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.
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.