Ever wondered what some of these items are?

I mean, Maiden's Kiss. What the hell is that? How do you buy a maiden's kiss and carry it around with you? Is it, like, a shirt coller with lipstick on it? Jessica Rabbit-style Disembodied lips?

What's an "echo screen"? A "soft"?

Weird.

If you ask me, they're just potions that have been given names according to their effects.

Dude it's magic.

A bottle full of magical liquid. Just pop cork aim and throw and it takes effect.

The process of gathering "Echo" was derived from the greek myth of the girl who lost her voice to the planet. Gathering Echo is a process by which, using large plates or screens that dilate you produce large amounts of sound, these then richochet of the wall and into a Energy Filtration Unit. This usually takes place in areas with large canyons. So Echo and Screen, Echo Screen.

The Soft is merely a trade name for something that counters weak petrification.

Soft is the opposite of hard, hard as in petrified.

Just a consumer tag, its catchy.

As for the maidens kiss it's the same thing. It is a name for anti-frog potion.

So the gimmick was "Frog problems? Get yourself a maidens kiss.

Well, the japanese name for the soft is the "gold pin", which is slightly more tangible. What a cornucopia is, though, I seriously wonder.

http://www.computerlab.kids.new.net/...cornucopia.gif

There's your cornucopia. *nod* You see it at Thanksgiving a lot.

And by consuming it, you grow. Catchy, eh?

"Cornucopia" = "horn of plenty".

I agree that most of these items get their name from their effects. "Maiden's Kiss" is pretty logical. "Soft" is also straightforward since it "softens" a pertrified character, as has already been said.
I envisage these items either as tiny flasks of liquid (eg. potion) or little cloth bags of powder, leaves, feathers, etc.

A "Maiden's Kiss", for instance, could consist of powdered Transform and Heal materia, maybe some unusual or magical herbs and earths. Instead of naming it after all the ingredients, it'd be easier just to give it a vaguely descriptive name. Just like we buy "Chai Tea", not "a bag with tea and ginger and cinnamon and pepper and cardamom and nutmeg".

Ah, I get it.

'Course, I'm not sure how a gold pin cures someone turned to stone. Guess it's some kind of mythological reference.