Learn English – Translation for “buksi” (Hungarian)

Translating the names of characters when the names have obvious meaning is fraught with trouble. As a particular example I would point toward the characters in the Asterix comics, whose original names in French are invariably French words and phrases, e.g., the dog Idéfix.

Famously the English translators threw out any attempt to translate the meaning of the names in favour of the spirit: to wit, being witty and hopefully groan-worthy. Few of the characters have the same meaning to their name; instead the translators (Bell and Hockridge) stuck to the rule of "Word or phrase meaningful in the readers' language which ends with the sound -ix".

(...Idéfix being the primary exception. Their translation Dogmatix not only kept the meaning it added the word "dog" to boot. But this is such a rare occurrence that that particular coup is spoken about with awe).

On the general principle of "Good enough for Asterix is good enough for me", I'd aim for euphony over exactness, say Checker Bunny, or if you want a pun, Checkear Bunny.

I haven't come up with a single word (I don't think there is one), but I've come up with a construction that I think might work.

You said that wirken means to appear, to seem. One solution would be to use like.

Example 1:

While asleep he/she looks like an angel.

Example 2:

She doesn't want to look like a plain Jane.

What you put after like would obviously depend on what you’re trying to say and there isn't a single word that would cover all situations. But I think it’s a construction that would usually work well when needing to translate brav wirken as you've described it.