Originally Posted by Black Mage
Right. I know enough Japanese to understand the nuances of the language, and I could understand the name changes-- All of them, if those who are translating had nothing more to go on than the katakana itself.
However, that's not the case. The manuals of the Playstation remake, and the GBA port (And I would assume the Super Famicom's as well) have printed romanizations of the characters names. Not only that, but you can also find them in various ToP artbooks. I find it difficult to justify changing of the names so drastically when there is already official material out there.