Author Topic: Names in No. 6  (Read 4193 times)

Vox

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #15 on: February 21, 2015, 08:18:07 am »
@Ahiku I meant it's a good thing they can't have kids because they're rebuilding a city called Jericho. So if what AoYokai said is right, they're doomed to lose their firstborn and lastborn children for doing so. That would be terrible. No kids is better than dead kids xD

Also, I probably should ask the author... I'll see if I can contact them. :3

Ahiku

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2015, 10:04:52 am »
@Vox
(._.) Ah, I see.......gomen!
Then don't call your city Jericho and rather make babies, NezuShi! >,<

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2015, 11:47:49 am »
So, I'm going to reply by the order I read so it might sound weird.

@listenforthelove oh, if it's youmin that makes more sense... also (I don't know if there's anyone who speaks Chinese here, if you do excuse my very limited knowledge, American schools are not very good at teaching languages) for youming the only word *I* know in Chinese that would fit would be 有名, which is famous. And if Sasori means scorpion, than he's like Nezumi yay my theory was saved :D
I know that they didn't rename the city because it was easier, but rebuilding the city in general is a hard thing so I don't think that renaming the city is that much of an effort in comparison...
i had a weird dream with elephants in cages and they had huge eyes they were pitch black and it wasn't cute it was terrifying also it was somehow within ffx don't question my dreams

Anyway, I said it before and I'll say it again- my personal headcanon is that Forest People didn't have names at all.

@Vox you said on tumblr that you had Persian accent right (tumblr is blocked on school wifi and I didn't have time to log in at home yet sorry for not replying) does that mean that you speak Farsi? 'cause that would make it easier for me to explain how Jericho doesn't sound cool at all in my opinion, it's actually a pretty ugly name for listeners that don't have the same sounds as Semitic and Indo-Eurpoean languages have. German is Indo-European too, so @Ahiku and @lawlya and whoever else is from Germany should be able to understand it... Anyway the pronunciation is 'Yericho', the ch being that throaty sound that I can't explain with English letters, it's like h I guess but not really? German has some type of that, too. It sounds like something is stuck in your throat.

Yes that was talented attempt to explain language. I'll look into the origin of the name some more...

EDIT: Yericho comes from the word 'Yareach' in Hebrew (ירח) which means moon. It was called that because the people who lived there worshiped the good of the moon in the Canaanite religion. I doubt that the author of that fic went that far to research this, though ^^
« Last Edit: February 21, 2015, 11:52:00 am by AoYokai »

Ahiku

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2015, 11:57:25 am »
@AoYokai
Yeah, this "Ch" sound is...like getting rid of something in your throat.

It's some kind of raspy sound in the back of the throat.

Well, you can listen to the German pronounciation of Jericho here:
http://www.dict.cc/?s=jericho
You just have to click on the little audio button... o.o

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2015, 01:09:00 pm »
I already talked about it but I did write a lot so you might have missed it: first, was Rou an Elder when he came to the underground city place?

Second, many people talk about Eve's name in relation to the Bible, especially with Shion's snake scar, but what about the rest of The Fall of Man? You know what, since this analysis is not that related to the names, I think I'll open a separate analysis thread for that. It'll be up in a moment....

listenforthelove

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2015, 01:18:43 pm »
@Aoyokai: I did read your comment on Rou being an Elder yes or no, but I had no answer to it... it sounds to me more like a title he built for himself as he rose to the 'leader' of sorts of the Underground people, but idk. He does seem to like naming people, but would he name himself Elder? That's more of a status than a nickname, I'd think... hm.

Actually, I read the novels first once I really got into No. 6, and it completely went over my head that Eve was supposed to be the Biblical name (but then again, I never realized Nezumi might be crossdressing as Eve until I saw the anime...) - I kind of thought it was Eve as in evening, because Nezumi is all about light and darkness, so that made sense to me. I don't know. I'm too into Kingdom Hearts at the same time so I didn't come into that objectively XD;

But looking forward to that new thread of yours!

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #21 on: February 21, 2015, 01:30:58 pm »
That might be, but I still think it's odd. I'm probably thinking too much into it ^^"

It is confusing, but for the love of elyurias don't get me started about the translation of the Bible, especially names. Eve is one of the absolutely worst translations in the entire thing, because whoever decided to call her that literally kept only once ****ing letter from her whole name. Letter. Not a vowel. A stinking letter. Her name is Hava, the h being, again, that weird ch something is stuck in my throat sounds.

Edit: btw @Ahiku yeah the weight placement is kinda different but the German version sounds a lot like it should ^^
« Last Edit: February 21, 2015, 01:32:42 pm by AoYokai »

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #22 on: February 21, 2015, 03:13:31 pm »
(I just realized that I misread the message @Vox send me and thought you said Persian instead of Parisian I'm stupid ignore the part where I asked if you speak Farsi...)

Meopat

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #23 on: February 21, 2015, 08:36:20 pm »
@AoYokai and @listenforthelove, regarding Rou, I think there's a portion of the novel where Rou's giving his backstory and he mentions that he's years older than Karan but they were childhood friends. So I don't think he's /actually/ old, he just has a lot of authority. (and maybe he looks old too LOL)

Karan and I were childhood friends. I was much older than her, but we often played together. (Vol 6 Ch 5)

I can't imagine being 10 years older and still being able to call that childhood friends. :d but say he's 16, and she's 6 and they're childhood friends. In the "present" time, after Shion and Karan move to Lost Town, she's like, what, 40 at most? (since her son is 16.) That would only put Rou at maybe around 50. And the Mao Massacre happened 12 years before "present" time, so he would've been like about around his 40s. I don't know if you'd call a 40 year old as being in his elderly years, but..  the novel did make him sound really old, so.

Back to the topic of names, I love that the No.6 citizens all had kanji in their names!! That brings a much broader perspective of the education system between West Block and No.6 - like the stark different between the two. and also that most of the names had a plant-motif!! That's definitely something that doesn't translate well into English.

I like the idea that the Forest People didn't have names! or maybe if they did, it'd be very much related to nature. I always humored the idea that Nezumi's real name is Maus just because it sounds like Mouse. ;__;

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2015, 09:00:52 pm »
@Meopat, now that you mention Rou's age, I think it makes more sense ^^ maybe he called himself Elder because he got white hair?

Ahiku

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #25 on: February 22, 2015, 05:45:01 am »
Quote
I always humored the idea that Nezumi's real name is Maus just because it sounds like Mouse.

Ah, do you speak German? :D Maus is the German word for mouse. Yeah, it sounds pretty similar.

@AoYokai
Hm...maybe he's just one of the oldest persons in the underground cave. Otherwise I'd say he's middle-aged when he's circa 50 years old.
I don't think that really old people could live in the underground realm... and how did they get there? I guess some of them survived... they had to climb the stone wall like Nezumi did when he was a child. I could imagine that Rou is one of the oldest, and "Rou" is a pretty short name.
He told Shion that names are not important. He's wise and has white hair... so people could assume he's old... like an old sage.

AoYokai

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #26 on: February 22, 2015, 11:41:32 am »
How would Rou climb with his legs though? ???

listenforthelove

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #27 on: February 22, 2015, 01:35:02 pm »
@AoYokai: From what I recall, the leaders from No. 6 threw him in there, figured 'eh well, it's a natural prison' and just left him there and forgot about him. Since the Correctional Facility was still being built, that was the easiest way to get rid of him. From volume 6, quotes from 9th-avenue's translation:

Quote
I managed to hang on by a thread, losing my legs in exchange, and was housed in the underground caves. And so they cast me off.

@Ahiku: also from volume 6:

Quote
"Nezumi, these people..."
"Who do you think they are?"
"Oh―survivors. They must be people like us, who've managed to escape the execution grounds."
"Wrong." Nezumi shook his head. It was a languid gesture, unusual for him. "They've lived here way before that."

Shion reasons further from there that they must have adapted to life underground, so apparently those people have been there longer than the escaped to-be-prisoner.
Which makes it even stranger that they'd call Rou the Elder... Did he manage to earn the respect of those that live there? I think he managed to get food and stuff from No. 6 by the small thread he still had there, right? I can't quite find that right now, but still.

Meopat

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #28 on: February 22, 2015, 05:22:57 pm »
@Ahiku: oh man! I wish I was cool enough to speak German! But it was just a really good coincidence. orz

@listenforthelove: that's what I suspected too! That Rou was just a really cool dude who gained the respect of the aboriginals through tasty No.6 food. XD;

Have you guys ever looked up Shion's name? :0 there's always so many references to asters being the flower of remembrance in the Japanese language of flowers. (sob) but the more interesting factor was that asters used to be used to ward off snakes? http://www.list-of-birthstones.com/birth%20flowers/Aster%20birth%20flowers.html

Do you think Asano knew that or was that all a huge coincidence? Do you think other characters like Safu and Rikiga had such carefully chosen names? I still can't really figure out the significance of Safu's name.

listenforthelove

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Re: Names in No. 6
« Reply #29 on: February 22, 2015, 05:51:56 pm »
@Meopat: oh, I didn't know about the snake thing with the aster! Whoa, that's a really nice coincidence (if it is a coincidence, I have no idea how much research Asano put in meanings of names). I must say my immediate association with aster is stars, so I always thought that was where the saying 'the wandering star and the stagnant one' and the starry-themed ED song came from... not sure if that's right, though. But yeah, the memory thing, haha sob ;;;

For Rikiga, I assume his name was picked for its kanji strength + river because of his built, and eh... I don't know if it's coincidence, but Karan's name is written with the kanji for fire, and fire and water, y'know ;) but that was my own reasoning.

I have no idea what the significance of Safu's name could be, though it's very possible I'm overlooking something here. It doesn't sound like a very common Japanese name to me at any rate, despite being written in kanji, but that's all I can say. It's interesting that most other names in No. 6 have to do with plants, and Safu's kanji are for sand and cloth or to spread out (depending if you read it as a noun or a verb). Sounds more like a way that plants can be grown to me? But that's probably stretching it.

What still amuses me as I'm going through the list of names is Lili's name. It's a flower in English of course, but the kanji are the kanji for (white) jasmine twice. Super duper flowery name in two languages!