question: How and why do names of people get translated?
comment: I'm going to need a source that "Mark" is derived from "Nikud", because the best I can tell Mark the Evangelist in modern Hebrew has the name מרקוס‎ , which apparantly is angllizised as Marqos; and it's quite easy to see how Marqos turns to Mark. That being said Nikud could morph in to Mikud which morphs in to Mikus which morphs in to Mekus Which morphs in to Makus which morphs in to Markus which morphs in to Mark. It's not a sudden change, it's a series of a hundred tiny changes over multiple generations. Names get translated when they are imported into a new society. This import can be because someone that has the name moved there, or because an influential figure or character makes his way in to common knowledge (f.i even if nobody in a given town is named "Jesus" if the town is christian it's quite obvious all of them know of the name). However languages aren't all the same; some have different phonology or grammar that makes a given name stand out and be uncomfortable. Thus the name adapts slightly to fit that language. For instance Icelandic conjugates. An icelandic name, given how my name appears in the sentence it could appear in four different variations to fit in with the grammar. The name might include a sound that *doesn't exist* in that language, so it will be modified to avoid that letter. The name might get shortened (Mark is a shorter version of Markus), or gain a few letters, or slowly people start pronouncing it differently if the original language isn't constantly around to fix the slight diversion. Names change just as languages change. A language slowly morphs and adapts to new generations, and whatever names that language already has will get morphed right along with them.
passages: Such anglicisation was once more common. In the late 19th century, however, use of non-English place names in English began to become more common. When dealing with languages that use the same Latin alphabet as English, names are now more usually written in English as in their local language, sometimes even with diacritical marks that do not normally appear in English. With languages that use non-Latin alphabets, such as the Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Korean Hangul, and other alphabets, a direct transliteration is typically used, which is then often pronounced according to English rules. Non-Latin based languages may use standard romanisation systems, such as Japanese Rōmaji or Chinese Pīnyīn. The Japanese and Chinese names in English follow these spellings with some common exceptions, usually without Chinese tone marks and without Japanese macrons for long vowels: Chóngqìng to Chongqing (重慶, 重庆), Shíjiāzhuāng to Shijiazhuang (石家莊, 石家庄), both in China; Kyōto to Kyoto (京都) in Japan.
   A small number of figures, mainly very well-known classical and religious writers, appear under English names—or more typically under Latin names, in English texts. This practice became prevalent as early as in English-language translations of the New Testament, where translators typically renamed figures such as Yeshu and Simon bar-Jonah as Jesus and Peter, and treated most of the other figures in the New Testament similarly. (In contrast, translations of the Old Testament traditionally use the original names, more or less faithfully transliterated from the original Hebrew.) Transatlantic explorers such as Zuan Caboto and Cristoforo Colombo became popularly known as John Cabot and Christopher Columbus; English-speakers anglicized and Latinized the name of the Polish astronomer Mikołaj Kopernik to (Nicholas) Copernicus, and the English-speaking world typically knows the French-born theologian Jean Calvin as John Calvin. Such Anglicizations became less usual after the sixteenth century.
   Practical transcription can be done into a non-alphabetic language too. For example, in a Hong Kong newspaper, George Bush's name is transliterated into two Chinese characters that sound like "Bou-sū" (布殊) by using the characters that mean "cloth" and "special". Similarly, many words from English and other Western European languages are borrowed in Japanese and are transcribed using Katakana, one of the Japanese syllabaries.
  
  Section::::Subsequent divergence.
  
  After transcribing a word from one language to the script of another language:
   Section::::Questions.
  
  BULLET::::- Wea nao ples blong/blo iu? "Where is your place?" (i.e. "What is your address?)"
  
  BULLET::::- iu stap lo wea distaem? "Where are you now?"
  
  BULLET::::- Wanem nao datwan? (pointing to an object) "What is that one?"
  
  BULLET::::- Haomas nao bae hem kostem mi fo sendem wanfala erogram go lo' Japan "How much will it cost me to send this letter to Japan?"
  
  BULLET::::- Hu nao bae save helpim mifala weitim diswan rabis? = "Who will/might be able to help us with this mess"
   Formal writing in (especially older) Dutch uses almost as much Latin as the lawyer's English, and, for instance, "N.N." was and is commonly used as a "John Doe" placeholder in class schedules, grant proposals, etc.
  
  Emperor Justinian's codification of Roman law follows the custom of using "Titius" and "Seius" as names for Roman citizens, and "Stichus" and "Pamphilus" as names for slaves.
  
  Section::::Latvian.
  
  Section::::Latvian.:Names.
   Around this time Nicolaides meets a native of the CAR (and co-author of the Sango dictionary), Marcel Alingbindo, and his family. Marcel is eager for Nicolaides’ aid in resuscitating Sango, which is being pushed out by French down in the CAR. Marcel explains his process of introducing neologisms into Sango, and urges Nicolaides to become its advocate.
   BULLET::::- Mongolian – Есүс дахин амилсан, Тэр үнэхээр амилсан! (Yesus dahin amilsan, ter uneheer amilsan)
  
  Section::::The Paschal Greeting in various languages.:Turkic languages.
  
  BULLET::::- Turkish – Mesih dirildi! Hakikaten dirildi!
  
  BULLET::::- Uyghur – (Əysa tirildi! Ⱨəⱪiⱪətinla tirildi!)
  
  BULLET::::- Azeri – Məsih dirildi! Həqiqətən dirildi!
  
  BULLET::::- Chuvash – Христос чĕрĕлнĕ! Чăн чĕрĕлнĕ! (Hristos čĕrĕlnĕ! Čyn čĕrĕlnĕ!)
  
  BULLET::::- Khakas – Христос тірілді! Сыннаң тірілді! (Hristos tíríldí! Sınnañ tíríldí!)
  
  BULLET::::- Uzbek – Масих тирилди! Хақиқатдан тирилди! (Masih tirildi! Haqiqatdan tirildi!)
  
  Section::::The Paschal Greeting in various languages.:Sino-Tibetan languages.
  
  BULLET::::- Mandarin – 基督復活了！他確實復活了！(Jīdū fùhuó-le! Tā quèshí fùhuó-le!) "or" 耶穌復活了，真的他復活了！(Yēsū fùhuó-le, Zhēnde tā fùhuó-le!)
   BULLET::::- PNH: Pliny (Gaius Plinius Secundus), "Naturalis Historia"; book "PNH" chapter (that is, "37PNH81" instead of the usual "N.H.xxxvii.81").
  
  BULLET::::- PG: Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), "Geographia"; book "PG" chapter (that is, "2PG3" instead of the usual "II.3"). Ptolemy wrote in Greek, so names are transliterated back into Latin to reveal the original form.
  
  BULLET::::- HLU: Hofmann, Johann Jacob (1635–1706): "Lexicon Universale"
   In official documents however, an unidentified person’s name is entered as "NN" (abbreviation of "Nazwisko Nieznane" – name unknown, or "N"omen "N"escio). Informally, to describe any unknown person, the phrase "taki jeden" (lit. "such a one") is in common use.
   Bilingual name
  
  A bilingual name is a name of a person that is spelled, if not pronounced, exactly the same in two languages. The speakers of a certain language usually have names that do not exist in another language. Even when the name has a common root or refers to the same historic or religious figure, different languages will spell and pronounce the name in a unique way. Thus a name with identical spelling in two languages may be of interest to parents of Third Culture Kids, or immigrants.
  
  Section::::Examples.
  
  Section::::Examples.:Differentiated spelling.
   BULLET::::- the Korean language; for example, if a Korean woman has a son named Su-min, she might be called "Su-min Eomma" (meaning "mother of Su-min")
  
  BULLET::::- the Arab world; for example, if a Saudi man named Hasan has a child named Zayn, Hasan will now be known as "Abu Zayn" (literally, "Father of Zayn"). Similarly, "Umm Malik" is "Mother of Malik". This is known as a "kunya" in Arabic and is used as a sign of respect for others.
  
  BULLET::::- Amazonia
  
  BULLET::::- the Zuni language
   In a scientific context, the main purpose of Latinisation may be to produce a name which is internationally consistent.
  
  Latinisation may be carried out by:
  
  BULLET::::- transforming the name into Latin sounds (e.g. "Geber" for "Jabir"), or
  
  BULLET::::- adding Latinate suffixes to the end of a name (e.g. "Meibomius" for "Meibom)," or
  
  BULLET::::- translating a name with a specific meaning into Latin (e.g. "Venator" for Italian "Cacciatore"; both mean 'hunter'), or
   The translator's special role in society is described in a posthumous 1803 essay by "Poland's La Fontaine", the Roman Catholic Primate of Poland, poet, encyclopedist, author of the first Polish novel, and translator from French and Greek, Ignacy Krasicki:
  
  Section::::Theories.:Other traditions.
  
  Due to Western colonialism and cultural dominance in recent centuries, Western translation traditions have largely replaced other traditions. The Western traditions draw on both ancient and medieval traditions, and on more recent European innovations.
   In Vietnamese, "Nguyễn Văn A" and "Trần Thị B" are usually used as placeholder names for a male and female, respectively, due to the ubiquity of the family names Nguyễn and Trần and middle names Văn and Thị in Vietnamese.
  
  Section::::Welsh.
  
  Welsh uses "betingalw" (or the respectful "bechingalw"), literally "what you call", meaning "whatchamacallit".
  
  Section::::Ubykh.
  
  One of the placeholders in Ubykh, zamsada, may be related to another word meaning "useless".
  
  Section::::Uzbek.
   Many early Bible translators, when they came across some unusual Hebrew words or proper names, used the Arabic cognates. In the newer translations this practice is discontinued. They now turn to Greek names or use the original Hebrew Word. For example, the name Jesus was initially translated as 'Isa (Arabic: عيسى), but is now spelt as Yesus. Several ecclesiastical terms derived from Arabic still exist in Indonesian language.
   Generally, the greater the contact and exchange that have existed between two languages, or between those languages and a third one, the greater is the ratio of metaphrase to paraphrase that may be used in translating among them. However, due to shifts in ecological niches of words, a common etymology is sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one or the other language. For example, the English "actual" should not be confused with the cognate French ("present", "current"), the Polish ("present", "current," "topical", "timely", "feasible"), the Swedish "aktuell" ("topical", "presently of importance"), the Russian ("urgent", "topical") or the Dutch "actueel" ("current").
   Section::::Assyrian Names.
  
  Many Assyrians give traditional Assyrian names associated with the names of kings and queens as first names, along with Syriac and Biblical names.
  
  Section::::Assyrian Names.:Given Names.
   Another way to deal with named entities is to use transliteration instead of translation, meaning that you find the letters in the target language that most closely correspond to the name in the source language. There have been attempts to incorporate this into machine translation by adding a transliteration step into the translation procedure. However, these attempts still have their problems and have even been cited as worsening the quality of translation. Named entities were still identified incorrectly, with words not being transliterated when they should or being transliterated when they shouldn't. For example, for "Southern California" the first word should be translated directly, while the second word should be transliterated. However, machines would often transliterate both because they treated them as one entity. Words like these are hard for machine translators, even those with a transliteration component, to process.
   Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated "language localization".
  
  Section::::Etymology.
   Frequently, a given name has versions in many different languages. For example, the biblical name "Susanna" also occurs in its original biblical Hebrew version, "Shoshannah", its Spanish and Portuguese version "Susana", its French version, "Suzanne", its Polish version, "Zuzanna", or its Hungarian version, "Zsuzsanna" .
  
  Section::::Origins and meanings.:East Asia.
   Latinisation of names
  
  Latinisation of names ("Latinization of names"), also known as onomastic Latinisation ("onomastic Latinization"), is the practice of rendering a "non"-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly found with historical proper names, including personal names, and toponyms, and in the standard binomial nomenclature of the life sciences. It goes further than romanisation, which is the transliteration of a word to the Latin alphabet from another script (e.g. Cyrillic).
  
  This was often done in the classical to emulate Latin authors, or to present a more impressive image.
   Section::::Challenges.
   BULLET::::- Lithuanian: Juozapas, Juozas (shorter form), Juzas (shortest form), Justas
  
  BULLET::::- Lombard: Giüsèpp, Pèpp, Pèpa, Pèppa, Bèpp
  
  BULLET::::- Macedonian: Јосиф ("J̌osif")
  
  BULLET::::- Malayalam: ജോസപ്പ് ("Josapp") or ജോസപ്പൻ ("Josappan"), ഔസേപ്പ് ("Ousepp"), യോസേപ്പ് ("Yosef"), ഔസേപച്ചന്‍ ("Ouseppachen"), കൊച്ചാപ്പു ("Kochaappu"), ഈപ്പൻ ("Eappan"), ഈപ്പച്ചൻ ("Eappachan"), ജോസഫ് ("Jēāsaph")
  
  BULLET::::- Malaysian: Yusuf, Yusop, Yusoff, Jusoh, Usop
  
  BULLET::::- Manado Malay: Josef, Yosef, Oce'
  
  BULLET::::- Maltese: Ġużeppi, Ġużi, Ġuż, Ġużè, Peppi, Peppu, Peppinu, Pepp, Peppa, Pepa, Żeppi, Żeppu, Żepp
  
  BULLET::::- Mandarin: , , 玉素甫 ("Yùsùfǔ"), "Zho-Zi-Fu"
  
  BULLET::::- Marathi: योसेफ ("Jōsēfa")
  
  BULLET::::- Maori: Hohepa
  
  BULLET::::- Mongolian: Иосеф ("Iosyef")
  
  BULLET::::- Nepali: यूसुफ ("Yūsupha")
  
  BULLET::::- Norwegian: Josef
  
  BULLET::::- Occitan: Josèp
   BULLET::::- English: Bartholomew (full name/formal); Bart (diminutive)
  
  BULLET::::- Esperanto: Bartolomé
  
  BULLET::::- Faroese: Bartal
  
  BULLET::::- Finnish: Perttu or Pärttyli
  
  BULLET::::- French: Barthélemy
  
  BULLET::::- Galician: Bartolomeu
  
  BULLET::::- Georgian: ბართლომე (Bart’lome)
  
  BULLET::::- German: Bartholomäus
  
  BULLET::::- Greek: Βαρθολομαίος (Bartholomaios, Vartholomaios, Vartholomaíos)
  
  BULLET::::- Haitian Creole: Batèlmi
  
  BULLET::::- Hebrew": נתנאל (Netan-el), which means "God has given"; בר-תלמי (Bar-Talmai), meaning Talmai's son
  
  BULLET::::- Hungarian: Bertalan (given name), Bartal, Bartos, Bartó (last names)
  
  BULLET::::- Icelandic: Bartólómeus
  
  BULLET::::- Irish: Bairtliméad or Parthálan (Parthálan is etymologically unrelated to Bartholomew)
  
  BULLET::::- Italian: Bartolomeo
   The Arabic names listed below are used in the Arab world, as well as some other Muslim regions, with correspondent Hebrew, English, Syriac and Greek equivalents in many cases. They are not necessarily of Arabic origin, although some are. Most are derived from Syriac transliterations of the Hebrew Bible. For more information, see also Iranian, Malay, Pakistani, and Turkish names.
  
  BULLET::::- The popular romanization of the Arabized and Hebrew names are written first, then the standardized romanization are written in oblique. Notice that Arabized names may have variants.
  