Since Tim Burton’s work inspired by “The Addams Family” debuted in the Netflix catalogue, fans began to question the same choice of translation: how did the protagonist’s name — which was called “Wednesday” in the original version — become ” Wandinha”?
English-speaking countries adopt the name “Wednesday”, which means Wednesday (yes, the day of the week) in literal translation.
Those who watched the production should remember that, during the first episode, Mortícia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) enrolls her daughter in the “Nunca Mais” school, and reveals that the name was inspired by a nursery rhyme.
“Her name comes from a line in my favorite children’s poem. Wandinha is just disgusting”, said the matriarch. In the plot, the protagonist explains that, despite being called “Wednesday”, in fact, she was born on a Friday the 13th (of course, right). This idea came from the creation of the character in the original version, written by cartoonist Charles Addams in the 1930s.
The author of The Addams Family gave the name Wednesday to the character inspired by the nursery rhyme published in 1838, which defines children based on the day of the week they were born. The original text says that “wednesday’s child is full of woe”, which we can translate as “Wednesday’s children are full of afflictions” – the word “woe” in English can also be translated as “anguish” or “disgust”.
The poem reveals that only a child born on Wednesday has something bad, while a child born on Monday is beautiful, and one born on Tuesday is full of grace. Check out the full song:
“Monday’s child is beautiful
Tuesday’s child is full of grace
Wednesday’s child is full of woes
Thursday’s child goes far
Friday’s child is kind and generous
The Saturday child works all to live
And the child born on the Sabbath day
She is beautiful and cheerful, good and happy.”
If the day of her birth is taken into account, the choice of name for the character does not make much sense, since she was born on a frightening Friday the 13th – and, therefore, should be baptized “Friday”. However, in the poem, children who are born on Friday turn out to be kind and generous, and, as we know Wandinha Addams, it is the complete opposite of that.
lost in translation
Anyone who is a fan of Sessão da Tarde knows very well that, when they arrive in Brazil, the foreign names of films and series usually go through that “Brazilian style”, right? That’s how the Mexican mouse Speedy Gonzales became Speedy, and the chipmunks Chip and Dale became Tico and Teto.
When the Addams Family stories arrived here, Wednesday’s name was translated to Vandinha, for greater understanding by the public — who tend to buy better names that sound good in Portuguese. However, Netflix changed the letter “V” to “W”, so that it could look a little more like the original name.
“Wednesday” became Wandinha in 1965, in the first Brazilian version of the series, performed by the extinct Dublasom Guanabara.
“It is a question of history, of our affective memory. It’s been Wandinha since forever, so nothing fairer than being now too. I also saw how it was translated into other countries, and here anyone thinks of the Addams Family when they hear this name”, declared Felipe Drummond, Wandinha’s dubbing director, in an interview with the newspaper metropolises
