Mispronounced Squaresoft/enix Names

[Slothy]

I love a fun debate as much as the next person. Just seems like we aren't going to convince each other, so we might as well move on in the original spirit of the thread.

As for the prior post about Gau, I still have no idea how it's supposed to be pronounced. I just say Gow.

[Krelian]

Gau looks like a German word to me. There's actually an acronym GAU which means 'Größter anzunehmender Unfall' (literally 'biggest assumable accident') and it means 'worst possible scenario' XD
So I pronounce it like that, which would probably be written 'gow' in English.

[Stormie BluJay]

I love a fun debate as much as the next person. Just seems like we aren't going to convince each other, so we might as well move on in the original spirit of the thread.

As for the prior post about Gau, I still have no idea how it's supposed to be pronounced. I just say Gow.

Which it how it's supposed to be, so don't sweat. ^_^ Unless it's French, which means it would be.... I think "Go". But it's not, so.. Gow. XD

I've actually never heard Bart's (Xenogears) last name said out loud, so I don't know if it's "fa - dih - muh" or "fa - tee - muh"... I'm going with the first one though, because that's how my mom and sis say it.

[Nominus Experse]

Tidus is officially pronounced Ti-daa due to the following fact:

Nomura has expressed after designing serious and moody main characters for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, he wanted to give Tidus a cheerful attitude and appearance, which is reflected in the name Kazushige Nojima chose for him (Tidaa is the Okinawan word for "Sun").

Consider that Tidus' sigil and whatnot are paired with the sun through out the game. Knowing this, you can't deny it.

HOWEVER

This is now somewhat broken due to the coming of Kingdom Hearts 2...

Because his name is never spoken out loud in Final Fantasy X, its intended pronunciation has been a subject of debate among fans. Interviews with James Arnold Taylor, Tidus' English voice actor,[7] and spoken dialogue from the English version of Kingdom Hearts—which featured the character in a cameo—portray it as "tee-dus" (IPA: /tiːdəs/) whereas one instance in the English version of Kingdom Hearts 2 exists in which the character's name is uttered "tie-dus" (IPA: /taɪdəs/).

So what was official is now less official, if that makes any sort of sense.

Personally, I call him Tie-dus because I think Ti-daa sounds smurfing retarded.

Tidus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Stormie BluJay]

Personally, I call him Tie-dus because I think Ti-daa sounds smurfing retarded.

Another good reason. Lolz. X3

[Momiji]

Where's Kishi when you need him?

Anyway, whenever I see a name, I just make a guess and pronounce it that way, until I hear a way deemed 'correct'.

[Frequency NecroKat]

I once heard Hyuga (Xenogears) pronounced "Hai-yu-guh". That seems like it'd be a fairly easy one to get right..

Another one was Rue from Dewprism/Threads of Fate. Someone called him "Ru-ee" like it was spelled Rui. No joke, I still don't understand why. XDD; His name's actually a -word-.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

It may be seven years after I took Japanese, but I still remember enough to know that Yuffie is pronounced yoo-fee, and Tidus is tee-dus. The names aren't English names and, therefore, shouldn't pronounced as such.

I shall start calling Sephiroth Sefirosu! :P Wheeee!

The reason games are translated in the first place is because English and Japanese are, indeed, not the same language. Tidus could very well be, in fact, a Shakespearean name. It's very similar to "Titus" and Square has a fetish for Shakespearean, as evidenced in some references in games.

-AND- even if it isn't based on that, in English, the rules still apply. Based soley on the way it's spelled, it should be 'Tye-dus'. Since it wasn't left 'Tida', it was obviously meant to be read and spoken with English in mind.

Yuffie is unique case. "Yufi" is her Japanese name. That is -obviously- meant to be spoken "Yoo-fee", according to both Japanese and English. But her translated name is very different. "Yuffie" doesn't look Japanese at all, and was created for the English speaking market. According to how we'd say it in English, it is correctly pronounced "Yuhf-fee" because of the double F's.

Hope that helps a little. You are correct, but really only on the Japanese pronunciation of the Japanese names. If we pronounced all the names like the Japanese did, Sephiroth would be Sefirosu and Cloud would be Kuraudo! ^^

But you wouldn't pronounce Kojima as koj-I-mah would you? Japanese name, Japanese rules still apply, unless the name changes substantially to a plainly English name or word or is derived from another language or source. Your examples of Sephiroth and Cloud are flawed actually, since Sephiroth isn't a Japanese word to begin with, and neither is Cloud (I don't know if Kuraudo is the actual Japanese word for cloud, but it was translated into a plainly English name for North America). The reason for the somewhat odd sounding Japanese pronunciation is that Japanese doesn't really have some of the sounds that English and other languages have and the word needs to be changed to work in written Japanese. For example, there is no V sound in Japanese, nor is there a vowel or consenant that sounds exactly like cl in Cloud.

I'll just drop it after that little rant, but god help you if you tell me to start pronouncing Ico as I-ko.

The word for cloud is different in Japanese (it is kumo). Also, you can tell he is not supposed to be Japanese since his name is in Katakana. Then again, any character that is not Japanese in ethnicity would have their name written in katakana. Also, doesn't the Japanese team decide most character's official English name?