He was christened "Lev" - the Russian word for "lion."
When his works were translated into French, they listed him as "Leon" - French for "lion."
And when the books reached England, his name morphed (I don't think we can say "anglicized") into "Leo" for "lion."
You learn something every day (with a tip of the hat to the elves at No Such Thing as a Fish).
It's quite common for names to be "morphed" when borrowed by another language. In school the name William the Conqueror confused me to no end. Why did a guy from France with an English name come to England to conquer it? Took me a while to realize his own people called him Guillaume.
ReplyDelete