Kirk said:I know I posted this somewhere else before, and it's not terribly mind-blowing, but I love this thread, and I thought I'd contribute.
I was always a little mystified as a kid by the names of the characters in Golden Axe, such as Ax=Battler and Death=Adder. Why the equals sign? I thought they were trying to equate the characters to the magic that they used. Death used the Adder magic, so he was "Adder", and so on.
Much much later I discovered that they were double hyphens, not equals signs. Probably the most notable place you've seen a double hyphen is in the name Waldorf=Astoria. Double hyphens are often used in Japanese when writing foreign names to separate the last name from the first name, since traditionally Japanese doesn't have the concept of spaces. I guess somebody kept the hyphens in the names in Golden Axe even though they were using English, probably not aware that it would look strange.
First time I see double hyphens in my life. I think the more frequent way of separating a first name from a last name in Japanese is this dot:　・. For instance: デス・アダー (Death Adder). Apparently it's called "chûten", or "middle point" or something.
Not saying you're wrong though, it's just that I'd never seen double hyphens up until now, let alone in lieu of a chûten.
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