FE Heroes Localized Names

[Aggro Incarnate]

The Nimue->Niime and Marduk->Murdock change seems to have been applied only to English(US) and not, say, English(Europe/Australia). I haven't checked the other European language options closely, but from cursory glance the update hasn't happened on them either.

[BANRYU]

5 hours ago, Iridium said:

Nimue was changed back to Niime.

I'm glad they changed Murdock back alongside it, but the loss of Nimue isn't worth it at all. Who do I need to bug to set this straight? I'll do it, too.

Aww.... D;

I mean, the Murdock one makes sense since we actually SAW Murdock by that name in Blazing Sword, but... Nimue though.... sigh....

[Azure Sen]

6 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

Aww.... D;

I mean, the Murdock one makes sense since we actually SAW Murdock by that name in Blazing Sword, but... Nimue though.... sigh....

I have a feeling those names might have been changed back due to fan complaints, especially since they fixed Iuchar and Iucharba's names around the time people started noticing they were wrong.

[BANRYU]

1 minute ago, AzureSen said:

I have a feeling those names might have been changed back due to fan complaints, especially since they fixed Iuchar and Iucharba's names around the time people started noticing they were wrong.

I guess the question is who/how to complain to to get it changed back...? Dx

[Azure Sen]

3 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

I guess the question is who/how to complain to to get it changed back...? Dx

Probably on Twitter, but I also imagine that changing Niime and Murdock back was because they already got officially localized names in Blazing Blade that weren't completely butchered in transition from katakana to romaji (a la Lachesis), and they probably aren't going to make any more exceptions at this point.

Edited January 25, 2017 by AzureSen

[Aquantis]

why did they change Eryois (Helios) to Ilios?  that makes no sense at all.  

 

if they are changes some names, then where can we complain to get names like Sety and Sukasha, and the rest of the messed up FE4 names to something decent (or as clost to the original as possible)?

[Azure Sen]

Just now, Aquantis said:

why did they change Eryois (Helios) to Ilios?  that makes no sense at all.  

Eyrios's name wasn't a reference to Helios, it was a corruption of Ilios (another name for Troy). In katakana, Ilios's name is rendered as Iriosu (イリオス), while Helios is rendered as Heriosu (ヘリオス).

[Koumal8]

On 21/1/2017 at 5:04 PM, RedEyedDrake said:

Also, Chulainn is not necessarily a reference to Cu Chulainn. 'Cu Chulainn' is a nickname that means 'Chulainn's hound' and a guy named Setanta came to be known by it as a result of him agreeing to serve in the stead of a guard dog after he killed the one belonging to another guy named Chulainn. Or so the legends say. Thus the name could just be a reference to the actual Chulainn.

  I read the legends about Cu Chulainn and Chulainn himself is such a minor character that what you say is, in my opinion, highly unlikely; whenever someone reads the name "Chulainn" they immediately think about the great Irish mythological hero, and definitely not about that random dude whose dog was killed (he never appears again after that episode).

  Overall, I don't think it'll be easy for me to get used to all the name changes, though I guess I'm happy for every name that is now closer to the original mythological character's name they were taken from; however, things like Gwendolyn really make me wonder: do localization teams even now of the existence of fan translations in general? Do they ever think about fan communities? Wendy has been called "Wendy" for more than 10 years now, couldn't they have kept her name? This complaint may sound stupid to most of you, but still... I'm also still crazy salty about Sety/Ced...

[shadowofchaos]

On 01/18/2017 at 10:03 PM, AzureSen said:

That is not an intentional trend, that is poor romanization due to the ambiguity of what sounds katakana is supposed to represent. It's the same reason why Sigurd's name in kata was romanized as Siguld for some time; the question of how to translate r sounds (and the people who did the translating into kata not being the same people who romanized it back into English).

The thing is, the actual mythological Sigurd has the シグルド katakana. That isn't a mistake one should make if one were well versed in the flaws of Japanese referencing foreign material. Unlike what most people who I've seen only have basic Japanese knowledge assume, katakana is an approximation, not an absolute.

An example I can immediately think of is サラダ instead of people assuming it's サラド.

 

Just a fun fact. I have a rooted phone anyway, so I'll be switching to Japanese or download the JP version of the game anyway if the game doesn't support multiple languages like pokemon go.

Edited January 25, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

1 hour ago, AzureSen said:

Probably on Twitter, but I also imagine that changing Niime and Murdock back was because they already got officially localized names in Blazing Blade that weren't completely butchered in transition from katakana to romaji (a la Lachesis), and they probably aren't going to make any more exceptions at this point.

Don't bet on it.

I just checked twitter and there wasn't any outcry really, in fact I couldn't find any comments at all directing complaints to their twitter (for Niime and Murdock, anyway, unless Nintendo is stalking serenesforest itself).

It's likely at this point they just genuinely overlooked the localized names/were trying to get the site up so fast they forgot/etc., hence why Murdock and Niime were reverted. Given that there's literally less than 5 characters I know of now that aren't consistent with the names used in US 7-11 and 13-14 (Raquesis being one), I would not be suprised if they revise the list to be 100% accurate with english translations or use the Awakening names in the game itself, "Accuracy" be damned. Let's face it, their first priority is still making sure people from the english games and particularly Awakening can recognize characters, otherwise they wouldn't have touched Niime (which isn't a terribly accurate translation either). And that's not a bad thing at all, fucking consistency is appreciated so I don't need a name chart just to tell what character is who in 5 years. if they didn't keep names consistent names would start jumping around every few games, so Raquesis would be Raquesis in one game, Lachesis in another, Rackesis in the next, and so on, and that's a fucking nightmare when trying to appreciate connections between the games. This is likely exactly why they changed Murdock and Niime, so that FE7 players would recognize them as that guy pushed around by Zephiel's dad and Canas's mom he mentions in a support convo- there doesn't seem to be any outcry for Niime- in fact, people seem to have almost entirely preferred Nimue, so the fans were likely not a factor at all in this- consistency seemed to be, so Raquesis will probably be back for revenge soon. Other hated Awakening names like "Arvis" were kept, so I'm willing to bet a fair amount of cash they're oversights and whoever is running the site doesn't have a copy of Awakening directly on hand and is pulling from some sort of list of official names that erroneously forgot a few characters, their own memory, or straight up on the fly translation. I don't know which one.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[BANRYU]

5 hours ago, AzureSen said:

Probably on Twitter, but I also imagine that changing Niime and Murdock back was because they already got officially localized names in Blazing Blade that weren't completely butchered in transition from katakana to romaji (a la Lachesis), and they probably aren't going to make any more exceptions at this point.

....ohhhh hell you're right, I forgot that Niime DID get mentioned between Canas and Pent's supports... For some reason I was thinking she wasn't mentioned but derp.

Well, that's a shame x___x Maybe I'll try beseeching them anyway.

[Iridium]

most of the name changes honestly don't even bother me

just raquesis and niime, which don't even work as localizations so much as just nonsensical mangling

seeing them both get fixed was wonderful, especially since the former seemed entirely intentional, but now i'm worried we'll lose both

consistency is important to an extent but it shouldn't be necessary to live with mistakes made ages ago for bit roles

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

4 hours ago, Iridium said:

most of the name changes honestly don't even bother me

just raquesis and niime, which don't even work as localizations so much as just nonsensical mangling

seeing them both get fixed was wonderful, especially since the former seemed entirely intentional, but now i'm worried we'll lose both

consistency is important to an extent but it shouldn't be necessary to live with mistakes made ages ago for bit roles

I think Nintendo knows enough about namewank that they don't want to give anyone any fuel, which is why they reverted Nimue and, likely soon, Lachesis, especially since Raquesis seems more intentional and had an actual playable role and physical appearance in 13 unlike Niime in 7. If Nintendo is going to revert something as obscure as Niime who was mentioned literally once in the entirety of FE7, I think it's pretty clear Nimue and Lachesis was Nintendo forgetting what names they'd used, outsourcing it to someone who didn't 100% research the English names, or the website being made rather quickly to try and make it for January 18th.

 

the sheer obscurity of Niime in 7 seems testament to this. So given Raquesis is an actual playable character, and we already have Arvis which the fanbase likes to cry about a lot (meaning Nintendo would know this if they fixed Lachesis due to complaints and probably lighten up to Alvis too), I'm still betting a very fair amount of cash Lachesis is a fuckup due to them genuinely forgetting Raquesis showed up in spotpass, like Nimue and Mordook seem to be, and they're going to correct Raquesis's name, either on the site or in the actual iOS release.

 

consistency with localized FE games is super important for Heroes, since Nintendo themselves have basically said it's to introduce characters from older games and sell them to new players- hence, they want players coming from Heroes to recognize "oh, Canas's mom is Niime!" "Oh, Raquesis is that girl!" etc., rather than having to keep a fucking namechart up just to realize who's who for new players. NoE is already starting to have that issue with its names, so NoA wants to avoid that like the plague.

 

additionally, Niime is ancient- 2003- whereas Raquesis is by comparasion incredibly recent- 2013

i think this is especially true because Nintendo seemed to basically say "No, no more fucking names lifted directly from mythology" with Lachesis, and tinkered with it to make Raquesis- a fancy, regal, girly sounding name. Same with Loptyr, which they toyed around with a bit since Loptyr is an alias of Loki (Loputo's beta name for FE4).

Edited January 26, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[BANRYU]

On the topic of Nimue/Niime, I tweeted at the App people asking them to change it back. =3= dunno if it will accomplish anything, but if anyone else wants it changed back, I suggest y'all do likewise. 

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

7 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

On the topic of Nimue/Niime, I tweeted at the App people asking them to change it back. =3= dunno if it will accomplish anything, but if anyone else wants it changed back, I suggest y'all do likewise. 

It won't.

They reverted it for a very specific reason, and a damn good one.

niime isn't the end of the world and it's just going to confuse the life out of newcomers to the series if they use Nimue, which is counterintuitive to what Heroes is trying to do (get Awakening/Fates fans hooked on the older games).

 

either want the older games to be exclusive to older fans and hostile to new fans (by having the same character be called 5 different things in every game that character is mentioned in, thus needing a name chart to even make sense of who's who), and thus have Nintendo stop making things like FE Echoes, or make them more accessible in terms of lore to newer fans by simply being consistent. Pick one.

 

 (NoE not making up their freaking minds about Shiida already made me lose my sanity trying to make sense of the lore. The lore can and will become a fucking Nightmare if they start not making names consistent. Niime and a Raquesis aren't going to kill the franchise if they're left intact, calm down.)

Edited January 26, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[BANRYU]

5 minutes ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

It won't.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Didn't think it'd hurt to try. I'm not exactly expecting much, so no worries there. 

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by BANRYU

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

12 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Didn't think it'd hurt to try. I'm not exactly expecting much, so no worries there. 

 

The problem is if they do revert it back to Nimue, they're doing nothing but fueling the never ending shitstorm that got me excited for Heroes singlehandedly because Heroes will end it if they keep their FUCKING NAMES CONSISTENT- namewanking.

 

people are going to endlessly and bitterly argue about Niime and Nimue if they go back and forth and that's going to do nothing but damage the franchise and make it hostile to fresh people new to the lore who don't have a FUCKING NAMECHART ready to go.

 

I hope I made my point about why Nintendo is keeping the names consistent. It's not like Tellius, Shadow Dragon, or any other localized games had a flawless 1-1 mythology reference ratio- but in the US, outside of Europe, they've been entirely consistent. Two names not being shining examples of localization isn't going to hurt, but going back and forth sets a pretty dangerous precedent for future localizations.

 

imagine the next game has Eliwod and Rin, just because the localizers didn't feel like being consistent. I know it's probably not gonna be extreme enough to affect the major lords, but pretty much every minor character is on the chopping block to be endlessly changed to the point we need a LOCALIZED name chart, not just a normal name chart, unless Nintendo of America sticks their flag in the ground- Niime and Raquesis are nessicary evils for that safeguard flag. Uses Raquesis herself as an example, what's to stop the next localization team from deciding she's more of a Rackesis if they don't keep it consistent?!?!?

 

Niime and Raquesis aren't going to hurt, games like Tellius and Magvel have had dumb localizations like this. Just let it rest so we can move on and not make the lore a mess where we have to learn 7 aliases for every character, name, and location.

 

ask yourself, is that Pandora's box really worth 2 or 3 names from random ass characters?

Edited January 26, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[Iridium]

20 minutes ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

niime isn't the end of the world and it's just going to confuse the life out of newcomers to the series if they use Nimue, which is counterintuitive to what Heroes is trying to do (get Awakening/Fates fans hooked on the older games).

I'm pretty sure anyone who actually remembers the name Niime being mentioned in FE7 is capable of connecting the dots. The only people I could see even remembering that conversation are probably acquainted enough with Binding Blade to recognize her.

Her name is in an area only marginally less obscure than "Blazing Blade", I mean, and this fanbase still insistently used Blazing Sword for over ten years. If we don't even remember a title that important, we can probably overlook a minor name correction too.

32 minutes ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

i think this is especially true because Nintendo seemed to basically say "No, no more fucking names lifted directly from mythology" with Lachesis, and tinkered with it to make Raquesis- a fancy, regal, girly sounding name.

This would be a valid argument from Awakening's perspective, but Heroes seems to be going out of its way to go "no, never mind, everyone is a mythological name even if they originally weren't". If we are going to be using these names henceforth, then Raquesis becomes distinctly out of place.

It's also worth mentioning that they used the other Awakening names whenever present, even weirder ones like Ced, so they're clearly aware of those names. It's not like Blazing Blade where the names were uniformly overlooked; they were generally all used. Lachesis feels like a deliberate exception to me where the only reasonable explanation is them going out of their way to change it.

And if they're doing it for her they ought to do it for Nimue, too, since the only English reference to her name is even more obscure -- and unlike Murdock, which is actually perfectly serviceable as a name, Niime looks out of place even to someone who doesn't know about Nimue because the double-i is so rare in English.

Again: I fully support keeping names consistent to a point. I'm not even arguing about getting rid of Ced or anything like that. I am only concerned about ones that are actual mistakes -- the now-fixed Luchar/ba, the now-fixed Raquesis, and the now-unfixed Niime. Fixing a mistake before it gets out of hand is better than letting it spread into a place where people actually notice it.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Iridium

[BANRYU]

@Hero of the Fire Emblems IDK man maybe I'm underreacting, but I feel like you're making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. You might be right, though you yourself mentioned how obscure and ill-known Niime herself is, so chances of many people even catching wind of it for an extended period of time is not high. 

And the stakes aren't that high either, I get that too. I have my preference, but I don't think it's that big a deal either way. 

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

1 hour ago, Iridium said:

I'm pretty sure anyone who actually remembers the name Niime being mentioned in FE7 is capable of connecting the dots. The only people I could see even remembering that conversation are probably acquainted enough with Binding Blade to recognize her.

Her name is in an area only marginally less obscure than "Blazing Blade", I mean, and this fanbase still insistently used Blazing Sword for over ten years. If we don't even remember a title that important, we can probably overlook a minor name correction too.

This would be a valid argument from Awakening's perspective, but Heroes seems to be going out of its way to go "no, never mind, everyone is a mythological name even if they originally weren't". If we are going to be using these names henceforth, then Raquesis becomes distinctly out of place.

It's also worth mentioning that they used the other Awakening names whenever present, even weirder ones like Ced, so they're clearly aware of those names. It's not like Blazing Blade where the names were uniformly overlooked; they were generally all used. Lachesis feels like a deliberate exception to me where the only reasonable explanation is them going out of their way to change it.

And if they're doing it for her they ought to do it for Nimue, too, since the only English reference to her name is even more obscure -- and unlike Murdock, which is actually perfectly serviceable as a name, Niime looks out of place even to someone who doesn't know about Nimue because the double-i is so rare in English.

Again: I fully support keeping names consistent to a point. I'm not even arguing about getting rid of Ced or anything like that. I am only concerned about ones that are actual mistakes -- the now-fixed Luchar/ba, the now-fixed Raquesis, and the now-unfixed Niime. Fixing a mistake before it gets out of hand is better than letting it spread into a place where people actually notice it.

Modoc in particular being in there seems particularly like a few names just outright slipped through the cracks- Lachesis Modoc seemed to be genuine mistakes since they're there but generally more obscure.

Raquesis was intentionally done. The reasoning used for Niime can be nothing else but them sticking their flag in the ground, and Niime in general doesn't fit Binding Blade's names either but they still fixed it back to Niime. For this reason they had to actually change it back and reason with it, changing their minds at all is all but impossible. Trust me, Tobin isn't really my cup of tea either, but once the names are in Echoes it will be both harmful and pointless to "fix" them, as it would be to "fix" a random Tellius character's name (like demanding Rhys be changed back to Killroy)

 

While I'm not really confident in 7's translation, another factor of that reversion might have been to try and give her a more exotic and, well, Shaman-like name to fit with her class. Similar to how Gwendolyn was meant to make Wendy more exotic and dated a name. Raquesis seems to be an attempt at the same.

 

Raquesis holds the distinction of being noticible and in fact widely known among fans because of her spotpass appearance and role in the DLC- but at the same time, that exact role wasn't a main title role and she likely flew under the radar for similar reasons to Murdock.

 

TL;DR: if they reverted Niime, that very likely means their flag is stuck in the ground with it due to the issues with it and they likely had to mull over if it was worth it; they decided it was, don't be shocked if Raquesis is back, since the exact same logic to Niime applies almost wholesale to Raquesis, albeit she had more exposure. This type of arguing is exactly why they need to stick their flag in the ground because if they "fix" Raquesis, fans might get it in their head they can "fix" other names like Kaze to Suzukaze if they scream loud enough, whereas sticking their flag in the ground and saying "we did this, discussion is over" even with names like Raquesis will settle the argument. Basically, the FE fanbase will quite potentially slowly go the way of the sonic fanbase, but over localized names, unless they stick their flag in the ground and say "We're not 'fixing' any names, don't bother screaming at us".

 

and this is ignoring how hopelessly confused someone playing FE6 and then FE7 down the road, once Heroes gives it exposure, will be as to who "Niime" is if they keep it as Nimue, and the connection to Canas risks flying over their head unless they research on the wiki. I mean realistically speaking I can give Lachesis a bit more leeway since we actually see her, but a fair deal of characters just get mentioned in localized games if they're direct sequels or prequels.

 

basically, this'd open up multiple massive cans of worms with so many bad scenarios and too few good ones that I don't think two random characters are worth opening. By definition, Raquesis is already "out of hand" anyway since it was used for an actual unit shown in Awakening and has been her official, canon name for 3 going on 4 years now. The non localized names? Fine. People aren't going to get up in arms as much about Tobin for example since he wasn't in Awakening, and the more radical fans won't get any ideas since it's their first localized instance. Raquesis and Niime in particular are the names that can cause issue here and it will be a lot neater if Nintendo just bites the bullet and sticks with them, which they've now done with Niime it looks like. They also seem to be updating the names one at a time, so they could also be contemplating the names or whoever makes the site (if not Nintendo) is researching. I'm not 100% sure but Niime is significant enough due to, as you say, it "mangling the original name", that literally the only reason for the change is consistency.

 

honestly changing it back to Niime made everything a lot worse, because if they "fix" it again, then the fans will be even more convinced if they scream loud enough and bicker hard enough they can "fix" names like Rhys and Kaze as well.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[Azure Sen]

10 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

The thing is, the actual mythological Sigurd has the シグルド katakana. That isn't a mistake one should make if one were well versed in the flaws of Japanese referencing foreign material. Unlike what most people who I've seen only have basic Japanese knowledge assume, katakana is an approximation, not an absolute.

An example I can immediately think of is サラダ instead of people assuming it's サラド.

The Siguld translation comes directly from Japanese material, specifically the old TCG (the cards of which are on the FE Wiki) and the FE Museum subsection of the FE World website (located here). As far as I know, no official English localization has ever referred to him as Siguld.

This sort of transliteration problem is incredibly common in Japanese media, especially because katakana is an approximation and not an exact representation. Most of the time it's because the people doing the transliteration from katakana into romaji aren't the original creator and thus aren't always aware of what the English word the katakana is supposed to represent; alternatively, it can also be the result of creators hearing non-Japanese words and then transliterating them into katakana without checking what the original spelling was. It gets even worse when the katakana represents meaningless nonsense meant to sound foreign but isn't actually an approximation of any non-Japanese words (Theバジーナ part of Char's alias from Zeta Gundam comes to mind, which has been rendered as Bajeena, Bagina, and Vagina in various Japanese sources). That's why, especially with an anime series or game that has a lot of fans before any material is officially localized, you tend to have a lot of conflict among fans over what the "right" translations are (and sometimes, not even the localized names stop the debate). 

Sorry if I misread what you meant and got a bit ranty there, I just felt that I needed to clarify that.

10 hours ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

Niime (which isn't a terribly accurate translation either). 

Niime is a direct transliteration of the katakana for her name, ニイメ, into English. Nimue was the incorrect translation even if it was the thematically more appropriate name, as the katakana for Nimue would be ニムイー (Nimuii).

As for everything else, @Hero of the Fire Emblems, knock it off. This thread isn't a soapbox for you to complain and overreact about the localized names. There's already a thread for talking about your opinions regarding the name changes, take any complaints you have there. 

Edited January 26, 2017 by AzureSen

[shadowofchaos]

On 01/25/2017 at 10:45 PM, AzureSen said:

The Siguld translation comes directly from Japanese material, specifically the old TCG (the cards of which are on the FE Wiki) and the FE Museum subsection of the FE World website (located here). As far as I know, no official English localization has ever referred to him as Siguld.

This sort of transliteration problem is incredibly common in Japanese media, especially because katakana is an approximation and not an exact representation. Most of the time it's because the people doing the transliteration from katakana into romaji aren't the original creator and thus aren't always aware of what the English word the katakana is supposed to represent; alternatively, it can also be the result of creators hearing non-Japanese words and then transliterating them into katakana without checking what the original spelling was. It gets even worse when the katakana represents meaningless nonsense meant to sound foreign but isn't actually an approximation of any non-Japanese words (Theバジーナ part of Char's alias from Zeta Gundam comes to mind, which has been rendered as Bajeena, Bagina, and Vagina in various Japanese sources). That's why, especially with an anime series or game that has a lot of fans before any material is officially localized, you tend to have a lot of conflict among fans over what the "right" translations are (and sometimes, not even the localized names stop the debate). 

Sorry if I misread what you meant and got a bit ranty there, I just felt that I needed to clarify that.

Niime is a direct transliteration of the katakana for her name, ニイメ, into English. Nimue was the incorrect translation even if it was the thematically more appropriate name, as the katakana for Nimue would be ニムイー (Nimuii).

As for everything else, @Hero of the Fire Emblems, knock it off. This thread isn't a soapbox for you to complain and overreact about the localized names. There's already a thread for talking about your opinions regarding the name changes, take any complaints you have there. 

Haha, no misunderstandings here.

But Sigurd was referred to as Zigludo and the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Decent of Jihad in a Nintendo Power magazine.

[Elieson]

32 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

But Sigurd was referred to as Zigludo and the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Decent of Jihad in a Nintendo Power magazine.

Do you happen to have a screenshot of this? I'd love it for my records of Transloltions.

[Roflolxp54]

6 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Do you happen to have a screenshot of this? I'd love it for my records of Transloltions.

Found some scans here. There's also "Secret of the Crest" instead of Mystery of the Emblem and "Lightning Sword and the Dark Dragon" instead of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light among others.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[Elieson]

5 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

Found some scans here. There's also "Secret of the Crest" instead of Mystery of the Emblem and "Lightning Sword and the Dark Dragon" instead of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light.

 

 

 

Thanks! I enjoyed this read, and learning about Serlis's contributions to the series~

 

Marus and Medious seem like stellar folk, too.

 

 

Edited January 30, 2017 by Elieson