The Origins of Video Game Names 121
Blogger Drew Mackie has posted a lengthy analysis of the etymology of dozens of names from popular video game characters. It examines the real-life and mythological roots of names from Final Fantasy, Zelda, Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and many other prominent franchises, complete with citations where appropriate. Quoting:
"It's speculated that Street Fighter's Russian wrestler Zangief takes his name from a real-life Russian wrestler, Victor Zangiev. More interesting to me is that the working name for this character was Vodka Gobalsky. This is notable for two reasons — for one, that this name is amazing [and] deserves to enter into the public consciousness and, for another, that it bears a striking resemblance to the name of a Russian boxer in Nintendo's Punch-Out!! series, Vodka Drunkenski. I'm sure this says something about Japanese perception of Russian people. The latter Vodka, by the way, goes by the name Soda Popinski in US translations of the game, presumably because Nintendo of America didn't allow references to booze."
Donkey (Score:4, Informative)
FTA:
"His last name seems likes a clear reference to King Kong, but the Donkey part doesn't. Contrary to many other urban legends that say otherwise, Donkey Kong earned his first name as a result of Miyamoto wanting to call the villain something that conveyed a sense of stubbornness and stupidity, though he later found out that the English-speaking world doesn't interpret the word donkey in this way."
Wrong. Of course we do. From the OED:
donkey
1. a. A familiar name for the ass.
2. a. A stupid or silly person.
Why do you think Gordon Ramsay keeps using the word to describe the chefs who work under him? He didn't just pull it out of his ass.
Russia-Japan issue (Score:5, Informative)
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa021400a.htm [about.com]
Anyone familiar with Japanese history would understand Japanese poking constant fun of the Russians, their neighbors. Russia is a bit of a sore spot to Japan since they are still disputing sovereignty of mineral rich islands that Russia claimed as a results of Japan losing WWII. It doesn't help that Japanese culture has been known [wikipedia.org] as being a bit on the racist [ipsnews.net] and xenophobic [atimes.com] side.
Dhalsim (Score:5, Informative)
The article says that Dhalsim comes from Kerala (a state that's a narrow strip in the southwestern corner of the Indian peninsula), and that his name is a Malayalam word. That's strange, because I'm Malayalee and I'm pretty sure that "Dhalsim" is not a Malayalam word. Hmm...
Re:is it missing this? (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone know what Starcraft means? Galactic warfare? Space-land-for-battle? It kinda reminds me of Chevy Starcraft, too...
It's because the game is essentially Warcraft in space.