The Kalevala, the great Finnish national poem compiled by Elias Lönnrot, contains numerous place names that may be either real or mythical and fictional. The aim of this article is to examine how this latter group is treated in the two most recent Italian versions of the poem ‒ Agrati & Magini (1988) and Ganassini (2010) and in the English version by Peabody Magoun Jr. (1963), considered by many to be the most convincing. While, on the one hand, the Italian scholars mostly (but not always) leave these names in their original form (in some cases explaining the meaning in their commentaries), the American scholar regularly ‘translates’ them following strategies that are illustrated in our study.
