Challenges of Translating Names of Small Businesses Going International

Rima Jasnauskaitė

(University of Applied Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania)

Abstract: With a considerable number of local businesses making attempts to position themselves in the international market, small businesses encounter the problem of translating their company names into English. They face the problem because they have been set up originally as local ones for local customers with names comprehensible for them. So, the research purpose is to reveal the most common linguistic discrepancies made while translating business names from the source language (Lithuanian) into the target language (English).
The paper suggests the theoretical analysis to build a research rationale and the practical analysis of 40 business names in the source language with their corresponding translations into the target. The descriptive contrastive linguistic method has been applied for processing the data selected.
The analysis of the examples of business names reveals the fact that the most common linguistic errors in the translation from the source language (Lithuanian) into the target one (English) are the following: (a) the use of quotation marks; (b) the use of capital letters; (c) the use of specific diacritical marks; (d) the translation of abbreviations.
The one who takes responsibility to translate is supposed to be aware of linguistic or grammatical conventions in the two languages (the source and target ones) as well as the nature of the translation changes recommended. Linguistic correctness of the name is not the only factor leading to the success in the international market; still, a well performed job by a professional translator might increase the level of business image.

Key words: business names, proper nouns; translation methods; translation transformations and punctuation of organizational names