This is just trivia. Stuff that won't blow your mind, but is kind of fun to find out about. Instead of cluttering up the "mindblowing" thread with trivia and getting some people angry, let's post the trivia here.
Let me start:
- In Final Fantasy X, it's pretty well known that Tidus' name (Tida) is Okinawan for "sun", and that Yuna's name is a kind of flower in several Okinawan languages, but Wakka's name was borrowed from the other end of the country: it means "water" (specifically, drinkable water) in Ainu.
- In FFXII, one of the first places you visit is the Muthru Bazaar in Rabanastre, a very Turkish-looking outdor bazaar. The Japanese name for this is ムスル, and this is in fact the closest Japanese equivalent to the name of an actual bazaar in Istanbul, called Mısır Çarşı in Turkish (the Turkish undotted i goes into Japanese as a u sound). The real place looks more like Rabanastre's Lowtown, but the ambience is similar:
I wish they'd kept the original name!
- In Valkyria Chronicles, Welkin's name (ウェルキン
was inspired by Roman-era warrior Vercingetorix (ウェルキンゲトリクス, as described in the Design Archive artbook (if you don't have this, get it; it's excellent), but another interesting tidbit that isn't mentioned is that Isara is the Latin name for the River Isar, in Germany, and that river runs past the small town of Alteich, which in Latin is called Altaha -- is that the source of VC3's Nameless squad motto "Altaha Abilia"?
- Recently in Japan the phrase "parasite single" has come into vogue to refer to people in their 20s and 30s who remain living with their parents and "mooching" off them rather than setting up their own homes. This word originated with the book and video game Parasite Eve, though the word's coiner invented it in 1997 before the game came out:
http://sites.google.com/site/japaneseparasitesingles/frequently-asked-questions
Let me start:
- In Final Fantasy X, it's pretty well known that Tidus' name (Tida) is Okinawan for "sun", and that Yuna's name is a kind of flower in several Okinawan languages, but Wakka's name was borrowed from the other end of the country: it means "water" (specifically, drinkable water) in Ainu.
- In FFXII, one of the first places you visit is the Muthru Bazaar in Rabanastre, a very Turkish-looking outdor bazaar. The Japanese name for this is ムスル, and this is in fact the closest Japanese equivalent to the name of an actual bazaar in Istanbul, called Mısır Çarşı in Turkish (the Turkish undotted i goes into Japanese as a u sound). The real place looks more like Rabanastre's Lowtown, but the ambience is similar:
I wish they'd kept the original name!
- In Valkyria Chronicles, Welkin's name (ウェルキン
was inspired by Roman-era warrior Vercingetorix (ウェルキンゲトリクス, as described in the Design Archive artbook (if you don't have this, get it; it's excellent), but another interesting tidbit that isn't mentioned is that Isara is the Latin name for the River Isar, in Germany, and that river runs past the small town of Alteich, which in Latin is called Altaha -- is that the source of VC3's Nameless squad motto "Altaha Abilia"?- Recently in Japan the phrase "parasite single" has come into vogue to refer to people in their 20s and 30s who remain living with their parents and "mooching" off them rather than setting up their own homes. This word originated with the book and video game Parasite Eve, though the word's coiner invented it in 1997 before the game came out:
http://sites.google.com/site/japaneseparasitesingles/frequently-asked-questions
