there was a thread wich was disscussing the names of aerith and other ff7 character names so i decided to start this thread.

most ff names are based in some mythology. most of these i know from being intersted in mythology, languages and just randomness. some are from websites and i cannot confirm them to be true. i apologize for any innaccuracies.

cloud-possible reference to cloud 9, said to be the place of absolute happiness in dante's inferno

aeris- means cloud in latin hhhmmmm...

cait sith-fairy cat in gaelic

vincent valentine-st.valentine was the saint of protective lovers

tifa-tiferet was the kabbalah tree of balance and loving

cetra- latin word meaning other(think etcetera)

lucretia-from the poem/painting the rape of lucretia

shinra-vampiric demon in egyptian mythology

don corneo-corneo is latin meaning horney or erect, don is a form of sir in italian(got this from some random website)

odin-norse god of war. also mars or aeries(also hhhmmm...)

behemoth-the largest creature created by god on the 6th day of creation, bahamut is another form of him. in some mythologies bahamut fights the gods along with other giants in the .ragnarok(one of cloud's swords) war.

leviathan-sea monster, when curled into a circle it becomes the mouth of hell

shiva-one of the 3 forms of braman in hinduism

knights of the round-reference to king arthurs 12 knights of the round table

ifrit-hindu god, also a demon with burning blood that bursts into flame when cut

gelnika(the turks plane)- painting by piccasso depicting a fallen war plane(also from a random website)

midgar-norse mythology, world of men

nibelheim- norse mythology, form of hell, also known as hades(the summon)

I can elaborate a bit more as well:

Lucretia - is supposed to have given birth to all evil in the world after her rape. This type of myth can also be linked to the Enemy Skill Pandora's Box, which also unleashed evil upon the world.

Cait-Sith is actually an extremely mischievous/cheeky creature, often portrayed as a cat wearing boots (just like Puss in Boots!!!).

Cloud - I never looked at it that way before, but I suppose it could make sense when combined with Tifa's Seventh Heaven.

Ifrit (or Afreet, Efreet, and Ifreeti I believe, not sure if the spelling is correct) - is the second class of Djinn (sometimes spelt Jinn) in Arabic mythology, blessed with extreme intelligence. These Djiin are demons with fire running through their veins instead of blood. When they were fatally wounded flames would consume them. It is said that they can take the shape of any animal and live for thousands of years. In Indian mythology, Ifrit is a fire god (unfortunately I don't know much more than that).

Phoenix (F�ng-Huang in China, Ho-oo in Japan, Firebird in Russia, Benu in Egypt, Phoenix in Greece and Yel in Native-America) - The Phoenix is always represented as a bird of fire, and linked to the sun.
In Assyrian myth it has been described as having a 500 year life span after which it creates itself a beautiful nest and dies, a baby being born from the dead body. Once strong enough the baby will carry its parent to the temple of the sun.
In Egyptian myth, Benu is often believed to be a form of Osiris (their big god of heaven), born from his heart as a living form of god. In Egyption myth it is also said to burst in flames at death, and is then reborn from them, ever-eternal like the sun.
I could keep describing the Phoenix but I may never stop...

Wow, I�m surprised. That�s great. :D

I knew, a lot of the monsters names are from the myth. But I didn�t know there�re so many.

The peoples names, well I never thougth, they had anything to do with myth.

Cloud for example. I always thought his name is Cloud, because of his twisted mind (cloudy, foggy mind).

Then I heard about Barret, this would be a Soldier thing. A weapon? (sorry can�t tell you more about that)...... ;)

The names of the countrys never got that deep into my mind. To me the names are just like "Countrys" to me.

For example: Costa del Sol. It is in Spain, it really exists. So to me, the one in FF7 symbolizes Spain then.

Nibelheim could be in Germany, Swiss or Austria. I�m not sure, but Germany has a lot of "heim" there.

Cosmo Canyon is always the Rocky Mountains to me..... :)

I have no idea, if some of these things have a true part. But this is too interesting to ignor it.

Keep going! :)

Naw, I think there are even -heim places in the USA. :P That thing really is from Norse mythology, but it should correctly be called Niflheim, if I'm not mistaken. (My sister knows more about this sort of stuff, Norse mythology, that is.)
Another places borrowed from Norse Mythology is Midgard, as calmia mentioned.

Reminds me:
.Midgard Snake (http://paganwiccan.about.com/cs/animals/a/snakes.htm) :
The Midgard serpent of Norse mythology (aka Jormangund) was one of the monstrous children of the God Loki and the giantess Angraboda.
This giant snake encircles the world of Midgard, holding its tail in its mouth. According to Norse myth, the great battle of Ragnorok will bring about the end of the world. During this apocolypse, Jormangund will leave the ocean and joins the fighting. Thor does eventually kill the serpent, but Jormangund's venom is potent and Thor dies as well.

Heidegger (http://www.connect.net/ron/heid.html) : German philosopher, but don't ask me where the connection with this character is supposed to be.

Rufus: latin, means red-haired. Wasn't he blonde? :( I doubt there's much meaning behind this name.

Junon is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Hera...

No, I believe thats right Rufus, I think his hair is ginger, it looks the same colour as mine does at the moment (which is Oslo, a blonde ginger).

Something else I'd forgotten to mention earlier as well was The Promised Land, this I believe is based on (can't remember if its Japanese or Chinese) myth, the land of Shangri-La, where rivers flow clear, grass is always green, and the earth is always fertile (ring a bell?), that old chesnut.

Kupo!!!

They pretty much always have mythical creators as monsters. The Cockatrice, Hydra, Chimera, and Minotaur to name a few.

I'm much better at this with FFVI than I am with FFVII though.

Rufus: latin, means red-haired. Wasn't he blonde? I doubt there's much meaning behind this name.

i think rufus literally translates as just "red"-red is a colour associated with royalty and power e.g.red carpet, many national flags are part red. anyway thats a pretty abstract guess.


Then I heard about Barret, this would be a Soldier thing. A weapon? (sorry can�t tell you more about that)......

barret is a type of flat cap worn by manual workers(miners, builders etc)-he comes from a working class background.(this isn't my idea, i read it somewhere)

i'm sure "the turks" means something, it sounds far too random to stand alone. btw i haven't finished ff7 so i don't know if this name is explained later.

Ok, here's some more info that i've been looking through (i have many notes)

People:
Aeris (or Aerith) - In Ancient Greek, Aerith means "divine one", and in Greek Mythology there are two minor Goddesses (sisters) named Eris and Ares, and Eris is the Goddess of Strife (hmm, links), so if you combine the sisters together, we get Aeris.

Barret Wallace - Barret could come from the company "Barret" that makes firearms. Barret (in old English) also means, to be "bear-like" when it comes to strength. And Wallace could come from Braveheart's last name (i think he's called William Wallace), who was a Scotsman fighting for his beliefs.

Tifa Lockheart - Tifa comes from Tifaret of the Kabbalah, and is a station of beauty, balance and love, which coincides with the character. Also, Christian Kabbahlists believe that the Tifaret station is representative of self-sacrifice and "the will to carry one�s neighbor�s cross"., something which Tifa did in order to restore Clouds memory. In Tarot, Tifaret is often represented by a heart (Lockheart) or an Angel (7th Heaven, Final Heaven). It is also debatable whether Lockheart represents an ideology of her not telling Cloud that she loves him, or the fact that the secret to his past is "locked" in her "heart".

Yuffie (prounced yuu-phie ->important) Kisaragi - euphe (also prounounced yuu-phie) is Old Greek for "joy" or "happniess", which is well, Yuffie. Kisaragi is Japanese for "second month of the lunar calendar", not sure what the relevance is...

Reeve - an old english word basically meaning the ruler of an area of land or manor (Head of Urban Development).

Nanaki (Red XIII) - Nanak (without the "i") was the founder of Sikhism. This is interesting as Nanak was born a Native American (also called Indians). Nanaki (in the game) is known for his battle scars, and headdresses, a true Warrior Indian.

Palmer - A Palmer is someone who makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (much like ShinRa to the Promised Land).

Jenova - This could be a play on two words, Jehova (God in different cultures), and Nova (latin for new), put them together, and we get "New God".

Zack - Short for Zachariah, means "Jehova hath remembered". This could be a connection linking him to Cloud and Jenova.

Places
Costa Del Sol - a real life area in Spain, meaning "Sun Coast" or "Coast of the Sun" in Spanish.

Midgar - possibly derived from the Norse Midgard, and was the "Middle Earth", which was the realm of the humans.

Nibelheim - this is Frozen Hell in Norse Mythology. Also, in Norse, it translates as "Home of the Clouds"

Gelnika - not exactly a place I know, but, anyways. A possible take on Guernica, a painting by Picasso showing the bombing of the Spanish town Guernica before WW2.

Wutai - Wutai is a mountain range in China. It is believed sacred and is a cluster of five "terraces" (anyone whos seen rice or vine mountains should understand what I mean, LOL), which is where it got the name Wutai (as it means five terraces). This can be compared to the 5 levels of the Pagoda in Wutai in FF7 (which is another Chinese belief).

Randoms:
Coin Toss (attack) - Although in previous Final Fantasies, in 7 it was used as a bit of a joke, as the programmers had named that section of coding "Law". At the time, Squaresoft was having some legal issues, and they used Coin Toss as a way of saying that paying lawyers is like Tossing your money away.

Party Hensei System (PHS) - this has the same initials as Personal Handiphone System (a phone service in Japan), hence the ringing noise when you use it. It was intented as a joke, which only the Japanese understood.

ShinRa - goin by Japanese Kanji it can be translated as "God" (Shin) and "Rome" (Ra), this makes a twisted sense as ShinRa is much like the Roman Empire, taking over everything they can. ShinRa can also be taken from Egyptian, meaning "New God" (Ra being the God of the Sun), this would tie in with Jenova, also meaning "New God".

Sister Ray (the cannon)- possibly no connection but there was a song in 1967 called "Sister Ray" by the "Velvet Underground". The song lasted 17 minutes and was about sex, drugs, violence, etc... and was mostly improvised.

St. Elmo's Fire - an attack used by Ghost Ship in the Junon underwater place, St. Elmo's Fire is a natural weather occurence at sea where things appear to glow.

Trine (Enemy Skill) - proabably derived from "Grand Trine", a strange triangular shape between three celestial beings which is meant to be beneficial.

Ultima (spell) - take from the Latin "last" or "final". The English language also uses "ultimate" and an "ultima" in English means the last syllable in a word.

I could spend a long time talking about Items/Summons/Monsters, but that would take an entire topic to itself. LOL

Kupo!!!

Yuffie (prounced yuu-phie ->important) Kisaragi - euphe (also prounounced yuu-phie) is Old Greek for "joy" or "happniess", which is well, Yuffie. Pronounced with a heavy American/English accent, you mean. And that's what makes this seem far-fetched to me.... The Greek pronunciation ought to be different, not "yuu" and "fee".
I looked for descriptions of how to pronounce Greek, and the best I found was probably this one: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Greek_alphabet. And as you can see there, if you know IPA, is that eu is not pronounced [yu], and e isn't pronounced as in English ee [i] but like the first e in "enemy"...
So your explanation for the name Yuffie would only work if the Japanese programmers had actually tried to pronounce Greek words with an English accent... Which sounds rather unlikely.

wow you guys have alot of time on your hands and one hell of an attention span good for you guys

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/nchara.shtml

Thats a really good place for all that kind of stuff has pretty much everything you may want to know... or maybe not.

quote: I think there are even -heim places in the USA.

Oh, sure I belive there are, but "heim" is still a german word. It simply means "home". And I didn�t feel like making to USAs.

And with the places....like I said, to me there were only places. Maybe the earth in the far away future (thats why I was looking at them like they�re "countires").

I never wanted to say, everything I say is fact. No this was all made up in my mind. If you don�t know how things are, you use your imagination, don�t you? ;)

quote: Rufus: latin, means red-haired. Wasn't he blonde?

I play FF7 at the moment. And yesterday I came to the part, where I have seen Rufus....and yes, his hair is actually a bit red. It�s more a light red (red/blonde)

:D

I like this thread. It�s interesting and even if not everything what is said in here is right, it is still interesting. And I�m allways surprised of what some peole know!!!:)

If some of you knows anything about the other names in other FF parts, please open a thread too. Pleaseeeeee..... ;)

Originally posted by Misao
Pronounced with a heavy American/English accent, you mean. And that's what makes this seem far-fetched to me.... The Greek pronunciation ought to be different, not "yuu" and "fee".
I looked for descriptions of how to pronounce Greek, and the best I found was probably this one: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Greek_alphabet. And as you can see there, if you know IPA, is that eu is not pronounced [yu], and e isn't pronounced as in English ee [i] but like the first e in "enemy"...
So your explanation for the name Yuffie would only work if the Japanese programmers had actually tried to pronounce Greek words with an English accent... Which sounds rather unlikely.

That was how I found my notes, unfortunately I based it on prounouncing the greek Euphe as Yuu Fi due to my englishness, and never took the actualy prounounciation of greek into consideration, as I'm guessing the Japanese wouldn't, due to their heavy, thick accents...

Kupo!!!

@Aerith Gainsborough
I know what Heim means. :( Still, the meaning of that word i probably not really as important as the reference to the Norse mythology. Although the place is indeed a home. If a pretty scary one, come to think of it... :(

@Kupo Mog
That actually reminds me... Do you really pronounce Yuffie with like "You fee"? I have always pronounced it like... Buffy with a Y... Everyone I know does... We always thought this English way of pronouncing the name to be the best way, and it's a bit weird to discover that native English speaker don't do that... o_o

No, I do indeed pronounce it Yuffie , as in Buffy, but with a Y, as do most of the British population however, after the purchase of Kingdom Hearts, where the damn Americans (no offense meant, we're small and speak the same language and our Prime Minister loves your President) prounounced it with the thick heavy accent.

The same happened with Chocobo, until FFX I prounounced it Chock-ah-boe but then, the Americans once again, changed it to Choke-ah-boe, and changed Tidus from the original japanese Tee-da to Tee-dus...

I do love the Americans though, and I don't mean any offense. I love you all :D

Kupo!!!

when i played kingdom hearts i also found the way they pronounced yuffie strange.
chocobo is quite weird as well- in ffx it is choke-a-bow as kupo said.however, in ff-unlimited it is pronounced chock-a-bow

@ Misao

Ok, you know what "heim" means, I didn�t know you speak german....;)

But the "heim" is not the point. When I made them to countries (in my mind) I wasn�t looking at the meaning of the names or where they come from.

You�re probably right when you say it comes from the Norse mythology. But I was not looking at this. I was just looking at the areas, the names (the sound of it-not the meaning), the building, the weather around there, the people....just everything.

And just think about it, every name has a meaning.....yours must have one too.

What I want to say is, the meaning of "Nibelheim" can be whatever and still symbolize Germany. The same with "Wutai". It is always Asia to me, it doesn�t matter what "Wutai" actually means.....

I know this thread is for the meaning of the names and it is ok when people say I�m just telling bullshit. But I want to let everybody know, what I think about everything. :)

Yeah, the game's architecture's been stolen from around the world, as usual. But certainly not to "symbolize" a country, there's no reason for that in a game. ;)

I dunno if every name has a meaning. Some are probably just made up to be pretty, in fiction at least. If my surname has any meaning, it's one no person on this planet has yet figured out.

@ Misao

There might be a reason in the game.....well, I�m not sure....:(

The most names have a meaning. The first names always have on, the surnames......maybe. Don�t know.

I know the meaning of my first name, but I don�t have a clue about my surname either. But that�s not important for this thread. ;)

Completely boring pointless time!!!

I'm sad enough to know the origins of both my first and surname because I was too bored in college a few months back and looked them up in a free period...

Kupo!!!