I have no idea what 'iron dog' might in Japanese, though I know 'inu' is one word for dog -- the idea of dealing with making proper synonyms (let alone a name) in Japanese just boggles my mind. All that grammar -- so much easier in Mandarin!
There were several gaelic words or phrases, among them coingeis (independent, indifferent), cuairtear (traveller), or some variant with cu (dog) -- except that adjectives in gaelic are even more of a nightmare than in japanese, and I'd rather not be utterly ignorant and just throw two words together. (At least in Mandarin, I know I can do that, to a certain extent.) Unfortunately, s'rioghal or srioghal is already taken, and I contemplated modhream but figured no one would ever be able to figure out how to pronounce that.
(Bad enough my beagle was named Saimhain, and I spent eleven years either correcting the vet's assistants -- "No, it's Sah-ven, like seven, not Sam-hane" -- not that pagans were much better, calling her Ska-ven, or Sah-wen, and I kept having to explain, "no, not the old Irish pronounciation, or the modern Irish version, the Scottish version, and yes, it is different..." (Though I don't know which region in Scotland in particular -- I think Aberdeen, but I could be wrong.)
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Date: 30 Oct 2007 05:15 am (UTC)There were several gaelic words or phrases, among them coingeis (independent, indifferent), cuairtear (traveller), or some variant with cu (dog) -- except that adjectives in gaelic are even more of a nightmare than in japanese, and I'd rather not be utterly ignorant and just throw two words together. (At least in Mandarin, I know I can do that, to a certain extent.) Unfortunately, s'rioghal or srioghal is already taken, and I contemplated modhream but figured no one would ever be able to figure out how to pronounce that.
(Bad enough my beagle was named Saimhain, and I spent eleven years either correcting the vet's assistants -- "No, it's Sah-ven, like seven, not Sam-hane" -- not that pagans were much better, calling her Ska-ven, or Sah-wen, and I kept having to explain, "no, not the old Irish pronounciation, or the modern Irish version, the Scottish version, and yes, it is different..." (Though I don't know which region in Scotland in particular -- I think Aberdeen, but I could be wrong.)
Oi, vey.