Strange Pronounciation

Sephiroth - SEF-I-ROTH, I can't imagine anyone saying Sephiroth's name any other way than that, except maybe SEF-E-ROTH. I mean, the song One Winged Angel that plays when you're fighting him in the end says his damn name - how can anyone get that wrong .

Tidus - Tie-Dus
Ifrit - E-FrEET
Zidane - Zi-dayn
Tifa - Tee-Fa
Aeris - Air-rIS
Vivi - Vee-Vee
Brahne - BRAH-n (wassup brah)
Seifer - Sigh-Fer (though english teaching would dictate 'say-fer' with the Sei, it just doesnt feel right to me though)

Adding some
Quistus - Key-STuS
Edea - Edd-Eya
Rinoa - Rin-o-Ah
Paine - Pine (like a Pine tree)
Nooj - Newj
Baralai - Bear-A-Lie
Gippal - GhIP-aL

Proto said:

Well.... I guess the problem would be solved even earlier if someone could find the original Katakana pronuntiations

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Then they wouldn't sound anything like the names we see. For instance, Cloud would be Gumo or Kumo...so lets just stick with the english translations .

Aided Onslaught said:

Don't forget chocobo. I remember reading on the square site one time that it's said like chocolate though. chalk-a-boo

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Oooo...mmm I say it like, Choke-O-Beaux (or Bow to simplify it )

Fenix down? Maybe space limitation on the item names... I dunno

Anyway, here's how I pronounce:
Tifa - Tih-fuh
Sephiroth - Seh-fee-roth
Barret - Bear-it
Aeris - Air-iss
Yuffie - Yuff-fee
Zidane - Zid-aine
Seifer - Si-fur
Ifrit - Ee-freet
Shiva - She-vah

I guess that's about it... hehe but don't go on my pronounciations cause I'm southern

Reminds me of when I edited some text in my FFVI rom. I was playing around correcting typos and whatnot in the FFVI US rom for the SNES. Ted Woolsey did a lame-o job. Of course sometimes it's best to use the english equivalent for names.

I found this interesting tidbit on Wikipedia about Final Fantasy VI.

"Name changes of major characters:
Japanese Romaji Designers' Intention US
ティナ Tina Tina Terra
マッシュ Masshu Matthew (*) Sabin
カイエン Kaien Cayenne Cyan
ストラゴス Sutoragosu Stragos Strago
ガストラ Gasutora Gastra Gestahl
アルテマウェポン Arutema Uepon Ultima Weapon Atma Weapon
ケット・シー Ketto Shii Cait Sith Stray
ミドガルズオルム Midogaruzuorumu Midgardsormr (**) Terrato

(*) The original Japanese instruction manual erroneously lists this character's name in romaji as "Mash". However, according to the character's creator, Kaori Tanaka a.k.a. Clio Saga, his full name was intended to be "Matthew Rene Figaro." The entire mix up was simply due to the inherent likelihood of confusion and error when transliterating from English to Japanese and then back to English.

(**) The English Final Fantasy VII called this creature Midgar Zolom. See Midgard for its roots in Norse mythology."

On to some Japanese spells.
For example, Blizzard, Blizzara and Blizzaga are just strange to me. I prefer Ice, Ice 2, and Ice 3. Also some strange ones from FFIV..
Keal=Cure
Dejon=Warp
Libra=Scan

Coool huh?:lol:

I think the name changes in FF6 were a good job. There are certain words and names that have certain connotations in English (especially cause even the "japanese" names are mostly english-based words) that wouldn't be obvious to the Japanese. That's why localization entails more than simple translation.

For example, when I see the name "Tina" I think of some bimbo blonde girl from the valley, whereas Terra instantly brings to mind the Earth and some fantasy-type setting. With Cyan (which in english is most likely pronounced with a soft c, sai-yan, like the color), when pronounced with the hard C (or K) sound, it's cayenne, a kind of pepper, which comes across as a ridiculous name for a serious character.

The interesting point of the thread is more about linguistics, and more pertaining to English than Japanese - how one particular spelling in English can have many possible pronunciations. In most other languages spelling much more closely correlates to pronunciation - the same letter is always pronounced the same way. The problem isn't with the names themselves, but with how the Square localizers decide to spell them in English. There are certain spellings that have far less room for interpretation, yet I think they choose the spellings that they use because of the VISUAL aesthetic - it's kind of a staple of fantasy settings to have strangely spelled names (even if the pronunciation is fairly "typical"). Of the names you listed, I actually think that vivi, zidane, aeris, and sephiroth are actually fairly unambiguous spellings, where a good 90+% of native english speakers (at least american-style english) would say it the same way based purely on the spelling (vee-vee, zi-dayn, air-is (like the word heiress) sef-i-roth). The simple looking ones are often the more ambiguous (Tidus, Tifa) because the frequency of long (i = ee), short (i = ih), and dipthong (i = eye) variants of the i vowel sound are more or less equal in these spellings, so it's impossible to tell which one it is.