This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Poland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Poland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PolandWikipedia:WikiProject PolandTemplate:WikiProject PolandPoland articles
We're told three of Kot's victims were a girl called "Malgosia" and two adult women called "Helena Velgen" and "Franchiska Levendovska". "Malgosia" should almost certainly be spelled "Małgosia" (with the Polish letter "ł" as in the name of another victim Leszek Całek, in which the letter is correctly used - Małgosia is a diminutive form of Małgorzata, the Polish equivalent of Margaret). As for the other two names, they both strike me as dubious, because the letter "v" does not occur in Polish and is replaced by "w" (for instance, the Polish equivalent of Eve or Eva is "Ewa"). "Velgen" (or "Welgen") doesn't look Polish at all, and I would expect "Lewendowska" rather than "Levendovska". As for "Franchiska", it looks like a serious misspelling of the name "Franciszka", the equivalent of English Frances or Italian Francesca. I tried to check all this in the Polish-language version of the article, but unfortunately none of these three names appears there (whereas Leszek Całek's does). I almost get the feeling that whoever wrote the English article never saw the original written names, but simply turned their sounds into the nearest English equivalent - and since (unlike Russian) Polish is not written in a different alphabet from English, there's no reason to have done such a thing.89.212.50.177 (talk) 12:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Just tried checking the Swedish-language version as well, but none of the victims' names appears there.89.212.50.177 (talk) 12:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, given that the names appear from English language sources, then Anglicisations of such are indeed possible/probable - and more so if the source is a non-written one too, as is the case here. The names are "correct" as per the source, although actual orthography is indeed another question (hence my recent addition of '...' marks). Further, Velgen is indeed possible as a name, since I assume not 100% of people living in Poland have a 'regular' Polish surname, or are all Polish citizens. Also, the Polish alphabet, as I understand it has 9 vowels and 23 consonants, which therefore does not match English exactly. If you are able to read Polish, I would recommend trying to find original sources (eg. newspaper or court documents) that support the spellings. Thanks. JabberJaw(talk)10:25, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
