The Translation of Personal Names in Hong Lou Meng:A Comparison of Three Famous English Versions

Of all classic Chinese novels,Hong Lou Meng is indisputably the greatest masterpiece. It is well known not only for the vivid characterization of hundreds of characters,but also for the delicate design of the names of the characters in the novel.How to translate the personal names correctly and at the same time keep their functions intended by the authors in the translated version is a challenging problem encountered by all the translators.This paper deals with the translation of personal names in Hong Lou Meng,and three different versions are used for comparison—A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang,The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes,and Dream of the Red Chamber by Wang Chichen.It aims to analyze the different translation methods adopted by the translators.