The Bulgarian translators Vlahov and Florin, who were the first to carry out an in-depth study of realia, coined the modern sense of the word.
Realia, on the other hand, are born in popular culture, and are increasingly found in very diverse kinds of texts.
According to his characterization, each of these can be placed between two extremes: adequacy (closeness to the original) and acceptability (making the word entirely consistent with the target culture).
Adequate translations (in Toury's sense) of realia add some exoticism, a quality that is often desirable in fiction.
For example, the name of a chemical compound will be translated differently depending on whether one expects the text to be read by chemists or schoolchildren.