The Secret History Behind Game Character Names
Sunday 21 June 2009 @ 11:32 pm | By Ivan 'Nahu' Lozano 9 CommentsHi there, you seem to be new here! Here at Dark Diamond we frequently update with news about video games, anime, Japan and other cool stuff. Head on over to our homepage or go ahead and subscribe to get updates! Enjoy!
Ever wanted to know why Samus is named like that? Turns out its a celtic form of James. Chrono Trigger’s Ayla? Most likely a reference to a 1980’s novel called Clan of the Cave Bear. These and many other secret stories and theories behind the names of game characters are dissected by word geek Drew Mackie in his blog. Drew dives into the sea of odd japanese translations and obscure etymology plaguing the names of your favorite characters… and also a bunch of auxiliary characters you never paid much attention to.
His article, which spans nearly 40 different game franchises, is filled with references and citations that add more back-story to these characters than you ever wanted. It’s a fantastic read, specially for oldschool gaming veterans.
[Back Of The Cereal Box / Via Offworld]
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Abraham 'Velcor' Duarte
David 'KidKobun' Bruno
Ivan 'Nahu' Lozano
Random J
Sol
This is amazing. I’ve always wanted to know why certain characters were given their names!
One character name I can think up right now that needs some explaining is Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia. It sounds like Yuri Lowenthal, the guy who voices Sasuke in the Enlgish dubb of Naruto.
I doubt those two have much relation to each other, though.
Yeah thats a long stretch :P
This site is pretty sweet. Some of this stuff is pretty interesting.
That’s probably one of THE greatest reads i’ve ever done on the internet. I skipped the games that didn’t really matter to me. But i read all that classic stuff.
What a fantastic article.
agh .. half of the stuff i either had an idea or knew xDD
i have too much free time xD
wonderful article o.-
Getting ready for a braindive. I will enjoy this.
I feel my head a bit heavy after reading just a PART of it. Left me with some other lot of questions, and also, i remembered some stuff from the Mondo game…
o__o;; first glancing over this article my thoughts were “wow, someones got a lot of time on their hands.” Well 5 minutes later I found myself on that website and me with the huge amount of free time cuz I spent prolly an hour on that site reading!!
I was kinda suprised how little on pokemon they had but oh well…. and to everyone yet to read the article I share with you the “Tanuki scrotum attack” xDDD
c’mon.. theres shitloads of pokemon, and not many of them memorable enough to get that much attention xD..
the japanese pokenames make a bit more sense than the american ones though..
its still a great article xD
and the scrotum on them tanuki are fearsome indeed xD