Ok, to those German speakers. I have an NPC who is going to go by the name Dr. Feelgood but it's going to be a german character. So how would it be said in German? The character is going to be 'evil' and a bit psychotic, would that make a difference to the translation? Also how would such a character introduce himself to an English speaker?

[HORRIBLY SFW TV TROPES LINK DEAD AHEAD!] There is no good way of translating that, really . . [/HORRIBLY SFW TV TROPES LINK DEAD AHEAD!]
Closest would be Dr.Wohlfühlen i guess, which is the verb which means to feel good in german really . .
And he would introduce himself als any hammy nazi you find in any movies.
"Hallo, ich bin *Handschuh auszieh/gradezieh* Dr.Wohlfühlen."
"Hello, i am *pulls glove off/straight* Dr.Feelgood."

edited the TV tropes Disclaimer in ^^

RED FLAG!

Unlabelled / undeclared TVTropes link on the field!

Fifteen yard penalty!!!

*snickers*
worth it, sorry ^^

And that's terrible.

>And he would introduce himself als any hammy nazi
>als

Thank you.

A couple more questions.

There isn't a different way to say doctor, as a title, in German? And would that be pronounced like "Wool fyu len"?

Nope, Doktor is the german spelling of Doctor. This is not the job description though, that one is Arzt(Medic).
Doctor is a title over here, but it's usually used for Ärzte(Plural of Arzt/Medics) by other People.
Only when talking about them do people usually say Arzt instead of Doktor. When talking to one, Doktor is used, not Arzt.
And it's used by them when talking of themselves and introducing themselves too. If they want to be exact, they would say:
"Ich bin Dr.Wohlfühlen, ich bin Arzt."
"I am Dr.Wohlfühlen, i am a Medic"

And doing the pronounciation thing with letters is always hard, but yes, i think Woolfyulen(no pause anywhere, but drawn out sounds) is pretty close.

<---- **kiloton-range head asplosion**


Damn you.

Shouldn't it be "Voolfyulen?"

No.
Ve germans do not use ze v instead of an w in these cases!

http://dict.leo.org/?lp=ende&from=fx3&...wohlf%C3%BChlen
Click the sound icon on the right ^^

How about a willfully deceptive name like Dr. Giftmischer (poisoner) or a wonderfully hammy name like Dr. Krank (Sick)

Ich sprechen nicht deutsch, so don't bash me if I got it wrong bitte sehr.

Leave it in English, really, if it's a Streetname.

Otherwise, Dr. Gemütlich. Compared to Dr. Wohlfühlen, it has the advantage of being a viable name and looks a lot less like "foreigners don't know how cases work". Dr. Wohlfühl would be a slightly less awkward alternative.

"Gemütlich" would be a lot better than "Wohlfühlen".

English doesn't have a word that describes "gemütlich" accurately does it? Best I could come up with is "with a generally positive outlook"

gemütlich == comfy for example.
when applied to a person, it indicates a slow and casual approach.

True. I would more likely translate it to comfy or comfortable. The problem is that in addition to not having a clear equivalent in English gemütlich can have different meanings according to context. Here is a pretty good list of possibilities.

@Stahlseele: I didn't know you could use medic for a physician. Man lernt nie aus. I have only used it for a paramedic/corpsman. Physician (not to be confused with physicist) would also have worked well in your example. Or you could insert the appropriate specialist (surgeon/Chirurg; psychiatrist/Psychiater; ophtamologist/Augenarzt etc.)

As for the OP giving us an idea, what associations the name is supposed to convey would probably help us more to give you an appropriate analogue. A direct translation does not work well as has been said before.

Gah! Here's hoping my players don't read this forum.


Spoilers below if they do

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The character is a rogue AI who has taken to abducting people and placing them in UV hosts to test their reactions to extreme situations, and to test their survivalbility. When the players finally encounter it, it will present itself as a psychiatrist in an insane asylum, inside a UV host. I had picked Feelgood as a joke name, if there is one for a researching psychiatrist gone mad, let me know.

It might be too obscure but how about Dr. Sigmund Zimbardo? It's an amalgam of Sigmund Freud and Philip Zimbardo. It's not particularly German though.

Even more obscure Dr Aleister Grout was supposedly the in-official leader of the Malkavian clan in VtM: Bloodlines. A former psychiatrist turned vampire, you never encounter him in-game but rather you find voice logs all over his mansions. Initially seeming like a calm collected individual which is odd, since every malk is clinically insane in some way (it's in the blood). As you venture further you discover that he has quite a narcissistic streak frequently bashing great names like Freud or Nietzsche... But more amusingly, he's extremely paranoid.

If he were translating into English he wouldn't translate his name, he'd keep that in German.
"Hello I am Doktor Wohlfühlen" which makes it better when they figure it out .I mean if I'm introduced to some friend of my mom's I am "Madame Levine," The title is translated but not my name.

This. If the character is speaking English, there's really no reason to render its pseudonym in German.

I thought the character was supposed to be German and the OP thought it weird for him to have an English street name. If you can find some justification for having a pseudonym in a foreign language keep it, if not look for something different.

I get that the character is German, but if it's going to be speaking English to people whose native tongue is English (most or all of the PCs, presumably), the meaning of the pseudonym will probably be lost on them.

Except that two of them have characters with German as a native language. And the AI is of a German origin.

But do any of the players speak German? If it's something they will immediately get, that's one thing. If you have to explain it, that's something else.

There is no exact translation. It has two meanings. The first, when applied to a location, is a cozy, comfortable, warm, 'home' sort of place. The second, applied to a person, is about calm, slightly lethargic optimism. The 'we can worry about this tomorrow, too' sort of outlook, but meant in a positive, not negatively procrastinating way.


Dr. Freude (translates as Dr. Joy, and is an appropriately pulpy horrible pun on Dr. Sigmund Freud).

You should really go with Dr. Stanislaus Braun. First thing that came to mind when you described the character. German sounding name. A crazy mad doctor experimenting on people in a VR simulator? Yep.

Plus your players might get the reference. And if they've played it they'll also know how horrible you're being to them