Berezhna M. Proper Names Used in Harry Potter Books by J. K. Rowling in Ukrainian and Russian Translations.

The proposed paper highlights peculiarities of rendering proper names from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books into Ukrainian and Russian. Proper names are an essential part of J. K. Rowling's style: their contextualization identifies and characterizes the personages. For this reason the translator's options are dictated not merely by the knowledge of the language, but require a meticulous pre-translation analysis with the focus on Rowling's style. The research explores the major factors influencing the translator's options in Ukrainian and Russian texts. It turns out that the losses of information are caused not so much by the linguistic and cultural differences as by the conscious orientation of the translator towards the stylistic norms of the recipient's discourse. The audience design is of crucial importance in both Ukrainian and Russian translations. This point is a glaring example of L. Venuti's idea of the reckless pursuit of domestication in current translation practices.