Improve translation: You are nobody and your name is no one

Question

In Russian culture there is a saying:

Ты никто и звать тебя никак

Which means that the person is of no importance (in this society) and even his name doesn't mean anything (to this society members). He hasn't deserved being taken into account yet. Or he was always on a lowest position.

I translated this like:

You are nobody and your name is no one

or

You are nobody and are called noname

How do these translations sound to native English speakers? Please help me to improve the translations.

Answer 1

Some suggestions in other answers and comments are quite good. As an alternative, I'd like to offer this, which is probably closer to the original in its literal sense:

You are nobody and your name means nothing.

This should be close enough to the meaning you gave, "You are nobody and your name is no one". I try to keep the and in the translation because I noticed the и in the original (Ты никто и звать тебя никак).

• Note: means nothing is quite an idiomatic way to express this kind of idea. Imagine a couple in a breakup conversation -- it's quite possible that at one point, feeling betrayed, his or her heart broken, he or she may say "Did I mean nothing to you?". I guess we all can relate to that kind of feeling.

Answer 2

Luckily, Russian is my mother tongue and I very well know this saying, which literally means:

"You are so low in any rank order, that hardly anybody not only will take you into account whatsoever, but they even don't know your name",

where, in the original, the most meaningful part is "ты никто", which means "you are of no use or importance/you are nothing--a nought, a mere nonexistence" and is understandable as such even without "и звать тебя никак" (you even don't have a name).

So having done the best I could in search for the English equivalent, I'd like to suggest "a low man on the totem pole" idiom expression (or, maybe, " [one of] the lowest man [men]" as a variant) for the phrase you may be looking for.

I'm not sure, though, whether it would be appropriate to say, addressing to a group of people, "Who are you to blame it on me? You are just the low ones on the totem pole!". None but native English speakers or really advanced learners can answer whether it would or not.

Also, I feel like suggesting the following:

"(to me,) you are (just) a nought/nothing without a name/with no name",

or

"you are (just) nameless nothing (to/for me)";

although I'm not sure about English nativeness of the phrases, so here authoritative comments are needed.

As for Russian sayings and proverbs, I'm not sure that a word for word translation of these into English will always produce the desired effect.

For example, take the Russian "На ловца и зверь бежит", which is translated as "An animal runs towards a trapper", and it makes no sense, whereas the equivalent proverb is: "Speak of the devil, and he is sure to come".

Answer 3

I would translate this as "You're just an anonymous nobody."

The closest English saying is probably "You're just some nobody, toiling away in obscurity." Not quite the same thing but close.

Answer 4

Nobody, noun 2. an insignificant person

countable noun If someone says that a person is a nobody, they are saying in an unkind way that the person is not at all important. [disapproval] ⇒ A man in my position has nothing to fear from a nobody like you.Collinsdictionary. com

An idiom is a mere nobody or some nobody, so we can say you are a mere (some) nobody and your name is "nothing". As there are several synonyms, such as nonentity, zero,cipher we can say: You are a nonentity/a zero/a cipher and your name is "nothing".