Character Names Localization

[kairi_key]

I think I see someone wondering why they localized characters names in this way and I was a bit curious as to why even the JP name is different, so I went to investigated.

Basically... some names are puns/reference/nod to something.

The MC name is "Ash," but in JP version his name is "Dasuto" or simply Dust, so I guess calling him Ash sounds more like a name.
"Melanie" in JP is "Kuroe(Chloe, I guess)" and kuro is japanese for black which probably is a nod to her attire color so they localized her name as Melanie, probably from melanin.

The Ivory Order names were a bit dumbfounded to me at first since all their JP names has a reference to the color white, but all their EN name only has "Wyn."
Wynifred's JP name is "Shiraha" and shira is one reading of the kanji for white.
Berwyn's JP name is "Buran" and I guess it might be the french word "blanc" for white.
Heddwyn's JP name is "Hakuji" and haku is another reading of the kanji for white.
And after some googling, wiki said "wyn" could be another form of "gwyn", a Welsh for "white."
It's actually fun to know that the French(? not sure) version called them Albia, Albaran and Albern which has a nod to Albus, a Latin for white.

This is just what I found, and I haven't gone into other characters yet. If you've found anything about this, feel free to discuss in this thread. Also, I'd love to know their names in all versions, so let's share the info.

[Raven]

I just want to point out Dusty is a name...(well also an adjective, but its a name too)

[Regulus]

Melanie and "melanin" are both derived from an ancient Greek word meaning "black" or "dark", so you're probably right there.

I switched the language over to Japanese to check out a few of these. Maybe mild spoilers? I'll tag them.

Mar -> メルブール (merubuuru)
-I'm not entirely sure where they were going with this one. Google results for this particular combination of katakana only really return Voice of Cards results. I'm curious if there's an official romanization for this one anywhere. Almost all of the the character names in this appear to be associated with some color, but (spoilertagging this to be safe)"Dust" technically isn't, so this might not either. Ash is arguably associated with the color gray, though ("ashen"). In English, "mar" means "blemish" as a noun and "to ruin or disfigure" as a verb. The Japanese name might be related to this somehow. It would tie into her story, at least. It's possible that it's derived from a language I'm not very familiar with. Or perhaps I'm just missing it since I'm trying to determine an accurate romanization and the intended language at the same time.

Ridis -> リディ (ridi)
-Not sure with this one either. There's not an obvious pun or color theme that jumps out at me. She wears a little green, so maybe it's taken from the Latin "viridis". That would explain the added "s" in the English localization. That's my best guess.

Bruno -> ブルーノ (buruuno)
-This one is functionally unchanged: Bruno. This matches the color-themed naming, as I believe the name Bruno is derived from the same root that got us "brown".

Sherwyn -> シロク (shiroku)
-Shiro is is another reading for the "white" kanji, and here's another character with the Welsh "wyn" in his name in the English localization.

Queen Nilla -> 女王バニラ (jo ou banira)
-This is just Queen Vanilla. Kind of self explanatory.

Vince -> ヴァルツ (barutsu/varutsu)
-Not sure on this one. The kana used implies a "v" sound rather than "b". I'm going to guess it's taken from the German "schwarz", given his association with Melanie. No clue where they got "Vince" from, though. I'm pretty impressed with some of the localized names (the final boss's name is really cool, for example), so I imagine I'm just missing something.

Aureo -> ゴルドー (gorudoo)
"Goldo", haha. Aureo is Italian for "Golden". Derived from the Latin "Aurum", so this one is pretty obvious. The English localization actually fits with "Bruno" better this way, since that also has Italian origins.

Seolfor -> ジルバ (jiruba)
-My first thought was some take on "silver", and Seolfor is Old English for silver.

[kairi_key]

Yeah, I wasn't sure if we should take the color theme quite literally since Ridis, Bruno, Mar and Vince aren't that obvious.
I think Ridis being green might be right, since her association with woods and her cape is green.
I'm still not convince that ヴァルツ is from Schwarz, but considering that Ridis might be Viridis, it might be possible. It's also possible that the localization team didn't get it either and just went for similar sounding Vince but I still wanna have faith in them a bit.

[kebukai]

Merbuuru it's a reference to Blue: Mar is "Sea" in Spanish and Mer Bleue is Blue Sea in French. In Japanese they would rend it as メルブルー, it just changes the long vowel's place