#instead of the perfectly intelligible cognate 'gladomor'

[ishparpuaqib]

i happen to be generally quite fond of exonyms and calques, but imho translating proper names (and toponyms and so on) should only be mandatory if they come from languages closely related to the language one is translating into���say, no more than one order of magnitude removed from their earliest demonstrated common ancestor (limiting mandatory translations in english to other germanic languages). insisting on calling belgrade 'whiteyard' or whatever would be rather silly, but i quite like the idea of referring to brussels (from middle dutch 'broekzele') as 'brooksale' ('sale' in the sense of 'hall') or to frankfurt as 'frankfort'. double points if the close relation between the languages allows for the calqued name to be formed in the exact same manner as the original—it is, for instance, perfectly possible to translate the name of oslo using the native (and cognate) english suffix -ley, 'osley'

(moreover, i think the number of calques should ideally be maximised by taking advantage of existing calques in languages closely related to one's own—the english should, for instance, make use of icelandic 'kænugarður' and solve the kiev/kyiv dispute by referring to the city simply as 'canyard')