this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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I've had this discussion before. Names are not translated. Adam is a Hebrew name meaning 'man' but if your Hebrew friend comes to an english-speaking country, you don't say this is my friend Man. If your name is Bob and you go to Japan, they might call you ใใ but that would still be calling you Bob, just with an accent. If you then started saying you were Bahboo as an imitation of their accent, you're not translating to be better understood. You're just mocking them. You don't have a Toki Pona accent, so you are imagining a foreigner with an accent and then mocking them, which is less offensive than mocking a real person, but still a weird thing to do.
Tomi pona has this tule stating that names should be written and pronounced the toki pona way. Like, giving a toki pona accent to everyone so that no confusion arises
No confusion will arise from calling people by their expected names. Confusion could easily arise from calling people by an interpretation of their expected name. Same goes for offense. Regardless of the intent of the original rule, we're all better off without it.