Wandinha: why is the character called Wednesday in the original?

As the series Wandinha, from Netflix, gains more notoriety in the world of entertainment, more curiosities and questions about the main character of the work arise. The main one, perhaps, has to do with her name. In English, the daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams is called Wednesday, which, in free translation, means “Wednesday”. But do you know why?

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The Addams Family is a franchise created in 1930 by cartoonist Charles Addams. Since then, the name of the dark young woman has always been Wednesday and, according to reports, the origin of the name came from a somewhat macabre poem (as well as the character).

The name Wednesday was changed in Brazil to Wandinha, which raised questions from fans.Source: Netflix

The author of the Gothic family, therefore, would have been inspired by a nursery rhyme, released in 1938, in which the days of the week in which children were born define them in terms of personality. To understand better, check out the post:

“Monday’s child is beautiful

Tuesday’s child is full of grace

Wednesday’s child is full of woes

Thursday’s child goes far

Friday’s child is kind and generous

The Saturday child works all to live

And the child born on the Sabbath day

She is beautiful and cheerful, good and happy”.

In that sense, Wednesday would be the day when children with afflictions would be born. In the original poem, the phrase reads: “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”. “Woe”, in translation, in addition to affiliation, means anguish and sadness. That is, it was quite clear why the member of The Addams Family having such a special name, so to speak.

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In the first episode of the Wandinha series, Mortícia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) explains the origin of her daughter’s name and quotes the poem quickly. But, as we well know, Wandinha was born on a Friday, the 13th. Which couldn’t be different, of course.

In the Portuguese translation, however, the character’s name became Wandinha and lost this meaning from the poem. In fact, other dark family names were modified in Brazil. Uncle Chico, for example, is called Fester, in the original. Ugly is Pugsley and Mãozinha is “Thing”. Thing, by the way, ends up becoming the name of Wandinha’s cousin, who is called Itt, in English.

Wandinha is directed by Tim Burton and featured eight episodes in its first season, all of which are now available on Netflix.

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