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You probably know what I'm talking about. a Japanese game has gone international, and some of the names may end up snagged by the translators having to decide whether a sound is an "l" or an "r", an "s" or a "th".

so the names we have are the translators' interpretation. Then the characters are revisited later on, and some helpful Japanese commenter just happens to say "that's not exactly the name we intended."

Best example of this right now? Aeris. Everyone knows the name Aeris. It's like Mario, or Sonic. People know this character.

Yet later appearances (Kingdom Hearts and Advent Children) have messed it up. According to those, it should be Aerith.

Aerith. Say it with me. AeriTH. No matter how many times you repeat it, you'll still have that voice in the back of your mind asking, "why are you pronouncing it with a lisp?"

translations of Fire Emblem games are infamous for this as well. Even more recently is the new GBA version of Tales of Phantasia, where Cless and Klarth are now Cress and Claus. There was even a point when people thought Nintendo would insist on calling Chozo homeworld Zebes "Zebeth".

My question is: What's the point? is it really worth these corporations' time and money to press the matter? Does Square Enix think it can force everyone to call her Aerith, after the game that told her story called her Aeris?

What's the point?

I don't know who Aeris is.

Final Fantasy character. From 7, I think.

Anyway, I think they're catering to the "whiny fanboy" segment of the population; the people who desperately want to be Japanese, even though every thing they now about Japan, they learned from watching anime. They figure that if they go with the "more Japanese" names it will make those people happy, while not pissing the rest of us off enough that we stop giving them our business.

Originally posted by Gregory
Final Fantasy character. From 7, I think.

Anyway, I think they're catering to the "whiny fanboy" segment of the population; the people who desperately want to be Japanese, even though every thing they now about Japan, they learned from watching anime. They figure that if they go with the "more Japanese" names it will make those people happy, while not pissing the rest of us off enough that we stop giving them our business.

Umm, not really. If that were so they'd directly translate the names from the kana and Aeris would be Eirisu (or however they'd write it, that's my best guess going from the pronounciation).

Basically, Japanese romaji can be translated to English in many many ways.

According to Kaliero, they were changed to be more in keeping with the Japanese. If he's wrong, take it up with him; my theory was built around his post.

I know some Japanese

And no, it's not the case that they're changed to be more in line with the Japanese names, it's just that there are many different ways to write them out in English based on the Japanese name.

Okay. Then ... wow. In that case, to answer the original post, correcting names is even less important than I'd previously suspected.

I think it can really matter when the names have some significance like the way Ted Woolsey butchered the elemental lord names for Final Fantasy IV. They were named after the generals of Hell's demon army from the Inferno but were instead dumbed down and scrambled.

lol.. well I think what kaliero means is that they initially called her Aeris because her name was something like Earisu in roomaji (I played the japanese one a bit before the american release.. got up to when cloud was in a dress >_&gt ... so after initally calling her Aeris.. they suddenly decided it to be a good idea to call her Aerith?.... that would be the same as suddenly calling Tidus his roomaji name of Tida, after telling us its Tidus... I suppose we all look for more consistency from the characters we've come to love.. /shrug

She is Aeris, she shall always be Aeris, Aerith is stupid.

Originally posted by Lana
I know some Japanese

And no, it's not the case that they're changed to be more in line with the Japanese names, it's just that there are many different ways to write them out in English based on the Japanese name.
me too . you watch serious japanese movies like FF7 AC lots of times and you can get the gist of it without subtitles. eg. 'kazza' means 'mother'. that was an easy one that you pick up the first time you watch it
and yeh, aeris is aeris is aeris. not much can change that now.

I have one thing to say to all of this.

All your base are belong to us.

Originally posted by MadMel
'kazza' means 'mother'

ka-san is the shortened version of Oka-san (mother)

and yeah I guess subtitled anime helps..

Kayaitai-kudu (didnt spell it right) I think means "To return"

I'm not sure on the first part, but the second should be spelled "kuru"

No. We can either have "Sora" or something unpronounceable like "Hikaurzeteyu". Americans would like characters whose names they can correctly pronounce.

Originally posted by Draco69
No. We can either have "Sora" or something unpronounceable like "Hikaurzeteyu". Americans would like characters whose names they can correctly pronounce.

....Sora's Japanese name IS Sora.

It means sky.

99% of names from games are just translated phonetically to English. Because of how Japanese is written, how it's spelled is not necessarilly how it's pronounced.

Originally posted by JKozzy
Kayaitai-kudu (didnt spell it right) I think means "To return"

kaete kuru

and sometimes I like the wacky names

like that new KH dude Roxas

Originally posted by SaTsuJiN
kaete kuru

and sometimes I like the wacky names

like that new KH dude Roxas

Kaete, that's what it is.....damn I'm rusty

Originally posted by SaTsuJiN
ka-san is the shortened version of Oka-san (mother)

and yeah I guess subtitled anime helps..
yeah sorry, kadaj has a weird accent. when he says it, it always seems like "kazza". now that i think about it, everyone else who said it said 'ka-san'
it was funny. when my copy of AC got stuffed somehow, i borrowed a friends, and its subtitles were effed up bad.
eg..."who is this "mother" they were talking about"---"mum, how're you?" they're same sentence

lol now that I think about it.. I hope the english voice actors dont mispronounce character names (especially the new ones >_&lt

yeh

I'll get a serious urge to kill somebody if names are mispronounced in AC.

After a morning full of net scrounging (I was bored) I figured out the basics of the whole Aeris problem.

Her name was intended to be a transliteration of the English word "Earth." In katakana (for the 0.000000029% who don't know, the set of kanji for words not of Japanese origin) "Earth" is written as "Earisu" due to both open syllables and the absence of "th" from the Japanese syllabary.

Then, when the game was ported to America, the katakana Earisu was rewritten into romaji (Latin characters representing Japanese sounds) and came out as "Aeris" the version that pretty much everyone knows and most love. (Similar situations include Helletic (Heretic) Hojo and Safer (Sapher) Sephiroth)

However, "Aerith" is the official romanization thanks to the original source material, despite the fact that it technically isn't possible in romaji.

So in short, Aeris is the correct version, while Aerith is the "closer-to-the-source" version that the creators support.

Well technically "Earisu" is the romaji for the Japanese pronounciation of her name....romaji is simply writing out the Japanese words using English letters but otherwise you're spot-on.

shes right, you know
and yeah, the copy of AC my friend owned had really bad subtitles..the biggest case was when they mistook 'denzel' for 'rexar' and 'rufus' for 'ruths' then 'ruthy' or something like that...it was weird.

lol.. imagine they start calling rufus , Rufuth... o_o!

Originally posted by MadMel
shes right, you know
and yeah, the copy of AC my friend owned had really bad subtitles..the biggest case was when they mistook 'denzel' for 'rexar' and 'rufus' for 'ruths' then 'ruthy' or something like that...it was weird.

I know that I'm right...

And that's because it more likely than not was bootleg, which means it was fan subbed.

"Is that you, Ruphuth?"

Holy hell, if we're really unlucky, everyone will be talking with lisps.

yeah.
the subs was more likely done by an automatic thingy, coz the gramma was awful too. "what is them douin?"-----