Suikoden names misspelled?

Hypotheses for, and analyses of, the various Suikoden characters.
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bluemask
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by bluemask »

But why in the first place fans have named him Tir then? I'm presuming it can also be inspired by 'Tear' as he has seen many deaths of people close to him..... Ok that was a bad attempt.

Also LOL at Miklotov being Micro-tofu? Microsoft? hahaha
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Antimatzist wrote:
Varkas is Barkas
Afaik, Japanese don't differentiate between V and B, very much like latin-derived words (as a German, compare taberna - Taverne)
Vincent, Volga, Wilhelm etc. all use a different kana character for the V-sound. My guess is that the translator interpreted it as a Spanish name, as in Spain the pronounciation of V and B are quite similar to foreigners.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Vextor »

bluemask wrote:But why in the first place fans have named him Tir then? I'm presuming it can also be inspired by 'Tear' as he has seen many deaths of people close to him..... Ok that was a bad attempt.

Also LOL at Miklotov being Micro-tofu? Microsoft? hahaha
Because of the official novel. Within that book McDohl is given the name ティル・マクドール

Based on discussions I've had with Jeremy Blaustein, who led the localization for Suikoden 2 (the US version), he was given a mere 6 weeks to translate everything and was never really given any context nor was given the chance to play the games. Thus, we have a fairly messed-up result that we still struggle with.

In regards to Georg Prime, ゲオルグ・プライムis the official katakana so Murayama meant for the name to sound German. The "V" and "B" issue is less of a problem these days in Japan due to the proliferation of ヴ in modern Japanese. That is why Vincent du Boule is called ヴァンサン instead of バンサン. This type of stuff is generally left up to the interpretation of the translators.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

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bluemask wrote:I'm presuming it can also be inspired by 'Tear' as he has seen many deaths of people close to him..... Ok that was a bad attempt.
The kana for tear would be ti-a (like door is do-a). In fact there was a girl in Lufia 2 called Tia, and she said her name derives from "tear".
Vextor wrote:Because of the official novel. Within that book McDohl is given the name ティル・マクドール
So we still don't know what the guy who wrote the official novel had in mind when writing ティル, and I doubt we'll ever know...
Vextor wrote:Based on discussions I've had with Jeremy Blaustein, who led the localization for Suikoden 2 (the US version), he was given a mere 6 weeks to translate everything and was never really given any context nor was given the chance to play the games. Thus, we have a fairly messed-up result that we still struggle with.
Under these circumstances they actually did an excellent job. I mean we're talking about a time (S2) when you couldn't just google names like vansan to find out it is Vincent with french pronounciation. There are mistakes, but too few to call it fairly messed-up imo.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Most names are complete guesswork because we simply don't know the intent behind the name and Japanese being a phonetic language means it's rarely a 1:1 translation. In a few cases we have Konami saying they were named after such and such so we know that it's Mathers not Mazus, Babbage is correct as is Crowley but phonetically speaking Kroulie is an acceptable translation if you had no idea what was behind the naming.

Raura being Laura is possible going by the spelling alone, but nothing in the way she acts, speaks or dresses suggests that she should have a Western sounding name at all.

A better example is Lo Wen where nothing really suggests she should have a Chinese name, and not even the Japanese spelling includes a break in the name like it does with Tai Ho and Yam Koo.
Vextor wrote:In once case, they did use Nash's last name translation that I came up with. Originally they used "Ratokie" but in their English Suikogaiden site (I am not sure if it even exists now) they used Latkje... so sometimes they will use fan-created versions if it gets enough use.
They used Latkje on the English figure packaging as well.
Pyriel wrote:Well, that's kind of the thing. They pulled names from all over, and, "Tir", is far from the only one that doesn't have obvious origins. What's the theory on, "Pesmerga"? A Turkish tribe or something like that?
Not much of a theory on Pesmerga but known intent. It comes from the Kurdish word Peshmerga and is the name of Kurdish armed forces meaning "those who stand in front of death".

Weird thing about Murayama is that he seems to know something about just about everything. He even drew the names of Yuber and Pesmerga's sword from some prog-rock band, King Crimson. I'd never even heard of them in passing till I found that out.

Which doesn't help in trying to figure out names cause he could have taken them from anywhere from modern music to Egyptian mythology and we'd never know just by looking at it. At the same time he could have just drawn any name out of a hat.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:Raura being Laura is possible going by the spelling alone, but nothing in the way she acts, speaks or dresses suggests that she should have a Western sounding name at all.

A better example is Lo Wen where nothing really suggests she should have a Chinese name, and not even the Japanese spelling includes a break in the name like it does with Tai Ho and Yam Koo.
I just assume the writer intended Laura, but I also support the translators choice for the reasons you mentioned.

That missing break in the kana of Lo Wen is indeed confusing. But she's definitely an eastern-style character, her outfit is pretty close to those of Tai Ho, Rikimaru, Lun and the likes. Also her cook-off intro has a reference to chinese: "She's a wild woman who can hold her own against her 2 brothers. Her favorite food is Chinese. It's Lo Wen!!!". So something like "Lauren" would actually make less sense.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Except "Chinese food" is a complete invention of the translators that isn't in the original script.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Is that an exception or does the japanese original version completely avoid making references to "real" nations (chinese etc.)? Since the cooking game had a separate internal staff roll, maybe that team didn't care too much?
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

For the food they use phrases like "domestic food" for what the English game calls "Japanese" and "Western food" which became "French".
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:
Weird thing about Murayama is that he seems to know something about just about everything. He even drew the names of Yuber and Pesmerga's sword from some prog-rock band, King Crimson. I'd never even heard of them in passing till I found that out.
It's not surprising that he chose this name though, because Progressive Rock is extremely popular in Japan.

I think the dude who did the music for final fantasy is a prog rock fan who drew inspiration from many of such bands (it's obvious in some soundtracks) and he has his own prog band or something like this.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Pyriel »

As far as "Varkas" goes, if the most literal choice was, "Barkas", I would have looked for something else on principle, which would leave, "Varkas", "Parkas", and maybe, "Farkas" if you're willing to stretch a bit. I think, "Varkas", is the least prone to ridicule of those three. The other three just sound silly, or like a "Nassatall" joke.

Now you mention it, I do remember reading that about Pesmerga before. I don't remember when Murayama revealed it, but I do recall reading various topics over the years where people came up with wacky theories about his name, only to be trumped with the rather obviously correct, if completely obscure, Peshmerga answer. So it's a good example of the real origin being something you'd never expect, and yet you can still invent plausible-sounding, alternatives.
Wolkendrache wrote:Under these circumstances they actually did an excellent job. I mean we're talking about a time (S2) when you couldn't just google names like vansan to find out it is Vincent with french pronounciation. There are mistakes, but too few to call it fairly messed-up imo.
That's mostly true, but the translation is still pretty bad. This is similar to when I get really awful specifications at my job. I do my best and build something that does what I think has been requested, which turns out to be wrong in some way. I've succeeded and done my job well, but the result is still a failure. That's a little too harsh an analogy for Suikoden translations, since they mostly manage to convey the necessary pretty well. It depends one what language you're talking about too. Based on some of the things Antimatzist has shown me from the German translation, I think they maybe hired someone for whom German was a second language to do that localization.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

As for Barkas, that would even be silly as a Kobold name. Just like the Microtoff example shows, slight changes were probably deliberately made out of euphonic reasons. Another example for the good job they made.

I haven't read any plausible-sounding alternative for the Pesmerga origins. Turning the sh sound into an s (kana says sh) due to digit limitations is what I think caused the confusion.

As for the names, the english translators did the "dirty work", the german translators just copied them at 100% including the misspellings in german names (Siegfried, Lorelei etc.).
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

As for the names, the english translators did the "dirty work", the german translators just copied them at 100% including the misspellings in german names (Siegfried, Lorelei etc.).
Both Sigfried and Lorelai are valid versions of Siegfried/Loreley. And the German translation added numerous false translations to the ones that were already there, especially in the item/equipment department.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Lorelai seems to be an anglicized form of Loreley/Lorelei. Sigfried is a rarer form deriving from Siegfried. I'm just saying, if german translators had done the "dirty work", it would probably be Siegfried and Loreley/Lorelei. And the fact remains that the German translators just copied it, but for the names that's ok. As for items etc. I remember to have had some confusion when playing the german version while following an english guide.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by bluemask »

About Miklotov again, Molotov's romaji output is "Morotofu". I guess Microtov is the correct one, but since "Micro" is weird sounding, they changed it to Miklo instead? I guess.
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