LogFAQs > #967013974

Lightning was memed on a fair bit and it's a pretty weak name. Squall is a weird name but it's also not a common word. I wouldn't be surprised if most english speakers that played that game couldn't define squall. Cloud is the odd one out where it's pretty well accepted. I didn't play FF7 or talk to anyone about games when it came out so I can't say if anyone thought it was a weird name at the time. Now that we know him as cloud, anything else would sound wrong, but if he initially had a name that was different we might think that was better than cloud. I also remember dart from legend of dragoon which worked ok but was kinda dumb and edge maverick which was dumb enough to be hilarious at least.

Then we have an example like Sora from kingdom hearts which means sky but they just left it as sora. It lost it's thematic context for english speakers but since most people didn't know, they didn't care. It'd be like the same way with pyra/poppi if they just stayed homura/hana.

It's just a tricky spot all around for translators because no matter what they do, it's impossible to convey the original meaning and context with the name. Something is lost in translation no matter which option they go with. This is just for those two. They could have maintained most of the original context with Achilles and Patrocles, I just don't mind the change cause I think it was a weird choice originally to use benkei and yoshitsune instead of unique names. I'm not sure they really had any good option for byakku. Dromarch is a welsh white mythological beast/dog so it's really not a horrible choice.

The other thing to consider is naming convention all around. Byakku sounds out of place compared to the general japanese take on western fantasy names like nia, pyra, mythra, logos and rex. Dromarch sounds right at home amongst those names that are basically a mix of latin and early european.