Forum:Name Changes

Forums: Index → Narutopedia Discussion → Name Changes

Post

Note: This topic has been unedited for 5696 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Do not add to unless it really needs a response.

I think the names should be changed to original names. In fact the proper way to spell Juugo is Juugo and not Jugo. He certainly doesn't look like juice to me. If not doing that then macrons should be added since that is more correct than the double uu. I highly doubt a lot of people will post in this thread. I see no good reason why the names are incorrect. Drunk Samurai 19:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

My view is simple, the doube "u"s or the "ou" are cumbersome at best. Unneeded at worst. "ū" and "ō" are just as appropriate as "uu" and "ou" without the unneeded bulk.--TheUltimate3 01:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Please state your stance correctly. You are mixing two different debates together which is going to confuse people who try and get into the discussion. Also it is not a fact that "Juugo" is the correct spelling. It's romanji, there is no real correct spelling unless you are using kanji. "Juugo", "Jugo", and "Jūgo" are ALL correct ways to write the word depending on what style of romanization you use and what your goal is. "Jugo" is also the officially given English spelling. The fact that if we were to use Juugo, then Hyuuga would also be used instead of Hyuga, which some people may disagree with, is also being left out.

There are two parts to this. A) You want to use Japanese names instead of English names. B) You want to use wāpuro rōmaji for romanization instead of revised hepburn.

For those without background:

Romanization is a technique for taking Japanese Kanji and representing it using the latin alphabet (ie: The ABC...XYZ we use).

Now there are a few different variants of romanization in wide use,

revised hepburn; used by Wikipedia, other encyclopedic sources, and currently used here. — it would stand to reason that Viz is using revised hepburn when they create a translated character name.

modified hepburn; I've made a slight mistake about this one. I thought that it was what was being used by fandubs, however fandubs actually use wāpuro rōmaji.

and wāpuro rōmaji; used primarily by fandubs, other fansites, and blogs.

Now to help people understand the difference. The primary difference between these three forms of romanization is in how they represent long vowels like the long o and the long u.

In revised hepburn long vowels are indicated using macrons. So a long o is represented as ō and a long u is represented as ū.

In modified hepburn long vowels are indicated by doubling the letter used for the vowel. So a long o is represented as oo and a long u is represented as uu.

I haven't actually used wāpuro so I don't know the exact rule. But to make it simple a long o is represented using ou and a long u is represented as uu.

To get on with the point, and make a long story short, I'll put in my input.

Putting the topic of wāpuro rōmaji and revised hepburn aside. The romanization used in the anime world isn't even a standardized form of wāpuro rōmaji. Wikipedia does use a variant of revised hepburn rather than strait revised hepburn, however it is standardized, and even if you only stick with revised hepburn 99.99% of the time nothing in the naming conflicts.

By taking a look at how the English dubs and translated Manga spell character names — Hyuga, rather than Hyuuga. And Choji rather than Chooiji or Chouji — it would be reasonable to state that in the canonical live naruto universe, revised hepburn is used primarily as the standard in converting Japanese character names into English names. From my viewpoint, it's a good idea to stick to revised hepburn rather than wāpuro rōmaji, because it makes us compatible with Wikipedia, as well as the official translations. And also does give a — in my opinion — more professional stance of the site.

Now from what I've seen from the contributions of users, and the attitudes of active editors around, it looks as if the community is leaning towards the goal of becoming a well recognized source for information about naruto, in other words and Encyclopedia. Preference to official English and romanization under a standard which is commonly recognized as one used in professional sources vs. preference to romanization and names used by fan communities without a standard, is a borderline. That borderline is what strongly separates whether the public regards the Narutopedia as an Encyclopedia, or just another fansite.

Just judging from the early on community, and what I see in the current community. For quite some time, the Narutopedia has been a information source focused on the well read naruto fans contributing to a wiki who's target is providing information to the English speaking North Americans who have not yet gotten to a recent point in the series. This is why for quite some time, we have preferred English names, and change eastern Japanese romanized names into western order to avoid confusing the readers. As well, this is why we chose to literally translate Jutsu names, rather than simply using the romanization.

~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) current discussion Sep 13, 2008 _@ 03:54 ^(UTC)

I would like to see proof that Jugo is the correct English spelling. Viz is no where near that part. You made that up just to try to make yourself look right. Also you say that it wouldn't be fair to Naruto fans in North America. You do realize that most people who read Naruto edited are 8-12 right? They wouldn't even care to look it up. Drunk Samurai 05:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Please allow me to add my 2 cents in this discussion. Revised Hepburn (ō, ū, zu, ji for おう, うう, づ, じ) is the most common way of romanising Japanese. It's used not only by Viz, but by encyclopaedias and other authoritative publishings worldwide. If there ever was an official way of romanising Japanese, it would be with Revised Hepburn (interestingly enough, the Japanese government actually uses Kunrei-shiki [ô, û, du, zi]).

Revised Hepburn is by far the most professional way of romanising Japanese.

However, one could argue that the only authority on how to romanise the names of the Naruto characters is the author of Naruto himself. Kishimoto, as you might now because of the Pain-Pein debate, gives romanisations of the names of his characters in the databooks. He doesn't use revised Hepburn, though, nor does he use Kunrei-shiki. He uses Wāpuro (ou, uu, zu, ji). The same system used by most fan translators.

Therefore this debate can go both ways, depending on which authority to use. Personally, I'm not sure which one I like best. In everyday writing, I use Wāpuro, because it's the easiest and most true to the Japanese writing, but it's also non-standard and unprofessional. When I do 'official' translating, I generally use revised Hepburn, but I can't stand it when people don't write the macrons (which I also consider non-standard and unprofessional and most of all lazy). I guess there should be some kind of consensus on this to solve this problem.

Oh, by the way, since we're on the topic of rōmaji any way... it's rōmaji, not romanji. There is no n in it ^^ --ShounenSuki 12:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Well Suki. Again you manage to post right before I post my own comment and now I can't do it agian. Great Job Breaking It, Hero. (Potal humor ^_^)

Anyway on topic, I agree with Dantman said about using the Revised Hepburn. It's used on other Encyclopedias, Viz, Wikipedia, ect--TheUltimate3 12:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't keep track of which characters have appeared in the dub, I made a mistake with Jugo. However by Viz's current standard for romanization Jugo will be the correct spelling. But my note on English was a mistake, not malice, please don't assume malice, as they say assuming makes an ass of you and me. Wiki are founded on assuming good faith.

As for the Naruto Demographic you state, what kind of citation do you have for that? You're assuming a false demographic. I know dozens of people around here who watch and read naruto who are well over 12. Around here naruto itself is on later on during the night in the adult programming timeslot. The naruto demographic is not 8-12, people who come here to read about naruto are a wide variety of ages. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) current discussion Sep 13, 2008 _@ 17:41 ^(UTC)

Well we should go by the style Kishimoto himself uses. That means its what he wants. What the original author wants should always be used. I said people who read EDITED Naruto are more kids than teens/adults. There are lots of teens and adults who watch Naruto. They are mostly fans of the original series however. I know a 52 year old woman who is a fan of Naruto. I do know a lot watch the dub but they also watch the original series too. Drunk Samurai 18:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

While its true Kishimoto uses the Wāpuro, what he is doing in and of itself, is well, unprofessional in an English perspective. As such because in TL,DR (To Long, Didn't Read) difference seems to be the writing of long vowels, from an English speaking perspective, Spelling word Jugo is more fitting to the language than writing Juugo, and it a hell of alot simpler than spelling a word Jūgo (as I do not know how one would go around and use the ū, I myself had to copy and paste it).--TheUltimate3 19:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Which is why, we have the charinsert box below the edit page with a few dozen hard to type characters ;). We could probably move the useful characters up into a separate section if you wanted. At a point in the past, I was trying to work on a bit of a helper tool. Something where you could press a keycombo with a selected u or such, have a bit of guides show up, and select a ū which it would convert the u to. Though, that would be the reason we use macrons in the translation template, but not in regular text (though, we do normally use the macron in Shippūden). Though it does work out well, 99.99% of the time the romanization we use without the macron is what ends up in the English Dub, and so we don't need to go and rewrite a pile of names.

Actually, I know a number of teenagers who don't watch the original series. There are a fair number of people (not just kids) who can't keep up with subtitles, so they just watch dubs and wait for series to be translated. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) current discussion Sep 14, 2008 _@ 03:14 ^(UTC)

My point was you have no proof they would be confused if we used the correct names used by Kishimoto himself. Drunk Samurai 04:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

When did I say they would be confused? That's yet another assumption. I said things along the lines of; We've been targeting North Americans who don't keep up with the series — dub watchers or people who don't watch Naruto actively. And also using official English names on an English wiki, and using accepted standards for romanization, is more professional than using unofficial romanizations spread throughout the net. And where did Kishimoto say "Juugo" is the spelling? Sure, if you have a scan of an official romanization, we can fix our romanization to fit. But without that kind of source, we have to regard "Juugo" as wāpuro spread by fandub translators, and "Jugo" as revised hepburn which is what we have stuck with for some time now. We might also need to check a few other pages, I'm not precisely sure what romanizations are used in the databooks, depending on what they are that statement could be reversed. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) current discussion Sep 14, 2008 _@ 08:22 ^(UTC)

You ignored what I said. I said that most people are young children who watch the show and don't watch the original. I know a lot of people who watch both the dub and original. You have no basis to say that everybody who watches the dub watches the original. Jugo is not correct and you know that. You just want it because you think Viz is a God.