Suikoden names misspelled?

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

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

Perhaps Silverberg is actually Siebenberg, in which case it would mean that Mathiu and company are ancestors of Supertramp's drummer Bob Siebenberg? That would be so awesome!
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Rooks
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Rooks »

Pyriel wrote:"Tír" is a Gaelic word that means "land". I always assumed that was where his name originated.

Edit: Probably worth mentioning that it would properly be pronounced like "tay", so if that is the case, they transliterated by the characters, rather than the sounds. I doubt anybody at Konami actually knew the language, though, and if you assume it follows English rules, there's no reason to think "Tiru" was anything but the right way to render it.
Vextor wrote:About 12 years ago there was no common agreed translation for Tir's name, and for that reason I decided to create a name that would fit his surname. That is how I came up with "Tir" so Pyriel was pretty much correct. I also based it on the myths surrounding Tir nan Og, because it seemed fitting with hoe Tir has eternal life, etc. I have no idea if Konami ever used that in their official sites or publications.

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.
I know I explained this somewhere else on these forums but here we go again:

Yes, Konami has used Tir in their official announcements. No, Tir does not mean "land." In a sense it is as much a functional placeholder as it is a word. . . Teo is Gaelic, in a sense. We will get to that in a minute.

For the uninitiated: Gaeilege Eirie is glorious linguistic anarchy. For people like me who are word-nerds, it is paradise, but to others, they often get lost. The language as a whole is onle of the oldest surviving languages on earth. However, very little was ever written down because oral tradition was the primary means of history until after the arrival of St. Patrick. Around 600 a.d. is when the first Irish language writings began appearing, using Latin letters. This was about 200 years before the appearance of Old English in Britain. During its occupation by Britain, the Gaelic languages were nearly wiped out, and have only recently been accepted in academia and governmental functions.

So, Tir does not mean anything. Really, the "I" should be I fada, with an accentuation mark, but those often are dropped moving to the stricter English alphabet. An Tir means "the Kingdom," I've never heard it mean "Land" as in property or "Earth," but it is not impossible, especially in sarcastic usages. This term has fallen out of use since the 1920s, as the Irish now find it invoking of the United Kingdom, and dislike using it to refer to the isle. Tir can refer to any number of things. The running gag is that old Irish-speaking men make it a point to never use the same word in the same way twice. Ever. Irish, being one of the worlds oldest languages, has an extensive and ridiculous lexicon of terms, all with multiple straight definitions. This does not even count the ironic or sarcastic uses of terms. Tir can also be a Tear, a word re-adapted from english but with the spelling changed as to differentiate it from "a tear in the paper." Na Tir can refer to a group of fortified positions, while Ta Tir can just mean "yes" when asked a question containing a vague command-form verb. So, you see that it can mean both everything and nothing all at once. Don't even get me started on the word "Cuir," which has more than 47 registered uses, including "to hammer into the ground," "to throw through the air," (two entirely contradictory concepts, BTW) "a cur," "kur," and "curdled milk."

Teo, again should have the fada over the E, can mean lots of things. It never really means "God." In as much as one can even define the pre-Patrick Irish concept of divinity. Remember, they did not start writing anything down until about 100 years after St. Patrick's death, so almost all the scholars were then Christian. But, it can refer to a "good Neighbor," which is a way of referencing without acknowledging the Tuatha de Danaan. Maybe these could be construed as "Gods," but most people think they are more like Tolkien-ish Elves throughout most of recorded Irish lore. Teo can also refer to a cliff, or a friendly Scotsman, and a dozen other things, too. Though, the "friendly scotsman" usage may be a sarcastic quip against the Scotts using the Tuatha de as a base. Remember: glorious linguistic anarchy. Also: incredible amounts of sarcasm. Johnathan Swift wasn't an Irishman for nothing.

So, now it should all make sense to you. That Irish is kinda messed up and can never really be made sense of. This is intentional, as native speakers find it to be their primary source of entertainment. But, that being said, Obviously the names are meant to be either Irish or Scottish, as the Mac affix to the surname is nowhere else in the world.
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Pyriel
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Pyriel »

Well, you're getting a bit mixed up by the lesser anarchy of modern English. "Land" also refers to political or plain old regional domains, but is a bit more general than "kingdom" since that implies the region is ruled by a king or queen. When people read in the Bible that Moses was leading his people to a "land flowing with milk and honey," they aren't assuming that Jehovah granted the Hebrew people 1/4 acre with a ranch-style house on it and a couple of loud bird baths hooked up to cows and beehives.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

Looking it up in a German - Old Irish dictionairy, Tír means "soil". Of course, I don't know how deep behing this there is a meaning.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Rooks wrote:Yes, Konami has used Tir in their official announcements.
Perhaps the translators of these announcements either had no idea how to transcribe it else (and no time), or they found the version that Vextor created (this depends on from how old these announcements are).
Rooks wrote:Obviously the names are meant to be either Irish or Scottish, as the Mac affix to the surname is nowhere else in the world.
Not really, considering the fact that at least half of the Suikoden characters with surnames have two names of different languages, like Georg Prime, Bernadette Egan, Freed Yamamoto, Snowe Vingerhut (wrong, actually “Fingerhut”, long “u”), Sierra Mikain (actually “Mycenae”?), Kahn Marley, Kiba Windamier, Luca Blight. Others back your theory like Vincent DeBoule, Simone Verdricci, Kwanda Rosman (actually “Quander Rossmann”?), Yoshino & Sanae Yamamoto, Schtolteheim Reinbach (if you ignore the typo and accept it as given plus surname). The rest is very debatable, e.g. the Silverbergs, because we don’t know whether it’s supposed to be Silverberg (engl.) or Silberberg (ger.).
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Saelind
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Saelind »

I always just figured it was in reference to the old norse deity, Tyr/Tio/Tiw, the god of justice and heroic glory. I'm pretty poorly versed on the translations and such so I could be completely off but.. is this not a possibility?
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Pyriel
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Pyriel »

Anything is possible, really. I'd say that's even a good one, since the Latin form, "Tio", could explain the elder McDohl's name, with them both being named after the same war god. However, the Japanese version still has it テオ (Teo/Theo) rather than ティオ, so that's kind of a knock. You never know how much license they might have taken, though.
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