inexperienced or an inconsequential nobody. Given the literal meaning, "still wet behind the ears" is a bit off-putting as a similar idiom.

The Belmont family after whom the Belmont Stakes is named started out as the Schoenbergs.

LOL, nice one, Nutrax.

Betty Blackhead

Sorry, this one is stumping me.

re #10: famous German soprano (first hint)

Ah! Schwartzkopf!

bravo!

LOL #2

Speaking of Christian Slater, I heard a similar story about the actor

מספר זיהוי רכב

סולר

Can you tell who it is? I don't speak Hebrew and just pasted that from an online translator, so I don't know how hilarious it is. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think the bad translation was in Hebrew, but I can't remember which language it was in.

It's that other VinnyD.

Diana, there's not enough to go on.

The straightforward meaning of מספר זיהוי רכב is "identification number of vehicle" which makes perfect sense as it stands. Since Hebrew is written without vowels, the first word, מספר , could also mean - in addition to "number", "teller" as in story-teller, or "from a/the book" or "cuts" (verb, of hair, what a hairdresser does), and possibly several other things that don't immediately spring to mind. Normally it would be obvious from the context.

סולר is a kind of heating fuel, "soler", which in English is apparently diesel fuel. (I'm not into different types of fuel and am going by what Wikipedia says.) But a single word standing on its own could be almost anything. It could be a name, Soler, Soller, Sular...

This is what makes it so difficult to translate things like film titles.

So what is it?

Thanks, Shuff.

It was Vin Diesel.

VIN: Vehicle Identification Number

It must not have been Hebrew then. I wish I could remember the story I heard.

I would never have guessed, partly because I have never heard of Vin Diesel. But yes, now you've told me it's obvious.

Vehicle identification number translated into Hebrew is exactly that, and diesel is of course the fuel.

That's wonderful, Diana. Cross-posting to my other wonderful translation forum.