The first part of the problem of translating geographical names is the chaotic nature in which almost everything in the world has its own name. For thousands of years, cultures and languages ​​and translate english to french have developed more or less in isolation, and the peoples of the world have given their own names to things, objects and phenomena. Over the centuries, empires grew and gained power – like the Roman Empire – which then haphazardly renamed things that already had their own name; with errors, they adapted the existing names into their own naming system, and then also under the influence of the spelling and naming of the native people, they conquered these peoples, so that even the names that remained untouched often changed and took on a different form.

This naming problem is also compounded by the fact that grammar and spelling rules have not been standardized and organized for much of their existence. This is a fairly new phenomenon in languages ​​where there are fixed spellings and grammars. Several hundred years ago, these elements of the language were very diverse, and place names around the world reflect this phenomenon.

Thus, once you understand that you will be dealing with the translation of place names, you do not have to follow any fixed template, which in principle does not exist, just take into account the fact that place names were often imported into other languages ​​inconsistently. Some cities, for example, are freely translated into other languages ​​- London, for example, may take the form Londres or Londra in other languages. Some cities, however, keep their names unchanged, New-York, for example, is always New-York, even in languages ​​where London is Londre.

The only way to deal with the translation of place names is to follow the basic rule: the most correct and safest way is to keep the place name according to its original language, if you do not know exactly the generally accepted translation of this place. Of course, this sounds simpler than it turns out in practice, since it is often very difficult to define the “original language” of this name. New-York, for example, was called New-Amsterdam when the Dutch owned it, but no one will say that this is the very name of this city.
Of course, some place names are pretty straightforward; but there are a lot of places in the world with an unclear name, and from this, we translators have to sweat a lot when translating. When you come across such an obscure place and cannot translate it, it is best to leave it untranslated as well and move on, or spend a little time studying this place name. Therefore, it is very useful to have many friends in the field of translation.