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Help[Facts] Re: Japanese names & media
in reply to a message by Felie
These are good questions. Whenever you transcribe words or names from one script into another, you can run into these kinds of difficulties.
To begin, the names you listed are not written in kanji (Chinese characters) but in katakana, one of the Japanese syllabaries. Japanese has a particularly rigid syllabic structure: there are no consonant clusters and no final consonants other than -N *. Many consonants which appear in Western languages don't exist, and certain consonant + vowel combinations which would seem possible don't exist, such as "si" (as in English "see").
So, a name written in katakana can be often mapped on to multiple names in the Roman alphabet. In English or Italian, Risa and Lisa would be pronounced differently, but in Japanese, they both become リサ. In Japanese, ジュビア is Jubia. But it could also represent Juvia, since /v/ becomes /b/ in Japanese. Neither one is incorrect.
From reading the transcriptions, I feel that the anime writers either had an existing English/Italian name in mind when they named their characters, or made an effort first to create a name which looked "Western." Otherwise there would be no reason, as you stated, for ウルティア Urutia to become Ultear and ラクサス Rakusasu to become Luxus. They only make sense if you go the other way around; starting with Ultear and Luxus, and then transcribing them into katakana.
* Strictly speaking, final -N is considered a syllable, so, for instance, "Shun" is two syllables. But for convenience we can ignore that.
To begin, the names you listed are not written in kanji (Chinese characters) but in katakana, one of the Japanese syllabaries. Japanese has a particularly rigid syllabic structure: there are no consonant clusters and no final consonants other than -N *. Many consonants which appear in Western languages don't exist, and certain consonant + vowel combinations which would seem possible don't exist, such as "si" (as in English "see").
So, a name written in katakana can be often mapped on to multiple names in the Roman alphabet. In English or Italian, Risa and Lisa would be pronounced differently, but in Japanese, they both become リサ. In Japanese, ジュビア is Jubia. But it could also represent Juvia, since /v/ becomes /b/ in Japanese. Neither one is incorrect.
From reading the transcriptions, I feel that the anime writers either had an existing English/Italian name in mind when they named their characters, or made an effort first to create a name which looked "Western." Otherwise there would be no reason, as you stated, for ウルティア Urutia to become Ultear and ラクサス Rakusasu to become Luxus. They only make sense if you go the other way around; starting with Ultear and Luxus, and then transcribing them into katakana.
* Strictly speaking, final -N is considered a syllable, so, for instance, "Shun" is two syllables. But for convenience we can ignore that.
This message was edited 10/16/2018, 11:42 AM
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