Suikoden names misspelled?

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

Post by Wolkendrache »

You're really interested in that character, heh? ;-)
The english translators probably made changes for euphonical (nice sound) reasons. Barkas and Micro-tough just don't sound nice in english.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by bluemask »

Wolkendrache wrote:You're really interested in that character, heh? ;-)
The english translators probably made changes for euphonical (nice sound) reasons. Barkas and Micro-tough just don't sound nice in english.
Nah, I'm not but he's one of my favs with a really weird name. So I tried looking for info about his name origin which just crossed my mind. That's all *sweat*
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

My guess is it's a konami invention. Else you must learn the cyrillic script (because Miklotov sounds russian/bulgarian) and do research to check if that name or one that sounds similar exists and what it means. Enjoy!
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

At least there is nothing in the Japanese wikipedia if you search for マイクロトフ (except for the Suikoden entries), so it's really a totally made up name. I guess an American speaker will pronounce it correctly right away? But to me, that information was new. Mh.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Onil = O'neill, because according to the kana, the "i" is long
Blackman = Bragman, both are possible
Ameria = Amelia, another obvious one
Snowe Vingerhut: according to the kana the "u" is long, which suggests a german pronounciation (Fingerhut). As a name, it probably derives from a plant which is called foxglove in english.
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Wolkendrache wrote:Onil = O'neill, because according to the kana, the "i" is long
The I in Onil is long.
Blackman = Bragman, both are possible
No. G and K are not the same.
Ameria = Amelia, another obvious one
Both are valid, you can't claim one to be wrong because the other is a real name, Suikoden is full of made up names.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:The I in Onil is long.
It's not. The way it is written (Onil), most people would intonate it either like Kyril (short) or like in Odin (longer, but doesn't matter cause accent is on first syllable). And in general, please come up with arguments or evidence that backs your opinion.

As for Blackman, you are right, my mistake.
Raww Le Klueze wrote:Both are valid, you can't claim one to be wrong because the other is a real name, Suikoden is full of made up names.
It might sound inconsistant to what I just said (about evidence), but in this thread I always argued that most of the Suikoden names are very common. Maybe I should have repeated it once more. I don't say Ameria is not valid, I'm just thinking Amelia is more in the tradition of Suikoden. The same reason why I think Silverberg is correct and Sirbabag would not have been intended, although it is valid as you would say.
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Wolkendrache wrote:It's not. The way it is written (Onil), most people would intonate it either like Kyril (short) or like in Odin (longer, but doesn't matter cause accent is on first syllable).
It is. What most people think is irrelevant as majority has no relevance on right or wrong. Names are not pronounced exactly the same all over the world even if they're spelled the same.
And in general, please come up with arguments or evidence that backs your opinion.
Pot. Kettle.
It might sound inconsistant to what I just said (about evidence), but in this thread I always argued that most of the Suikoden names are very common. Maybe I should have repeated it once more. I don't say Ameria is not valid, I'm just thinking Amelia is more in the tradition of Suikoden. The same reason why I think Silverberg is correct and Sirbabag would not have been intended, although it is valid as you would say.
Same faulty logic that led to Lazlo when it should have been Razro.

Also Ameria is an English name as well
http://www.ourbabynamer.com/meaning-of-Ameria.html
Last edited by Raww Le Klueze on Thu Jul 31, 2014 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

Actually, Silberberg would even be more accurate, wouldn't it? At least that's German.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:It is. What most people think is irrelevant as majority has no relevance on right or wrong. Names are not pronounced exactly the same all over the world even if they're spelled the same.
Come up with similar examples or name several languages where "Onil" is pronounced with a long "i". Again, come up with evidence, and don't bother me with nonsense like pot and kettle.
Raww Le Klueze wrote:Same faulty logic that led to Lazlo when it should have been Razro.
I've no option but to interprete it as your personal opinion, which, once more, is worth nothing to me without arguments/evidence. Have you asked the author of the novel? Who said it should be Razro?

As for Ameria, I think Amelia is more common than Ameria, but at least you finally came up with some argument.


@Antimatzist: I thought about that. But it's hard to tell whether it should be "v" or "b". We discussed "Varkas" and "Barkas" earlier. If you look at the name Goldberg, it is much more common in America, so Silverberg is accurate imo.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Wolkendrache wrote:I've no option but to interprete it as your personal opinion, which, once more, is worth nothing to me without arguments/evidence. Have you asked the author of the novel? Who said it should be Razro?
Who said it should be Razro? Well there's Pachislot where Konami romanized it as such. There's also the fact that the novel states that he was named after the town/island of Razril where he was found so it's seems a bit unneccessary to ask the author when it's in the novel. But hey, I'm sure your personal opinion trumps those.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

It's true that Silverberg is more common as a name, but Silberbegr also exists. It's not relevant what is more common in America, this game take splace in the Scarlet Moon Empire. ;) Anyway, my point is: you cannot say that one way is right or the other is really wrong (except if it's really way off).

Matthew Silberberg would maybe be a Jewish-German US immigrant during WW II, but Mathiu Silverberg is the strategist of the Liberation army.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:Who said it should be Razro? Well there's Pachislot where Konami romanized it as such. There's also the fact that the novel states that he was named after the town/island of Razril where he was found so it's seems a bit unneccessary to ask the author when it's in the novel. But hey, I'm sure your personal opinion trumps those.
I didn't say it should be Lazlo, or Razro. I just asked you to come up with evidence and you finally did. And it makes discussions more comfortable if you do it from the get-go. Anyway, better late than never, thanks.
Antimatzist wrote:It's true that Silverberg is more common as a name, but Silberbegr also exists. It's not relevant what is more common in America, this game take splace in the Scarlet Moon Empire. ;) Anyway, my point is: you cannot say that one way is right or the other is really wrong (except if it's really way off).

Matthew Silberberg would maybe be a Jewish-German US immigrant during WW II, but Mathiu Silverberg is the strategist of the Liberation army.
Antimatzist, I never said this is right and that is wrong. Of course I'm accepting the facts, like it's Ameria and not Amelia, and I would also accept Sirbabag. I'm just coming up with theses that are backed up either by the original katakana, or by the way Suikoden names it's characters, which are mostly common names or words for human characters. For example, if they transcripted Sirbabag, I would come up with Silverberg or Silberberg, or if they transcript Shnoh, I would come up with Snow or Snowe, and the same with Ameria and Pohl and so on. For Lazlo, this would be wrong, and you're welcome to prove me wrong, but please PROVE.
In my opinion, characters of later games are transcripted more thoughtful than S1 characters. So here's another opinion: I believe S5 transcriptors would have transcripted Matthew Silverberg.
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Antimatzist »

Well, Suikoden III transcriptors used Matthew, but the rest of that game's translation was horrible.

And in Suikoden V, they translated マリノ as Marina - not Marino. Also, they changed some dialogue weirdly to fit their fantasy (like Childerich's "Die Pig!" scene which wa snot in the original). Or Twilight Rune, which is correct, but makes no sense (because it should rather be Dusk).
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Re: Suikoden names misspelled?

Post by Wolkendrache »

That's exactly what I mean. S5 transcriptors probably thought that a western-looking female with a name ending with "o" might be weird to western people (whereas it's a common ending for japanese female names), so I guess they deliberately changed it. I'm not saying that everything they decided freely was good, it's just a feeling that they transcripted/translated more deliberate. Another example is Alhazred (Azrad).
Moreover, previous games transcriptions messed up many german words (Rosman, Schtolteheim, Sigfried, pretty much every "german" S3 weapon, etc), but in S5, german names are transcripted relatively accurate (Zweig, Mueller, Wilhelm, etc).
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