Names are sacred, but not so in children's books, where there seems to be a widespread habit of adapting names to the target culture. This article investigates the translation of personal names from a functional perspective. Starting from a categorization of the various strategies a translator can apply when confronted with a personal name in the source text, each strategy is examined in the light of how it can affect the functioning of the names in the text. Examples from different languages, genres and periods then demonstrate how shifts may occur in the informative, formative, emotional, creative, divertive and aesthetic functions. The second part of the article offers a survey of the translator's motives and classifies the factors determining the translator's strategies into four categories: the nature of the name, textual factors, the translator's frame of reference, and 'external' factors other than text and translator. Finally, the question of the concrete effects of specific strategies vis-à-vis a young readership is raised.