The translation of Tawnypelt or: „That’s a nice name, Goldenflower, but what in StarClan's name is „tawny“ even?"
Honestly, „tawny“ is a very difficult word to directly translate to other languages, since there is no direct translation. In most cases it would refer to something like „golden-brown“ or „yellow-brown“ that comes closest to that word, which is far too long for a good warrior name and in some languages it already is a compound of its own. So, most translations made the choice, to simply find something halfway matching in colour for her and brought up some very creative choices along the way.
Dutch
Dutch is probably one of the closest that comes to the original (from an etymological standpoint). While a direct translation of „tawny“ still doesn’t exist (yellowish-brown is still about the closest thing one can use for this word, which again, would have been a mouthful), her used name still resembles a form of colour, even if the meaning is not quite the same. Here she’s named Taanpels. My Dutch isn’t perfect yet, so I had some trouble to find a correct translation and the meaning at first (and eventually I got it supported through the etymology). It’s some form of a colouring process or also more specifically a process to tan leather specifically and it would probably most closely translate as Tanpelt (both come from the same roots).
Spanish
Spanish got fairly close with its translation as well. Trigueña is also some form of colouration, coming close to the original, although no direct translation. It means more something along the lines of „brown-ish“ or „golden-brown“, so pretty much the original meaning. There is no direct etymological link as I first thought, even though the words look at least a little bit similar. The name comes from the word „trigo“ (wheat), which again, is something that certainly resembles the colour.
(Far more interesting in this case for me is the fact, that she belongs to some of the very few cats that only have a single name (I can speak only for Italian and Spanish so far, where I have seen this case). She lost her -paw suffix (or in this case the added „Zarpa“ in front of her name) and just became Trigueña as a warrior. I have so far not found out, how the rules work there and who decides what translation might fit best (I can see, why they leave it though, as both languages don’t really use compounds all that often) and where it is better fitting to just leave out the prefix and/or suffix. I need to give this whole thing a closer look. For those who know more about these languages and the choices there, let me know. I’m curious.)
German
German uses colours for cat’s names, however, all of the halfway matching colours (gold, brown and yellow) were already used somewhere before for another cat and a compound of two colours at once is far too long. And again, there is no direct translation of „tawny“. So there, they just switched it to Bernsteinpelz (Amberpelt), to have something that resembles that colour very closely.
Swedish
Same goes for Swedish, where they named her Höstfäll (Autumnfur). Simple and yet with its own flaws because last time I checked, a cat doesn’t know what „autumn“ is supposed to mean in cat language. Either way a very interesting choice and I’m actually not fully opposed to it. It still sounds cute after all and the lighter spots on her black fur can certainly leave the impression of fallen leaves on the ground.
And at least they stay consistent with their „mistake“ because Ivypool had the same changes (she is named Vinterdamm, which means Winterpond and honestly it also doesn’t sound bad at all). Warriors in the Swedish world just know about the human seasons. Maybe they picked it up from a kittypet once and just liked the sounds of it, so they added it to their vocabulary. Since both are originally ThunderClan, I can imagine that Firestar might have indirectly influenced some of the cats with his kittypet vocabulary even if it was never mentioned (which is funny because that would annoy Tigerstar even more, knowing his daughter’s name was a kittypet loanword) and I like that implication. In a way it added something new to the clan, without changing any source text and it once again makes these books unique for it.
Norwegian
Norwegian has a very close pick as well. Here she’s named Lærpels, which translates to Leatherpelt. Again, at first glance, something that just leans close towards the colour in order to represent it.
However, the actual reason, why this name was chosen, is through etymology, I believe. If you actually chose to read the article as a whole and not just skip to the languages you’re interested in (which I don’t mind, read however you like it! I know after all that this is a lot of text), you probably can see where this is going from the Dutch part already. „Tawny“ comes from the tanning process, meaning a process, in which bark is processed into leather and/or leather is coloured. While leather and the colour are not directly related in this case, the link is clearly there.
Not to mention, I can totally see a human version of Tawnypelt rocking a leather jacket. :)
Italian
But by far the most elegant solution (and my personal favourite) for this name is probably the Italian translation. For once, they didn’t go down the „find-a-matching-thing-for-that-colour“ option. They took her name in context with her brother instead. „Bramble“ can mean as much as thicket/bush in multiple other languages but also specifically a thorny (black-)berry bush, which is why he is named after the berry itself in certain languages. Same goes for Italian. Here he’s named ArtigliodiMora (Blackberryclaw). And so, they matched Tawnypelt’s name to it and named her MantodiLampone, which means as much as Raspberrypelt (or -fur).
That is just so adorable! For me, this certainly gives off the vibe, that it was Goldenflower alone who had a say in how the kits should be named, because I honestly can’t see Tigerclaw coming up with something as cute as matching names for littermates. Not to mention, the name Raspberry is generally very lovely for a cat and should definitely be used once in these books at one point.
French
French went down the completely different way when it comes to these implications, which also makes it very interesting. The name they used here was Pelage d'Or (Goldenpelt), more or less naming her after her mother, Bouton d'Or, which means Buttercup. I know in context, „or“ means something different for her mother since it’s part of the entire word for that flower but the connection of the golden colour is still special (and in English at least, she was accidentally first even described as golden. I’m not quite sure if the French translations corrected that mistake, but it’s another point that makes this name fitting for her). Since I doubt that Goldenflower directly named a kit after herself, here it can only mean, that it was Tigerclaw who wanted to name her like that, which is also interesting to see.
And as a little addition considering the translations of both French and Italian: The further proof, that in both cases, she was named after some familial relation, is the fact, that the tom Tawnyspots (from „Bluestar’s Prophecy“) has a different translation for „tawny“. In most languages, the translation is the same word, as it was for Tawnypelt (except for Spanish, where he was named Leonino, if I looked it up correctly in the wiki, which means „Lion-like“ and again goes towards the colouring resemblance).
In French though, he was named Taches Fauves (Light brown spots), which is also a very close and halfway matching translation for the word. This means that the change to something further off for Tawnypelt in order to match her family, seemed intentional, especially, since there would have been a more fitting word, than just using „gold“.
And in Italian his name was translated to MacchiaScura, meaning Darkspots. It also doesn’t come close to „tawny“ at all, especially since most translations seem to agree, that this colour usually is on the lighter side. Still, it’s something different again and I’m all down for these differences.
That’s only a few of the languages, mostly covering the ones where I can find the name for it (the Danish wiki for example has not many updates and since I have no other direct source for this language, I could not find out, which name they gave her there) and the ones I can speak and translate with ease or at least understand well enough, in order to give a halfway reliable translations that weren’t just put through Google Translate (that does not mean I make mistakes, so if I went completely off the rail somewhere, please let me know).
It also leaves out a big chunk of many other languages though, so I would love to know how else „tawny“ was translated in these.
And I’m always, always open to hear about other language changes in general. I collect these and love to look over them, in order to find new and interesting connections that I can share about (there are so many posts that I’m already preparing that cover these deviations in some shape or form).
(I'm hoping this crossposting isn't too obnoxious. I'm not sure how typical it is to share a post between two communities that partially share their user base.)
Posted Feb 11, 2026, 10:24 PM UTC