Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

Rydia of Mist, is what CoN calls it in the ff4 section, but when i read fanfics she's always called Rydia Drake.

allright before i go any further, the name might have been in the manual, but ff4 was a hand-me-down, so i don't know,

is it just the fic writers idea, or does Rydia acually have a last name?

This post has been edited by Smackthedog on 25th August 2005 06:15

--------------------

OBEY YOUR THIRST
"Aww...They're SOOO CUUTE!! BUT WHO CARES!!!!?"
-Excel Excel, Excel Saga

As far as I know, she's always been just "Rydia of Mist." Although her name should technically be "Lydia," I have no idea if or what her last name would be, should she ahve one.

Her name is Rydia of Mist, yeah. And I've never heard that her name was Engrished. It's supposed to be R, Rydia. All my soundtracks say so, and as they're straight from Japan, I tend to believe them.

--------------------

Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

I have the US manual that came with the cart, and it doesn't give her a last name. That doesn't mean that she doesn't have one in another source, but if she does, I've never seen it.

Rydia and Lydia would be the same thing in Japanese. Since Lydia is an actual English name, it doesn't seem that wrong to hypothesize that perhaps it was the intended romanization of the character's name. Since Rydia sounds cool, anyway, maybe they did mean that. Romanizations of Japanese aren't exactly reknowned for being consistent, correct, or sensible, so there's no real way to tell. But as Cully points out, there's no doubt that the romanization universally used is the one we're familiar with: Rydia.

--------------------

Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Post-romanization, her name becomes something along the lines of "Ridia", but with the long 'I' sounds (like 'ee'). Thing is, the 'r' is pronounced without a coarse beginning, sounding more towards that of an 'l' than an 'r'. Course, we all know many Japanese can't make out the contrast between the two, since their 'r' sound is formed by placing the tip of the tongue up near the top of the mouth, sorta like our 'l'. So the way I see it, it could be pronounced either way, but "Lydia" might be closer. That is, unless I've screwed up here; I'm still learning and am sometimes fairly bad on the rare occasions I attempt transliterations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Leaving a letter 'r' in place rather than changing it to an 'l' during translation is quite common from what I've seen.

Anyhoo, on-topic: I've never heard/seen the surname "Drake" applied to her. Like most people, she's just good ol' "Rydia of Mist" to me. Not every character has to have a last name, I suppose - like Tella or the twins Palom and Porom.

--------------------

Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

Quote (SilverFork @ 25th August 2005 12:21)

Post-romanization, her name becomes something along the lines of "Ridia", but with the long 'I' sounds (like 'ee'). Thing is, the 'r' is pronounced without a coarse beginning, sounding more towards that of an 'l' than an 'r'. Course, we all know many Japanese can't make out the contrast between the two, since their 'r' sound is formed by placing the tip of the tongue up near the top of the mouth, sorta like our 'l'. So the way I see it, it could be pronounced either way, but "Lydia" might be closer. That is, unless I've screwed up here; I'm still learning and am sometimes fairly bad on the rare occasions I attempt transliterations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Leaving a letter 'r' in place rather than changing it to an 'l' during translation is quite common from what I've seen.

Anyhoo, on-topic: I've never heard/seen the surname "Drake" applied to her. Like most people, she's just good ol' "Rydia of Mist" to me. Not every character has to have a last name, I suppose - like Tella or the twins Palom and Porom.

Let's clear up the phonology here. I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as I can, so excuse me if it's too long.

An English r in the beginning of a syllable (as opposed to an r as part of a vowel sound) is classified as an alveolar approximate. That means it's made primarily near the alveolar ridge (you can feel it in the roof of your mouth behind your teeth) with the tongue doing something that's hard to describe.

An English l in the beginning of a syllable (the l in 'leaf' as opposed to the l in 'full') is classified as an alveolar lateral approximate. Lateral indicates that the motion of the tongue is more important in its side-to-side aspect than its up-and-down.

In terms of feature geometry (a very precise way of comparing sounds by specifying what they share and don't share), both r and l are positive for sonorant and continuant features. (A sonorant sound is one which is continuant, meaning you can keep making it, without turbulant air flow. Other sonorants are nasal consonants like m or n, and vowels.) The only difference between them in terms of features is that l has the additional lateral feature.

The Japanese r/l is neither of these sounds. Instead, it is an alveolar tap made by tapping the tongue near the alveolar ridge. This sound is most like the d in 'ladder', which is an alveolar flap in American English (flicking tongue across ridge instead of tapping it). It is made in the same general place as the English r/l, but in a different way. In terms of feature geometry, it is neither sonorant nor continuant. Most importantly, this sound in English is not a phoneme--we don't use it to distinguish between different sounds. It's an allophone used to replace both t and d when those sounds fall between a stressed syllable and an unstressed syllable. (Think of words like "Adam" and "atom." You can make them sound distinct, but most speakers of American English tend to pronounce them both the same in fluid speech. Not doing this is a mark of British English.) Since the tap isn't phonemic, English speakers have a hard time registering it as a legitimate sound. Instead, English speakers try to make it analgous to one of the sounds that is phonemic in their language. Since it clearly needs to contrast with t and d, which are both phonemic in both English and Japanese, the English counterpart must be a different alveolar sound. Most other alveolar options are eliminated either because they are not phonemic in English or because they are phonemic in Japanese and English. r and l are the only choices left.

The upshot of all this is that, in the case of a sound at the beginning of a syllable, there is no reason to prefer r or l over the other. Neither sound is really more like the alveolar tap that is used in Japanese. In most cases, the choice to romanize with r or l depends on context. Both Rydia and Lydia would be completely appropriate choices, depending on whether they meant to coin a name or reference an existing one. The point is that the choice is made completely on the romanized end, because there is no difference in Japanese.

Also, you're right about the vowel. In Japanese, it would be like "ee." One should also note that the Japanese don't really have an equivalent 'short' i (as in 'igloo'), and that their choice to romanize with y certainly suggests that they intended for it to be pronounced like English 'Lydia.'

Another thing to point out is that r-colored vowels (as in 'parsnip') are not written in katakana with an r at all, but rather with a long vowel. (So my first name, Laurel, comes out as roh-re-ru in kana.) So if you see something like, say, na-ru-she, it should be romanized as Nalshe, not Narshe. And, yes, that is how it's written in katakana. So why is it very clearly romanized as Narshe even in Japanese materials? Good question, and further proof that things don't always make sense when you're dealing with romanization.

--------------------

Veni, vidi, dormivi.

usually when i see the last name "Drake" on her, i'm reading the fanfics on fanfiction.net.

And when i use my own imagination, her last name is "Brookings"

anyways about pronounciation, <even though i don't know why we brought it up > i say it like Rih-dee-ah

This post has been edited by Smackthedog on 26th August 2005 03:19

--------------------

OBEY YOUR THIRST
"Aww...They're SOOO CUUTE!! BUT WHO CARES!!!!?"
-Excel Excel, Excel Saga

don't you know she marries edge
so in about 3 years after the game her last name changes to geraldine

and the horndog finally gets the hotbabe



--------------------

"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Right. There is no difference in the Japanese, only in the romanization. And Square provides the romanization.

I think maybe the reason some fans have coined her last name as "Drake" is because of the name's roots in "dragon." She's got a Mist dragon, and so forth.

This post has been edited by L. Cully on 26th August 2005 09:15

--------------------

Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

Quote (Cloud_Strife510 @ 25th August 2005 22:41)

don't you know she marries edge
so in about 3 years after the game her last name changes to geraldine

and the horndog finally gets the hotbabe

lol
ohhhh-kayy

oh, yes what is romaniztion?

and Cully, you've got a good point, i guess that most fic writer would give her that last name, i guess,

one more thing, what do you think about my rydia last name, "Brookings"

This post has been edited by Smackthedog on 26th August 2005 04:58

--------------------

OBEY YOUR THIRST
"Aww...They're SOOO CUUTE!! BUT WHO CARES!!!!?"
-Excel Excel, Excel Saga

Quote (Smackthedog @ 25th August 2005 23:52)

oh, yes what is romaniztion?

Simply put, it means to transliterate non-Romanic characters/letters (such as those in Japanese, Chinese, Russian or Hebrew alphabets, among other languages) to our Latin alphabet (i.e, "ABCD...").

And in case I wasn't clear before, I wasn't suggesting a change in the romanization. Just confusing myself more with pronunciation.

This post has been edited by SilverFork on 26th August 2005 06:00

--------------------

Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

I think both "Brookings" and "Drake" sound a little too ordinary for Rydia as far as last names go. If her "official" last name is really "of Mist," I think her name in general is meant to sound more fantasylike. Even Tolkienesque (is that a word)?

"Rydia Mistvale" or "Mistdale" would actually mean "mist valley." Or "Meighvale," which means the same thing, only in Old English.

This post has been edited by L. Cully on 26th August 2005 09:25

--------------------

Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

Quote (SilverFork @ 25th August 2005 13:21)

Anyhoo, on-topic: I've never heard/seen the surname "Drake" applied to her. Like most people, she's just good ol' "Rydia of Mist" to me. Not every character has to have a last name, I suppose - like Tella or the twins Palom and Porom.

Quoted for truth; I think it's daft to force a last name upon her. Just because some wanker does at Fanfiction.net doesn't make it right.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Smackthedog @ 25th August 2005 02:14)

Rydia of Mist, is what CoN calls it in the ff4 section, but when i read fanfics she's always called Rydia Drake.

That is her name, just translated badly. Her full name is Lydia Dlakururururu.

Seriously, though. She doesn't have a last name. I, personally, hold the stance that none of the characters have last names, as there was no in-game indication of any such thing, and is only presented as an afterthought by one of the people involved in the game when he was writing some guide for it. But even with the "official" last names none of the "magic-only" characters have one.

--------------------

"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

The translation of "of Mist" is Kasumino, or something close to that. That's the closest thing I can think of to a last name for her. But when I look at it, "Rydia Kasumino" just looks half-assed to me. I'll just let her bask in her single-namedness for now.

Edited for bad spelling.

This post has been edited by The Celestial on 28th August 2005 04:29

--------------------

My soul is bound to the Mistress of the Afterlife, and my fealty is to her always. So let's just hope she doesn't use it as one of her ten daily meals.

Quote (The Celestial @ 27th August 2005 23:28)

The translation of "of Mist" is Kasumino, or something close to that. That's the closest thing I can think of to a last name for her. But when I look at it, "Rydia Kasumino" just looks half-assed to me. I'll just let her bask in her single-namedness for now.

Edited for bad spelling.

Half-assed, and wrong. Kasumi no Rydia = Rydia of Mist. Rydia Kasumino = Rydia Mist of. Bad syntax. You'd be better off with just Rydia Kasumi, which is also dumb, since Kasumi is a first name.

I also have something on-topic to add. According to a friend of mine, there was a Final Fantasy IV manga. In it, there was a table of characters, in which Rydia's name was given as "ri-de-ya do-ra-ku." She doesn't know whether it was official or fan-made, and she doesn't have a copy, and 'doraku' wouldn't be the right way to write 'Drake', but that could be the source.

--------------------

Veni, vidi, dormivi.

I was looking at official Amano art for FFIV, and most of the have their last names listed (like Cecil Harvey, Cain Highwind, etc.) but Rydia just says Rydia.

--------------------

kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

Actually, since FF4 is heavily medieval-based, I'd imagine that most people that are of the peasant class (Ie: Rydia, Tellah, Palom & Porom...) wouldn't really have a last name. They would be called, say, James of Yorkshire, for example, or maybe Charles of Nottingham, son of Robert. They never really had 'last names'. That didn't really pick up until post dark ages, I think.

I really don't know much about the subject, personally, so if anyone wishes to step up and fully explain when 'Last Names' were 'invented' and by what culture, please do, I'm interested now

--------------------

"A little tight, but the price was right" - Locke
"Oh, what a Fuddy Duddy" - Relm
"..." - Shadow
"I'm a General, not some love starved twit" - Celes
"Although Edgar showers his attention on the ladies, most are smart enough to pay him no attention. Oh! King Edgar!" - Figaro Castle Inn Attendant

Quote (Locke_Cole @ 3rd September 2005 14:12)

Actually, since FF4 is heavily medieval-based, I'd imagine that most people that are of the peasant class (Ie: Rydia, Tellah, Palom & Porom...) wouldn't really have a last name. They would be called, say, James of Yorkshire, for example, or maybe Charles of Nottingham, son of Robert. They never really had 'last names'. That didn't really pick up until post dark ages, I think.

I really don't know much about the subject, personally, so if anyone wishes to step up and fully explain when 'Last Names' were 'invented' and by what culture, please do, I'm interested now

Most last names started out as either a family, place of origin, or career designation. For instance, the Gaelic name McDonnough comes from "mac Donnach (Duncan)", meaning "son of Duncan." (Other Gaelic names, like MacLeod, indicate a clan name rather than the father's name.) Schumacher, a Dutch name, indicates the profession of shoemaker. The German surname Kaltenbaughen means 'cold brook' and probably indicates that the family lived near one. These kinds of names are more common than names indicating some sort of special quality in the bearer, but those exist, too. My last name, Martin, comes from the Gaelic 'mor duin' meaning 'great man', indicating that the bearer was honored as a warrior. Russians in particular were fond of surnames that had something to do with the character of the person involved, Of course, these examples are all European, but since FFIV seems to be set in a vaguely European medieval setting, it seems appropriate.

According to what I've learned in my linguistics classes, the Chinese were the first to acquire surnames. Europeans started using them in the 12th century. The Japanese only had surnames for the nobility until the nineteenth century, at which point the Emperor decided that everyone needed one and whole villages ended up adopting the same name.

I did a little searching and came up with this link from Google. The information on it checks against the stuff I already had, so I think it's reliable. Have fun.

--------------------

Veni, vidi, dormivi.

To me, I like it better when RPG characters dont have last names. I dont know why, but knowing them always ruined the 'characterization' I give every character.

--------------------

eh?

Of course her last name is Drake, I submit this passage from a personal favorite "Lament of the Last Caller" as proof":

"It was a morning like any other at the village of Mist. Rydia Drake, Caller of Mist awoke from her slumber listfully. As she groggily opened her eyes, she was filled with a sense of foreboding. Where was her mother Mrs. Drake? As she hastily put on her clothes a sense of apprehension began to wash over her...her village would soon be under attack and she would never see her mother or her marvelous Mist Dragon again."




Satire.

This post has been edited by The Ancient on 16th September 2005 13:24

--------------------

"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Quote (The Ancient @ 15th September 2005 08:57)

Of course her last name is Drake, I submit this passage from a personal favorite "Lament of the Last Caller" as proof":

"It was a morning like any other at the village of Mist.  Rydia Drake, Caller of Mist awoke from her slumber listfully.  As she groggily opened her eyes, she was filled with a sense of foreboding.  Where was her mother Mrs. Drake?  As she hastily put on her clothes a sense of apprehension began to wash over her...her village would soon be under attack and she would never see her mother or her marvelous Mist Dragon again."

And this is from what? Some fanfic you wrote? Some fanfic someone else wrote? Some fanfic with ambiguous pronouns and punctuation errors? The rest of this thread already established that the last name 'Drake' came from a fic and then moved on past that aspect of the discussion.

Moderator Edit

I think he was just joking, and the point of his satire actually agrees with yours. Settle down, it's okay. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 15th September 2005 17:49

--------------------

Veni, vidi, dormivi.