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I genuinely remember asking "pourquoi ils ne l'appelent pas SpongeBob aussi?" to whoever made those French dubs. It kinda made me pretty confused.
And yes, I was an avid SpongeBob fan back in the day. Not so much anymore.
This is such a pet peeve of mine. My mum wanted me to watch GoT with her in German but I just couldn't because the translated the last names. Jon Snow was Jon Schnee which is the literal German translation of snow and it's such a mismatch with English sounding last names.
Jon Schnee. Absolutely hilarious.
But yeah, I really hate it.
Which is doubly sad cause the German synchro is pretty damn good. As a big Lord of the Rings fan, I am so glad we've been spared this. Allegedly cause Tolkin knew German and actually helped with the translation. BUT they of course had to do a re-translation for some arcane reason and in the new version Sam calls Frodo "Chef", he literally calls him his boss. I feel like there is a lot to learn from the brain of the person responsible for this. All of it highly disturbing.
K Ö N I G S M U N D
King's Landing in the german dub/book. It's somewhat okay, "Mund" as in "River mouth", but it's just one of a few jarring mismatches, some names translated, others untouched, with no sense or system.
Sponge = éponge in french
Yeah I know, but as far as I know, some shows just don't have their name translated. For example, "Rocket Power" in French is still "Rocket Power". So is "Adventure Time". "Kick Buttowski". I could go on.
And then there's weird stuff like "les Razmokat" for "the Rugrats", and "les Super Nanas" for "the Powerpuff Girls". I never understood these.
Razmoket = rase-moquette, means pretty much the same thing as "rug rat" (rase-moquette is not a real french expression, but it evokes "rase-motte" which means hedgehopping)..
And "nana" is slang for "girl".
Makes sense
Old french : esponge -> éponge (french) | sponge (english)
As you said it's old french, we just make it shorter and easier to pronounce