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The Origins of Video Game Names

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-plumber-by-any-other-name dept.

Blogger Drew Mackie has posted a lengthy analysis of the etymology of dozens of names from popular video game characters. It examines the real-life and mythological roots of names from Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and many other prominent franchises, complete with citations where appropriate. Quoting: "It's speculated that Street Fighter's Russian wrestler Zangief takes his name from a real-life Russian wrestler, Victor Zangiev. More interesting to me is that the working name for this character was Vodka Gobalsky. This is notable for two reasons — for one, that this name is amazing [and] deserves to enter into the public consciousness and, for another, that it bears a striking resemblance to the name of a Russian boxer in Nintendo's Punch-Out!! series, Vodka Drunkenski. I'm sure this says something about Japanese perception of Russian people. The latter Vodka, by the way, goes by the name Soda Popinski in US translations of the game, presumably because Nintendo of America didn't allow references to booze."

2 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. I never thought I'd be justified in saying this, by uxbn_kuribo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But my GOD. TLDR, much? And half of it is either pointless speculation, or stuff like "I don't actually KNOW the origin of..." Must be a slow news day in IT.

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  2. Stories behind game names... by HimajinX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Working in Japanese to English game localization, I'm often assigned the task of coming up with English names for characters. Usually this is just a transliteration, but in some cases a completely new name is required. The publisher makes the final call, and I've had to fight hard sometimes to get names that just won't work in English changed. Japanese developers often go to great lengths to research meaningful names for their characters, but not understanding how differently names can be interpreted in other languages, they can get attached to some really ridiculous ones. The only way I could deter one developer from using "Milla" for the name of a huge, ugly dragon boss was by telling them that most players would associate the name with a supermodel...