Azurite names

[Domino Quartz]

From what I can tell, aspects/characteristics of Azure City and the Azurites, including names, seem to be taken from various East Asian civilisations/people groups/languages, but I can't tell exactly which. For example, I can tell that the names "Tsukiko" and "Miko Miyazaki" seem kind of Japanese, but what about the other Azurite names? Which East Asian languages do they come from? It's not that important to me; I'm just curious.

[martianmister]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Djo

[VanaGalen]

Tsukiko is definitely Japanese. I don't know if Giant intended any particular spelling for this name, but it can be written as: 月子(moon+child) ,月光(moonlight),　津喜子 (haven+happiness+child) and there are many other combinations possible, but Tsukiko is pretty common Japanese name.

Same goes for Miko. I suppose her name can be written as 御子(honorable+child), 光心(light+heart), 巫女(shrine maiden) or maybe 実子(truth +child). There are many other possibilities, but these seems to fit her character best.

Miyazaki is pretty common surname in Japan. There is famous writer Miyazaki Manabu and anime music composer Miyazaki Shinji. The name is usually spelled 宮崎(shrine/palace + cape).

Also Kazumi is common Japanese, usually feminine name. Possible spelling: 和美(harmony+beauty), 一海(one+sea), 和実 (harmony+truth) and many, many others.
Kato is also popular surname - there are mathematicians Katou Kazuya and Katou Toshio, there was also prime minister named Katou Tomosaburou. That surname is usually spelled 加藤(join/add + wisteria).

Daigo is also Japanese name (usually male). 60th Emperor of Japan in IX-X century A.D. had that name. There are again many possible spellings, but I think this one fits nicely: 大悟 (great + understand).

Niu also might be Japanese name: 丹生(red+life), 丹羽(red+feathers) or 楢(oak) though it isn't really popular.

Shojo and Hinjo sound Japanese, but these are not Japanese names. Shojo (処女) by itself means female virgin, so I doubt it was the inspiration here. Shoujo　(少女) in Japanese means little girl, but there is also Shoujou-ji - Buddhist temple in Fukushima pref.
Hinjo doesn't mean anything in Japanese as far as I know, but it sounds like Japanese word.

Lien sounds like Chinese to me and I have no idea about O-Chul and Thanh.

Edit: I forgot about Soon Kim and his wife. I don't know, but they sound Korean to me.

[rgrekejin]

Azure City is a mish-mash of many different East Asian cultures, rather than drawing off of a single one exclusively. This is almost certinly deliberate.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Ho Thanh is probably Vietnamese, according to other people on the forum, and Soon Kim is definitely Korean. But Azure City's a Wutai parody, so...yeah.

[Domino Quartz]

Azure City is a mish-mash of many different East Asian cultures, rather than drawing off of a single one exclusively. This is almost certinly deliberate.

Umm...I sort of knew that. I was just asking which ones, if people knew.

[Mikhailangelo]

What is this Japan of which you speak?

[Vinsfeld]

Tsukiko is definitely Japanese. I don't know if Giant intended any particular spelling for this name, but it can be written as: 月子(moon+child) ,月光(moonlight),　津喜子 (haven+happiness+child) and there are many other combinations possible, but Tsukiko is pretty common Japanese name.

Same goes for Miko. I suppose her name can be written as 御子(honorable+child), 光心(light+heart), 巫女(shrine maiden) or maybe 実子(truth +child). There are many other possibilities, but these seems to fit her character best.

Miyazaki is pretty common surname in Japan. There is famous writer Miyazaki Manabu and anime music composer Miyazaki Shinji. The name is usually spelled 宮崎(shrine/palace + cape).

Also Kazumi is common Japanese, usually feminine name. Possible spelling: 和美(harmony+beauty), 一海(one+sea), 和実 (harmony+truth) and many, many others.
Kato is also popular surname - there are mathematicians Katou Kazuya and Katou Toshio, there was also prime minister named Katou Tomosaburou. That surname is usually spelled 加藤(join/add + wisteria).

Daigo is also Japanese name (usually male). 60th Emperor of Japan in IX-X century A.D. had that name. There are again many possible spellings, but I think this one fits nicely: 大悟 (great + understand).

Niu also might be Japanese name: 丹生(red+life), 丹羽(red+feathers) or 楢(oak) though it isn't really popular.

Shojo and Hinjo sound Japanese, but these are not Japanese names. Shojo (処女) by itself means female virgin, so I doubt it was the inspiration here. Shoujo　(少女) in Japanese means little girl, but there is also Shoujou-ji - Buddhist temple in Fukushima pref.
Hinjo doesn't mean anything in Japanese as far as I know, but it sounds like Japanese word.

Lien sounds like Chinese to me and I have no idea about O-Chul and Thanh.

Edit: I forgot about Soon Kim and his wife. I don't know, but they sound Korean to me.

Thanks, VanaGalen. Now I know.

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And knowing is half the battle

[F.Harr]

Kim is a VERY populare Korean family name.

[VanaGalen]

There is also Sangwaan and Chang - both probably Chinese.

So we have
-Korean: Soon and his wife
-Chinese: Lien, Sangwaan and Chang
-Vietnamese: Ho Thanh
-Japanese: Miko, Kato family, Tsukiko and possibly Niu

any ideas about Shojo, Hinjo and O-Chul?

[pearl jam]

I think your first answer regarding Shojo and Hinjo is probably correct: they are of Japanese influence, but not, perhaps, actual Japanese names.

I've never been able to make much of O-chul. It could be something like this, too, a name with a certain linguistic flavor that you would not actually encounter in the setting that influenced it, but it may also be a "real" name.

[NZNinja]

I've never been able to make much of O-chul.

As best I can determine, 'Chul' is a Korean boys name that means "firm"; and many Japanese words use an 'O-' to indicate respectfulness. So one interpretation could be a mix of respect and toughness, which sums up O-Chul pretty well.

Or... Perhaps the Giant just thought it sounded appropriately cool for a bad-ass paladin.

[meto30]

Hello, I'm a native Korean, and perhaps I can provide insight, or perhaps a particularily Korean take, to O-Chul.

If I'm to assume Chul is pronounced Cheol (as in furniTURE) and not Chool (as in drool) then it becomes an archaic but rather awesome Korean single-syllable personal name (there are very few single-syllable names in modern Korea). Oh (pronounced as in Oh my God) is a common Korean surname, and in East Asian conventions the surname is supposed to come before the personal name. Combining these two, we end up with Oh Chul, which is (perhaps surprisingly to some non-East-Asian readers) a very natural Korean name. I'd bet there were at least one Oh Chul in Korean history; Chul was a common name in medieval Korea.

Oh-Chul together can also form a two-syllable Korean personal name. It's not as cool as Chul alone, but since every other Azurite have their surnames at the last portion of their names, this will fit better.

"O-" prefix in Japanese does not come before people's names, at least not in the context NZninja mentioned. It is more of a formality convention that is added upon common nouns (not unique nouns) to denote that one is trying to be subservient and respectful towards whoever one's talking to; in modern Japan, the convention is observed in nearly all cases, as the modern Japanese language is derived from the medieval merchant class Japanese, whom were at all times subservient to the warrior class.

If Chul is pronounced Chool however, then it is definantly not a Korean name, at least not a sensible one. The most common Chinese ideogram Koreans associate with 'Chool' is 'exit', and naming a boy 'exit' is bad taste.

[The Giant]

For all the Azurite names, keep in mind that I do not speak any of the languages involved and therefore could easily have mangled them or made unintended implications. However, here were the basic inspirations:

O-Chul: Korean
Soon and Mijung Kim: Korean
Miko Miyazaki: Japanese
Kazumi Kato: Japanese
Daigo D.: Japanese
Daimyo Kubota: Japanese
Sangwaan: Thai
Ho Thanh: Vietnamese
Lien: Chinese
General Chang: Chinese
Niu: Chinese
Shojo: Cribbed from Legend of the Five Rings setting, where one of the Phoenix clan families is called Shojo. Where they got it from, I have no idea.
Hinjo: Invented by me to be similar to Shojo.

For O-Chul, I avoided naming him Oh Chul because the very first speech balloon where his name is mentioned was Lord Shojo calling him to come into the room, and I didn't want people to think "Oh" was the English word oh, as in, "Oh Bob! Come in here for a minute." So I switched the spelling at the last minute to make it one word instead.

[zimmerwald1915]

O-Chul: Korean
Soon and Mijung Kim: Korean
Miko Miyazaki: Japanese
Kazumi Kato: Japanese
Daigo D.: Japanese
Daimyo Kubota: Japanese
Sangwaan: Thai
Ho Thanh: Vietnamese
Lien: Chinese
General Chang: Chinese
Niu: Chinese
Shojo: Cribbed from Legend of the Five Rings setting, where one of the Phoenix clan families is called Shojo. Where they got it from, I have no idea.
Hinjo: Invented by me to be similar to Shojo.

But what was the origin of Ronjo?

[Ajadea]

On the Chinese-inspired names (please note I am only partially fluent in Chinese):
Niu falls into the slightly unfortunate category. The most likely translation of her name would be 'cow', if China existed in OotS.
Lien sounds Chinese but there are no Chinese sounds represented by 'ie'. So using Chinese pronunciation, her name would have to be two syllables - Li En.

[Domino Quartz]

For all the Azurite names, keep in mind that I do not speak any of the languages involved and therefore could easily have mangled them or made unintended implications. However, here were the basic inspirations:

O-Chul: Korean
Soon and Mijung Kim: Korean
Miko Miyazaki: Japanese
Kazumi Kato: Japanese
Daigo D.: Japanese
Daimyo Kubota: Japanese
Sangwaan: Thai
Ho Thanh: Vietnamese
Lien: Chinese
General Chang: Chinese
Niu: Chinese
Shojo: Cribbed from Legend of the Five Rings setting, where one of the Phoenix clan families is called Shojo. Where they got it from, I have no idea.
Hinjo: Invented by me to be similar to Shojo.

Whoa, a reply from The Giant himself! Thanks Giant, and everybody else!

[pearl jam]

Shojo: Cribbed from Legend of the Five Rings setting, where one of the Phoenix clan families is called Shojo. Where they got it from, I have no idea.
Hinjo: Invented by me to be similar to Shojo.

Connecting the dots we find a real word that I encountered as a possible suggestion for "shojo" when typing, but I passed it by!

[pearl jam]

So, to live up to his name, Shojo should either be quite fond of his sake, or secretly an orangutan.


Or both.

[jere7my]

Lien sounds Chinese but there are no Chinese sounds represented by 'ie'. So using Chinese pronunciation, her name would have to be two syllables - Li En.

That might be true, but Lien does seem to be an acceptable transliteration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lien_Chan

[meto30]

O-Chul: Korean
Soon and Mijung Kim: Korean
For O-Chul, I avoided naming him Oh Chul because the very first speech balloon where his name is mentioned was Lord Shojo calling him to come into the room, and I didn't want people to think "Oh" was the English word oh, as in, "Oh Bob! Come in here for a minute." So I switched the spelling at the last minute to make it one word instead.

Suddenly I find myself liking O-Chul a lot more than I did before, and I did like him a lot before. :D

Anyways, yay I was right!

[VanaGalen]

Connecting the dots we find a real word that I encountered as a possible suggestion for "shojo" when typing, but I passed it by!

Yes, there is this legend, but technically the name is different. In Japanese it's important if vowels are long or short, for instance: short "o": ningyo - mermaid/naga, long "o" ningyō - doll, puppet. So Shojo isn't the same as Shōjō (also written as Shoujou). The only meaning of shojo in Japanese is the one I mentioned above. I'm glad The Giant didn't mean it that way ;)

As for honorific o- and go- in Japanese, as Meto30 mentioned, it's never used with names. To show respect when saying someone's name, there are -sama, -san or historical -dono suffixes.

[pearl jam]

Yes, there is this legend, but technically the name is different. In Japanese it's important if vowels are long or short, for instance: short "o": ningyo - mermaid/naga, long "o" ningyō - doll, puppet. So Shojo isn't the same as Shōjō (also written as Shoujou). The only meaning of shojo in Japanese is the one I mentioned above. I'm glad The Giant didn't mean it that way ;)

As for honorific o- and go- in Japanese, as Meto30 mentioned, it's never used with names. To show respect when saying someone's name, there are -sama, -san or historical -dono suffixes.

Yes, it is important in Japanese, but, since it's not meaningful in modern English- Shojo and Shōjō will be pronounced identically by readers of English, and Shoujou is likely to suggest an entirely different pronunciation to an English speaker, so representing the name as Shojo when Romanized is not really that big an issue in this setting.

[drazen]

Missed opportunity: an eyepatch for General Chang (Star Trek 6 reference). Although I suppose the name itself could have been a shout-out.

[fan4battle]

On the topic of Eastern names, Banjo also can look like a Japanese name, which could place him close to the pantheon of the Southern gods.

[ChowGuy]

On the topic of Eastern names, Banjo also can look like a Japanese name, which could place him close to the pantheon of the Southern gods.

But then what about his brother Giggles? Surely they'd have to share a common ancestry.

[Ajadea]

That might be true, but Lien does seem to be an acceptable transliteration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lien_Chan

Ah, yes. Though, more accurately, it would be written Lian, Lien does appear to be an acceptable transliteration.

[NZNinja]

"O-" prefix in Japanese does not come before people's names, at least not in the context NZninja mentioned.

It was not my intention to imply that the 'O-' prefix was used before proper names in Japanese; however in retrospect I can see why it might read that way.

A quick Google search turned up a Wikipedia article on the Korean surname 'O', which is a transliteration of the Chinese name 'Wu' which can be translated into English as 'god-like' or 'the highest'. Assuming that the meaning does not change significantly as the language varies (a pretty big assumption, I know), then a possible English translation of O-Chul could be 'god-like toughness'!

Yes, it's extrapolations on assumptions; yes, Wikipedia isn't a credible source; yes, I have no experience with Korean and very little with Japanese; and yes, 'O-Chul' could actually translate to 'wears fuzzy bunny slippers' and it wouldn't change the fact that a nearly naked O-Chul wielding an improvised weapon is still dangerous enough to deserve an upgrade to 'Prisoner First Class'.

I found it interesting, at least; I'm probably fixated on the meaning of names as I'm still looking for one to inflict on my son in another couple of months.

[meto30]

I found it interesting, at least; I'm probably fixated on the meaning of names as I'm still looking for one to inflict on my son in another couple of months.

Congratulations on your son, dear sir. May his name be awesome.

That said, modern Korean names were usually chosen for mystical reasons (at least, the ones using Chinese ideograms are for the most part). There is this great astrology book that says everyone's fate is more or less predetermined by birthdate and name - and thus Korean couples would choose a certain date at which to have their child born (and book the labour room on that date). This was way more common about a decade or two ago - nowadays people just do whatever is rad, which right now happens to be naming people with pretty-sounding names, without thinking about the actual ideograms. Which results in a lot of similar names, as 'pretty name' thing is a kind of a fad.

Heck, I did point out that Chul is a common letter in Korean names, but I have no idea what ideogram that is supposed to be! I do know mine though, which means "shining victory". Which is rather pretentious if you come to it. But nobody cared, because nowadays very few Korean people can read Chinese ideograms anyway.