Renaming Countries?

[sir-blinky.livejournal.com]

 So, I know there are quite a few people who are unsatisfied with some of the names Himaruya gave the nations, but that's pretty much besides the point. If the human names of the nations didn't exist, and you were allowed to choose whatever you wanted for their names, what would you call them?

Comments

[powderthefox.livejournal.com]

Oh I know there's nothing wrong with the name. This is just a matter of personal preference. :P

[miezen.livejournal.com]

Ah, I didn't so much mean that you thought it was wrong. I meant the "more French" comment. French fans have said that it's a pretty good name to use for him, and I think they'd know best. That's all.

[powderthefox.livejournal.com]

Nah I'm not suggesting I know better than them--I agree that it's a perfectly fitting name, but it's the fact that it's also an English name that gets me. If it were me naming the nations, I'd try to keep their names as exclusive to their languages as I could (without it also being too obscure).

Again, just my opinion, for whatever it's worth!

[miezen.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense, actually. I've heard a lot of people whining about Francis vs François because "Francis isn't French enough", which is kind of what your first post sounded like. Sorry I jumped to conclusions, though!

That would probably be pretty difficult, though, honestly. Names usually aren't exclusive to one language. The cyrillic languages all use pretty similar names, for instance. And it just seems like that would kind of be a wasted effort, since there are a lot of nations that have the same language on top of that. And what about nations like Switzerland where there are more than one official language? It makes sense, but it just seems too logistically difficult to pull off.

[powderthefox.livejournal.com]

Yeah it really did sound that way, actually... My fault for not really explaining at first, heh.;;

And yeah, I know full well all the problems that come with a mindset like mine (trust me, I've tried with my own OCs OTL). That's why I said "as exclusive to their languages as I could", because obviously there's gonna be tons of overlap, and in some cases it's just gonna be impossible because some languages are so closely related--it's all simply unavoidable. In the cases where it becomes ridiculous, I agree, it's a much better idea to just go with what you know and not be too picky.

[miezen.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was just discussing this with a friend on AIM, and I think the idea would ultimately end in disaster. If it was obvious that a pattern like that existed, a lot of people would assume that it's true for all of the countries. That could be a huge mess because of countries like Belgium. French and Flemish are both official languages there, but there's also a HUGE nation-wide tension between the Walloons (French-speaking), and the Flemish. Even if Belgium ended up with a name that was an exception, Belgian fans still might assume that her name was supposed to be directly from her language. If the name was French or Flemish, that could cause a big splash with potentially awful results.

[powderthefox.livejournal.com]

Bahhh yes I'm aware of this whole problem between the Walloons and the Flemish... -__- You have a point there. In that case, however, it would be a problem just to choose a name for Belgium at all, no? I'm not sure if there are any simply Belgian names out there without any particular affiliation with either language--my idea here was for names characteristic of and unique to the country, though I use the word "language" since names usually carry over through languages. If not, then perhaps it's a good thing that she never did get a name at all.

(On that note, if you ask me, I don't think the nations should have been given human anything to begin with, though not necessarily because of problems like this. Frankly I'm still annoyed that only some nations have these human "traits" while others don't--either make it all or nothing, is my opinion.)

[miezen.livejournal.com]

idk, I think that, with the way it is now with names like Francis and Toris out there, Belgium would be able to have a human name without there being problems. It would be if all the nations had thought out names that were super important in meaning that it would cause an issue.

Actually I really like the human names. They may be nations, but they're humanoid nations. They should have some human traits, and having human names makes sense to me. He probably stopped doing it because he couldn't think of good ones for some of them, and he only did it in the first place because a lot of Japanese fans asked.