Monster species in FF are strange

[ReloadPsi]

It's established that "Gilgame", pronounced "gil-ga-meh" is "Gil Snapper" in all the English games, but my question is why, when "game" means turtle? Or does it mean "snapper" if written with different kanji?

Garuda's a bit of a funny one too; it's gone from a beautiful, very middle-eastern looking bird in FFIII (as per its origin), to a texture swap of a Trick Sparrow in FFIX9, and then a giant blob of floating manta thingy in FFX (later revealed to be Zuu with less detail on it). I've also heard it speculated that Quezacotl in FFVIII was actually meant to be Garuda... makes you wonder.

And then there's Couerl/Cuahl/Torama (leopard/ocelot-like creature with long whiskers and lays on its chest except when it's attacking, then it postures and looks pretty badass). Which name is "correct" and what does it actually mean?

Also Ahriman/Veteran; which of the two names is actually right? (That's the giant eyeball with a mouth full of razor blades and bat wings. Ahriman was called "Allemagne" in FF7 due to a mistransliteration; it just means "Germany". In French. I know, weird.)

And are the names of FFVIII's Buel and FFX's Buer meant to be the same thing? I get that many of the monsters in FFX are palette/texture swaps of each other with familiar names so Ahrimans look about similar enough to VIII's Buels... I think.

I love the FF monsters; along with the spells and summons I've always found FF most recogniseable with them in. It does annoy me slightly when a more memorable creature has its name slapped onto a texture/palette swap of a more common early monster but meh.

Yeah, tell us what your favourite FF monster is too while you're discussing the absurdities of its wide bestiary.

Tonberry FTW.

[Fynn]

It was strange to me how in FFXII Coeurls had squids instead of heads and how some of the wolves had scales...

[rubah]

You've never heard of a snapping turtle?

[Yar]

I like the inconsistencies between whether Imps are Goblins and if Goblins are Imps.