The translation is horse ♥♥♥♥ and here's how the names should actually be (SPOILERS)

[Lapu]

It happens almost every minute in this game and I've only played it for like 20 min now. The translators must've had major strokes when trying to translate the dialogues and especially the names. As a native German that understands English, French and Japanese, I am really disturbed by this. Most of the names up until now are supposed to sound German, or so it seems. However, how they translated a lot of it seems to indicate that they either didn't know that, tried to translate it properly but failed hilariously (maybe because the project was rushed), or that they simply ignored it / didn't care and conjured up their own bs names. To illustrate the problem and motivate future translation teams to do better, no matter for what game or company, I decided to list all of the disturbing and plain wrong names I come across and correct them to what they should actually be (if a name is actually written in original Japanese material as the game shows in the english version, i.e. it's not a translation due to the romanized name existing before, I implore you to correct me; I am not omniscient and I cannot be bothered to do research to such lengths). The list will be written in this format: name in this translation - original japanese name in Kana or Kanji if available - IPA pronunciation transcription (this is a script that shows you how to properly pronouce a word, no matter from which language; it's an international standard) - How I would translate/transcribe it and my comments. Here we go:


Reisalin Stout - ライザリン・シュタウト - /'ɾaizaɾin 'ɕtaɯto/ - to be frank, the name Reisalin or anything that sounds similar does not exist as far as I can see and it really doesn't have to. However, her last name sounds like an actual german name, namely Stautt. Seeing as her father is called Karl, it would make more sense to give that name. Stout would go well with a name like Ryza if only 1. the names weren't so heavily influenced by German and 2. if the japanese name was スタウト (ス instead of シュ), pronounced as /staɯto/.

Kurken Island - クーケン島 - /kɯ:'ken to:/ - 島 just means island and is perfectly translated like that but how in the franxx do you get Kurken from kuuken?? If I can make a guess, it's supposed to be Küken as that's the German word for chick i.e. a baby bird, which would actually fit quite well as it is the starting location and you're still as unexperienced as a newly hatched bird

Empel - アンペル - /'ampeɾɯ/ - Uhh, hello? In what language does am = em? It doesn't in English. I would have let you off the hook if you had translated it as Umpel but look what monstrosity you've created. No, it seems reasonable to assume his name should have been Ampel which is the German word for traffic light. I don't know if it has any significance for his personality or something (again, I have only played it for about 20 min for now) but the name of the girl at his side is Lila which simply means violet and that doesn't really seem deep either.

Lubart - ルバート - /ɾɯ'ba:to/ - Seriously? Are you ♥♥♥♥ing kidding me? Never heard of the name Rubert?

Luceaux - リュコー - /ɾʲɯ'ko:/ - I've no objection against a French name as it seems to be a fictional fruit with a fictional name to begin with but it's actually hilarious how you've stepped into a major landmine with this one. It should actually be Lucaux because in a French word like this, the e has the purpose of turning a c that is pronounced as /k/ into one that is pronounced as /s/. So this word now sounds like /lɯ'so:/

list to be continued...

[deko4]

The official Japanese website has the character names in English:
https://www.gamecity.ne.jp/atelier/ryza/characters.html

The official art collection book (Japanese) also has Ryza's name written in English:
https://s.yimg.com/aah/animebooks-com/atelier-ryza-ever-darkness-the-secret-hideout-official-visual-collection-art-book-38.gif

Couldn't find anything on the locations or materials.

[Lapu]

But seriously, you gotta be completely deaf to translate it to something that does not resemble the original intended name's (in Katakana) pronunciation in the slightest. Seriously, with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ quality of a translation, I wouldn't be surprised if they took an English leanword, for example "trap", which you could write torappu (トラップ) in Japanese, only to craptranslate it to "Twuppoo" or some sh*t. Actually, the names being official (thank you for finding that) just confirm a hunch that I had. This level of absolutely insane mistranscription/mistranslation or plain wrong application of simple phonetic transcription can only have been committed by a native Japanese speaker with only very limited knowledge of the english language. It is quite obvious to me, now that I saw this, that they had those names before they even hired a translator. I don't want to infringe on anyone's artistic vision, I mean maybe that person really thought "Man, I called him Rubert in Japanese but that name is rather common in English, they would already know it. Hey, let's just call him Lubart. Doesn't make sense but sounds cooler in English". But still, I think it's just ♥♥♥♥ and it seems not intentional at all but rather like a result of the developer trying to transcript the names with broken English/German/whatever into roman letters for covers and promotional art etc., even though they shouldn't have done that without a translator who can do it properly.

You know what? If this gets too much for me, I will just give up and play the game in japanese. It will be more difficult but on the flip side, it probably has better wikis and other documentation in that language as well.

[Graaf Eengat]

You can write whole books on Japan's (mis)use of foreign languages (often, but not limited to, English). That they take liberties when translating from phonetics is in my perspective a very minor offense.

Just to add - you sound like you took a class or two in phonetics. I think it's an interesting idea to use the IPA to compare English spelling and katakana but I don't know wether it's a good idea as it's not really designed to be used that way.

[agica]

I think that a lot of people who don't speak languages with phonemic orthography (spelling and pronunciation is one-to-one or close enough) as a primary language don't quite understand just how hard it is to go to a language - such as English - that is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy when it comes to spelling vs. pronouncing from phonemic orthography.

From the outside, anything goes in English.

My native language is Hungarian. Our ph. orth is not complete, and we actually have cases where there are minor changes in pronunciation compared to spelling (mainly non-resonant sounds becoming resonants) but they are all. one. hundred. percent. follow. the. same. rules. There're are quite a few rules, I'm not saying there aren't.
If you write it as t-e-a you'll be seeing three letters pronounced after each other, t, e, and a. The a sound in tea will be the same as the a sounds in taxi and Abba and Madonna. The e is going to be the same as meridián or Edda or Merkel.

Then along comes English where the same vowel is pronounced in 3-5 different ways and then we're not getting into diphtongs or groups of letters that are written the same but not pronounced the same in different words, 'cause, English. Like there's an actual poem which lists the words that don't rhyme with each other despite looking like they should.

That just doesn't happen in Hungarian. Or in Japanese. Yeah, Japanese Kanji are lexicographic and one letter can have multiple readings, but when you get down to it, hiragana and katakana are complete phonetic orthography (to the best of my knowledge).

From that point on, any person who comes from a saner language (everyone makes fun of the French word bourgeoisie but I know which one of those letter groups corresponds to which sound, so ♥♥♥♥ them, in general.) will just assume that you can do anything in English. For a Japanese speaker, that means that if you find a name you like you can translate that to anything you also like in English and it'll be fine.

And, native English speakers, please ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ understand that not every language has a equivalent sounds or letters to your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trillion diphtongs and other monstrosities. Japanese, in particular, has 5 vowels. FIVE. How many does English have? Not letters. Sounds. And L and V are also missing from their consonants.

So excuse the Japanese for spelling words in a method that their actual alphabet can handle, because they ARE required by their alphabet to write the same way as they pronounce things.

Also, I would have gone for Amper instead of Empel (or Ampel), 'cause, you know. What's funnier than science and alchemy :) I would also suppose Kirche instead of Küken for Kürken Island.

Ryza should probably simply be Lisa, but a more "artistic" spelling of it.

[Lapu]

Originally posted by agica:

From that point on, any person who comes from a saner language (everyone makes fun of the French word bourgeoisie but I know which one of those letter groups corresponds to which sound, so ♥♥♥♥ them, in general.) will just assume that you can do anything in English. For a Japanese speaker, that means that if you find a name you like you can translate that to anything you also like in English and it'll be fine.

Excellent observation. Yes that is exactly what happens. Most of the time, people that are not well versed in other languages (and never tried learning more than 1) would assume that every foreign language works the same way to some degree. And while that might be true for the fundamentals (there being grammar, morphology and other common phenomena), they are surely underestimating how different even basic concepts in different languages are. That being said, I totally understand how and why those abhorrent names came to be. The incentive for foreign developers to let others (who actually know this stuff) decide on proper names seems to be absent.

[Shun]

God i love the fake names in these games. Idk the game had the opposite effect on me, everytime i saw Lubart and stuff like that i couldn't stop grinning. Reading incomprehensible stuff written by japanese people in supposedly french/german/any other language ever makes me laugh really hard.

[MiKowaii]

Not to be devils advocate but:

Originally posted by Dis:

Kurken Island - クーケン島 - /kɯ:'ken to:/ - 島 just means island and is perfectly translated like that but how in the franxx do you get Kurken from kuuken?? If I can make a guess, it's supposed to be Küken as that's the German word for chick i.e. a baby bird, which would actually fit quite well as it is the starting location and you're still as unexperienced as a newly hatched bird

This one shocked me, as you show to be quite knowledgeable on Japanese, but you never seen them writing "ur" as long "u" "ウー"? Or any other vowel? Like, ウーファー (Woofer) for example?
Meaning-wise you have a point, I'm just saying: it's easy to get Kurken from kuuken. One could say even, that it's an obvious choice.

Originally posted by Dis:

Empel - アンペル - /'ampeɾɯ/ - Uhh, hello? In what language does am = em? It doesn't in English. I would have let you off the hook if you had translated it as Umpel but look what monstrosity you've created. No, it seems reasonable to assume his name should have been Ampel which is the German word for traffic light. I don't know if it has any significance for his personality or something (again, I have only played it for about 20 min for now) but the name of the girl at his side is Lila which simply means violet and that doesn't really seem deep either.

Am I getting this right? The issue here is that vowel is written and pronounced differently? In english?
Also, isn't 'em' and 'an' pronounced roughtly the same? You know, like in アンペル /'anpeɾɯ/ (since there is no 'm' in Japanese)?

Originally posted by Dis:

Lubart - ルバート - /ɾɯ'ba:to/ - Seriously? Are you ♥♥♥♥ing kidding me? Never heard of the name Rubert?

Ironically enough, Lubart is also a real name. You may heard of different variants of it like Leobardus, Leobard, Liébard, Liebhard, Leonardas, Liubartas.

[Lapu]

Originally posted by MiKowaii:

Not to be devils advocate but:

Originally posted by Dis:

Kurken Island - クーケン島 - /kɯ:'ken to:/ - 島 just means island and is perfectly translated like that but how in the franxx do you get Kurken from kuuken?? If I can make a guess, it's supposed to be Küken as that's the German word for chick i.e. a baby bird, which would actually fit quite well as it is the starting location and you're still as unexperienced as a newly hatched bird

This one shocked me, as you show to be quite knowledgeable on Japanese, but you never seen them writing "ur" as long "u" "ウー"? Or any other vowel? Like, ウーファー (Woofer) for example?
Meaning-wise you have a point, I'm just saying: it's easy to get Kurken from kuuken. One could say even, that it's an obvious choice.

No absolutely not. If it was supposed to be Kurken, it would spell クルケン. Take as an example the lean word アルバイト (arubaito, often shortened to baito) which means part time job. It is a lean word from the German word "Arbeit" which simply means work. Since there is no mora in Japanese that would create two subsequent consonants in a word (except ん; example: 完全 kanzen), they have to somehow use one that sounds closest to the English syllable which woud be a-ru-ba-i-to, since there is no single r and no single t phonym in Japanese. Kurken would thus only come into consideration if the original was kuruken. Frankly, no I've never seen "ur" translated as long "u". I do know that you have really weird ♥♥♥♥ when it comes to letters and phonymes that don't exist in Japanese. Just look at "white" or anything with "v". White becomes ホワイト - howaito (I really don't think the "ho" was necessary) and Vampire バンパイア - banpaia (or bampaia). The latter irritates me everytime I see it. Why the hell do they even write "v" always with the "b"-kana and "ti" always as "chi" and "tu" always as "tsu"? They do have proper Katakana for that, that do in fact produce almost the exact sounds needed: ヴィ for instance is vi, トゥ is tu and ティ is ti but somehow nobody uses them and tour somehow becomes tsua (just why).
But honestly, it doesn't feel right to go from クー to kur. Alternatively, Kurken could also be transscripted into クアケン

Originally posted by MiKowaii:

Originally posted by Dis:

Empel - アンペル - /'ampeɾɯ/ - Uhh, hello? In what language does am = em? It doesn't in English. I would have let you off the hook if you had translated it as Umpel but look what monstrosity you've created. No, it seems reasonable to assume his name should have been Ampel which is the German word for traffic light. I don't know if it has any significance for his personality or something (again, I have only played it for about 20 min for now) but the name of the girl at his side is Lila which simply means violet and that doesn't really seem deep either.

Am I getting this right? The issue here is that vowel is written and pronounced differently? In english?
Also, isn't 'em' and 'an' pronounced roughtly the same? You know, like in アンペル /'anpeɾɯ/ (since there is no 'm' in Japanese)?

I think most people (be they English, German or even the Japanese themselves) would read the em in Empel the same way as "empire". The only language where I agree with you would be French. Em as in "empire" is pronounced as a nasal am or an. I was just biased towards English pronunciation because Japanese phonetic transcription is too, most of the time. I admit however that this game/translation is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of different languages and language influences to begin with so I think trying to figure out the origin behind the name is a difficult task itself.

No, I am in fact very aware that ん in front of パペピポプ is pronounced like an m (because n is too difficult to pronounce considering where your tongue is). This reminds me of the whole Sempai vs. Senpai debate which is bs because phonetically it's absolutely the same. The only edge that senpai has over sempai is that the former is written according to the ISO recognized romanization styles (kunrei-shiki & Nihon-shiki) while the other is not formal.

Originally posted by MiKowaii:

Originally posted by Dis:

Lubart - ルバート - /ɾɯ'ba:to/ - Seriously? Are you ♥♥♥♥ing kidding me? Never heard of the name Rubert?

Ironically enough, Lubart is also a real name. You may heard of different variants of it like Leobardus, Leobard, Liébard, Liebhard, Leonardas, Liubartas.

Touché. I pity the person that has such a name. On the other hand, I have a friend whose first name sounds like a last name in my country.

[agica]

Originally posted by Dis:

The incentive for foreign developers to let others (who actually know this stuff) decide on proper names seems to be absent.

I've actually gotten into a few debates about localization/translation with a friend who is both a linguist and a translation/localization specialist, and let me tell you, at least some of them get very uppity (and upset) if you imply that there is a "proper" translation.

And the latest point of contention was the use of "Many Happy Returns" (which I had to google to make sure it doesn't mean Happy Anniversary of random Thing) translated by the book of faces when a "Very/Many Happy Birthday(s)" would have been both literal and accurate. He did agree that it would have been a better translation, but apparently Many Happy Returns is also correct.

Edit: But he did admit it should have been lower in the priority table or whatchamacallit I don't remember the exact name.

[Sashimi Kimochi]

*LAUGH IN FINAL FANTASY XIV/XV NAMES*