Danes, Swedes, Finns and Icelanders

[BWR]

just need a little brief translation and imagination help for my Laundry Files game: an appropriate name for the occult intelligence agencies of Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
Norway's is the imaginative Okkulte Etterretningstjenesten (not, as you might be excused for thinking, Trollsikkerhetstjenesten). I suppose I'm cheating a bit with the Danish and Swedish - i can read them just fine but producing proper spelling is probably going to end up with something a bit...off.

På forhånd takk.

[Asta Kask]

Ockulta Säkerhetstjänsten (Svenska)

[FinnLassie]

Finnish: Okkultistinen tiedusteluvirasto (acronym OTV), or you could call it "Suomen okkultistinen tiedusteluvirasto" (SOTV, "Occult Intelligence Agency of Finland"). Note that it is a very different language compared to the rest of the Nordic ones. If you want help with pronounciation, I can make a recording of it. Google Translate can give you a rough idea, but it's kinda... not right.

[Teddy]

just need a little brief translation and imagination help for my Laundry Files game: an appropriate name for the occult intelligence agencies of Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
Norway's is the imaginative Okkulte Etterretningstjenesten (not, as you might be excused for thinking, Trollsikkerhetstjenesten). I suppose I'm cheating a bit with the Danish and Swedish - i can read them just fine but producing proper spelling is probably going to end up with something a bit...off.

På forhånd takk.

Well, Asta already gave a direct translation, but I'd like to add that I think "Ockulta underrättelsetjänsten" is more accurate. That said, if you don't want them all to share what essentially is the same name, I would also suggest "Ockulta spaningsanstalten" ("the Occult Intelligence Establishment"). This would work especially well if this is a branch of the military, rather than the civilian police, since then it'd be called "Försvarets ockulta spaningsanstalt", which I think rolls quite well off the tongue. If you rather want it to be a secret or not-so-secret branch of the police, then I'd also suggest that you may go for the don't-make-it-complicated approach and name it "Övernaturliga polisen" ("the Supernatural Police"), inevitably abbreviated to "Övpo".

Also, note that in Swedish organisation names, only the first word has its first letter capitalised.

[BWR]

Thanks for the help so far. Some background on Charlie Stross' Laundry Files: math is magic, and magic can do weird stuff like summoning Cthulhu, and secret government organizations exist to prevent stuff from getting out of hand. Basically, it's 'Men in Black' meets Lovecraft, written as spy novels, with a large dose of 'Yes, Minister' for extra humor/cosmic horror at overwhelming bureaucrasy. The various agencies around the world have less obvious names like Operational Phenomenology, The Thirtheenth Directorate, Capital Laundry Services, Garda Unit for the Bizarre and Unprecedented, and other names which are varying degrees of obvious. If you want to play with it and find something more inventive, go ahead.

Finnish: Okkultistinen tiedusteluvirasto (acronym OTV), or you could call it "Suomen okkultistinen tiedusteluvirasto" (SOTV, "Occult Intelligence Agency of Finland"). Note that it is a very different language compared to the rest of the Nordic ones. If you want help with pronounciation, I can make a recording of it. Google Translate can give you a rough idea, but it's kinda... not right.

Pronounciation is nice but not necessary - I doubt my Russian/Gaelic/Mandarin/whatever sounds particularly good and it's not likely to come up other than in passing. I'm just trying to

Also, note that in Swedish organisation names, only the first word has its first letter capitalised.

Norwegian too, technically. I just can never get my head around that and keep making silly mistakes.

[Asta Kask]

They'd probably call it something like "Avdelningen för särskilda händelser" (Department for special events).

[FinnLassie]

Thanks for the help so far. Some background on Charlie Stross' Laundry Files: math is magic, and magic can do weird stuff like summoning Cthulhu, and secret government organizations exist to prevent stuff from getting out of hand. Basically, it's 'Men in Black' meets Lovecraft, written as spy novels, with a large dose of 'Yes, Minister' for extra humor/cosmic horror at overwhelming bureaucrasy. The various agencies around the world have less obvious names like Operational Phenomenology, The Thirtheenth Directorate, Capital Laundry Services, Garda Unit for the Bizarre and Unprecedented, and other names which are varying degrees of obvious. If you want to play with it and find something more inventive, go ahead.

Hmmm....
Erikoissuojelupoliisi ([Finnish] Special Security Intelligence Service, literal translation "[Finland's] special protection police")? This is actually a small variation of the actual Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Suojelupoliisi), trying to keep it as vague as possible to the public, you know
Edit: oh, and an abbreviation to this would probably be "Erisupo" or "Esupo", Suojelupoliisi itself is called Supo in general.

Pronounciation is nice but not necessary - I doubt my Russian/Gaelic/Mandarin/whatever sounds particularly good and it's not likely to come up other than in passing. I'm just trying to

Come on, you left your sentence in a cliffhanger!

[BWR]

Come on, you left your sentence in a cliffhanger!

Embarrassing. That's what you get when you can't write a single post starting at one end and ending at the other, but jump back and forth and rewrite and change what you're going to say while writing and don't bother to check the finished product before posting.

In short, it's just world building and I want sensible names for things. I could just come up with whatever names I think are appropriate in English and Norwegian, and my players aren't likely to ever see anything in writing, but it's more fun this way.

[FinnLassie]

Embarrassing. That's what you get when you can't write a single post starting at one end and ending at the other, but jump back and forth and rewrite and change what you're going to say while writing and don't bother to check the finished product before posting.

In short, it's just world building and I want sensible names for things. I could just come up with whatever names I think are appropriate in English and Norwegian, and my players aren't likely to ever see anything in writing, but it's more fun this way.

Heh, happens to me a lot, so no worries.

Aye, I prefer doing the same thing, really. Personally for the Finnish name I'd recommend the Erikoissuojelupoliisi, because it references an actual Finnish unit and brings a funny flare to the whole deal (in my opinion).

[Asta Kask]

Erikoissuojelupoliisi

Typical Finnish word. They don't think a word is grown-up and ready to face the world unless it has at least 15 syllables.

[Septimus Faber]

Typical Finnish word. They don't think a word is grown-up and ready to face the world unless it has at least 15 syllables.

Yes, but trust me, Finnish has nothing on some of the indigenous language of the Americas. Polysynthesis, I'm looking at you...

[FinnLassie]

Hey, Erityissuojelupoliisi only has nine syllables!

[Asta Kask]

*shrug*

Sometimes they escape early.

On the great word-farms of Savolax, words are raised to a life in virtual slavery. From the moment they are old enough to walk, they are taken for a daily sprint to keep them fresh and elastic. Then, on a spring night, they take the words down to the slaughter-house, and one by one... *snickt* The screaming is horrible.

Tell me FinnLassie, have the words stopped screaming?

[Greenish]

The more you can fit in one word, the fewer words you need to use. It's the humane way.


I'll second Erityissuojelupoliisi, though something like Luonnottomuustutkimusvirasto ("Researchy Agency for the Unnatural") or Erityistutkimusosasto ("Specialty Investigative Division") might also work. Even if the setting is pretty open about paranormal and supernatural existing, the bureaucratic language wouldn't make it too obvious, case in point Rikosseuraamuslaitos ("Facility for the Consequences of Crime", which manages prisons).

[fire_insideout]

If you rather want it to be a secret or not-so-secret branch of the police, then I'd also suggest that you may go for the don't-make-it-complicated approach and name it "Övernaturliga polisen" ("the Supernatural Police"), inevitably abbreviated to "Övpo".

'Övernaturliga polisen' sounds more like a police force with supernatural abilities rather than a force who hunts supernatural beings.

I'd probably go for 'Avdelningen för särskilda händelser', as Asta suggested, or 'Enheten för särskilda händelser' (Unit for special events), though in english both of those sounds like the party department of the police.

[Sian]

an important question would be if said department would default to sort under military or police. And in certain grey cases this again depends on the way the bureaucracy is built.

Would likely stay away from the wording 'occult' in danish since it sounds off in native ears