Flix for Short: Pizza Boomerang (NSFW) on flixist

WTF is Destructoid? Read this first! Got news? email us

create an account | login

Home Buy & Sell Wii U PS Vita 360 PS3 Wii PC 3DS PSP Reviews Videos Blogs Forums Fight

Brilliam's blog

RSS

Contact

About Me

edit

My infatuations of the moment...
XBLA: SSF2THDR, Zuma, Pac-Man CE
DS: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Music: Bon Iver, Zazen Boys, Love Is All

My modestly-sized SNES game collection is as follows: F-Zero, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, Mega Man X, Mega Man 7, Chrono Trigger, NHL 97, NHLPA Hockey '93, Stunt Race FX, Adventures of Dr. Franken, Super Game Boy, Gunforce, Secret of Mana, Super Mario All-Stars, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, UN Squadron. I like it.

I've also got an Atari 2600, a PS1, a PS2, an Xbox 360, and a gaming-quality PC (finally).

I want you to read my blog. My real blog, not my Cblog. brilli.am/writes, great URL, innit?

Gamer Profile

edit

3DS friend code:
Steam: brilliam
Battle:
PSN:
Mii: n/a
Gamertag: Brilliam

Following (31)

edit

Around the community:

Bloggers Wanted: Training

Your complete guide to Destructoid

Your incorrect pronunciations of video game character names
Brilliam \| 1:25 PM on 02.12.2008	43 comments

What characters' names did you pronounce like nobody else? Did you cling to your pronunciation, or get really embarrassed the first time you were corrected? I'm bringing this up because I used to pronounce Sephiroth with the ph like "uphill" and not like "staph infection." I've heard people say Same-us instead of Sam-us for Metroid, but I think they're wrong. Any others?

Is this post awesome? Vote it up!

Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:

Comment with Facebook

Click connect and comment instantly!

Comment with Dtoid

New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds

40 comments | showing # 1 to 40

mix

Seph-E-roth is what I say, who knows if its right.

I also say Sam-us

Chocobo, I say Cho-Ko-bo and I've heard someone say Chalk-a-bo and I shot them.

Excel-2011

This applies to all foreign names in general. For me, it pisses me off when people pronounce Japanese names wrong just because I'm familiar with the rules of pronunciation and emphasis in the Japanese language.

jdub28

i always said rye-u instead ree-u
i also say hey-rule instead of hi-rule

Animated Trigger

I would always say Hee-rule, I switch up Rye-oo and Ree-oo without thinking, and I always say Som-us. Man, typing out pronounciations is tough...

free touch

Kage Maru.

Originally, not knowing what I know now, pronounced it "Cage Mah-roo" When its actually Ka-gay Ma-rloo.

moonkid

Definitely the Ryu (rye-u) one from me, in fact probably every Japanese name in every Japanese game ever, like The-Excel said.

It is Cloud(cloud) right? Sorry but I haven't actually studied Japanese.

disneyninja

I'm another Cho-ko-bo person. No one else I talked to played games the first time I saw the word so no one to correct me, I've said it that way for years.
I remember at the first final fantasy concert the voice of Tie-dus(tidus) was the MC and he pronounced it Tee-dus and you could feel all the nerds stop and whisper about it.

Aerox

I refuse to call Ryu "Roo" because I think it sounds lame.

When I was younger, I called chocobos 'chi-co-bows' and Locke in FF6 "loque". I also called Samus 'sam-us' until Smash taught me it was 'Sahm-us'.

BlackSheep

when i was little i said chocobo as chock-a-boo

Variable Gear

It made me mad when people couldn't pronounce certain game names correctly...*cough*

Lumines is Loo-Min-Ess
Meteos is Meat - E - Os
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is Kingdom Hearts: Three Five Eight Days Over Two

Ub3rSlug

I say "Birdo" as "Brido". I don't know how it started. I just encountered the enemy, misread the name and it stuck.

Excel-2011

@moonkid:
Not just every Japanese game ever, but almost every anime ever dubbed, too. What I don't get is how these days dubbers are still pronouncing names wrong even though they have full access to the original Japanese soundtrack as a reference. Barring clarity and political correctness, there's just no excuse for this kind of thing anymore.

If I'm not sure of the pronunciation of a character in a Japanese title with a foreign-sounding name, I just look the game up in Wikipedia. Almost always they have the Japanese pronunciations of names in katakana, which makes it much easier for me to verify that I'm pronouncing the names right.

MechaMonkey

I've tried to get out of the habit, but I always seem to pronounce Link as Ralph. Honest mistake though, right?

moonkid

I thought it was Master Chef for ages. My first online Halo match was fun.

The-Excel- You make a fair point sir, I just hope Japanese people can have a giggle at our western boo-boos as we do at things like 'Gracial Fortress'

Brilliam

"Roo?" Nobody said you should pronounce Ryu like he's Kanga's baby on Winnie the Pooh. More like... how you'd probably pronounce "Riu."

I just remembered another one, because when I was twelve I had no knowledge of Latin, but I definitely pronounced Epoch like "EE-posh," not "epic" as it's apparently meant to be pronounced. Still have a hard time with it, even though I know better...

liquidninja

I don't care what anyone else says every thing I pronounce is right.

Excremento

Interesting question...and I hate to admit it, but I thought FORUM was prounounced FOH-RUHM not SEE-BLAHG.

FAILCAST

The only mispronunciation that drives me crazy is when people say MEH-rio instead of MAH-rio.

Bob Muir

Dammit, I need to stop posting comments when I log into a different account.

mix

@Excremento

You deserve a cupcake, come, let me bake you one.

blehman

Excremento wins. Also, how do you pronounce Celes?

B-Radicate

@Excremento: I actually thought it was pronounced "fohr-uhm." Lulz either way.

ArrestedDeveloper

I used to say Rye-u then was told the correct pronunciation is Ree-u but then yesterday I heard a Capcom employee (on Major Nelson's podcast) referring to him as Roo. So I officialy give up

BigPopaGamer

Blehman - I always said it Sa-Les.

I also used to pronounce Sephiroth as Se-phir-oth and not Seph-i-roth as it's supposed to be.

How about Gau? Do you pronounce it Gaw or Ga-ow?

13thDragon

What about Gully instead of Guy-ell?

Brilliam

hahah, "Gully" is about as saying you're a "rouge" in WoW.

Re: Mer-io vs. Mahr-io, can't that jsut be chalked up to some accents? As a Canadian (or at least an eastern Ontarian) you'd sound affected to broaden that a.

blehman

@BPG - I always thought "Sell-ease" when I read it. And Ga-ow ftw.

Brilliam

BPG, your pronunciations of Sephiroth are so similar to me that I can't actually pronounce a difference when I try.

And I sitll say "Sell S" for Celes. Am I wrong? THIS IS A GIANT CAN O' WORMS I OPENED TODAY

razerangel

The only problem Ive had recently was with a Manga called FLCL which up until I saw the anime I thought it was called FLCL but it turns out its Furi Kuri.

blehman

But isn't it pronounce "fooly cooly"?

braulio09

ive always said he-rule but aparently it's hi-rule :(

Darren Nakamura

I've been told that Tidus from FFX and Yuffie from FFVII are pronounced as if spoken in Japanese, so instead of TIE-dus it's TEE-dus and instead of YUH-fee it's YOO-fee. I still pronounce them the way they look in English though.

JoshDunford

Cait Sith (FFVII).

I've been clock for saying "Kate-Sith". A bunch of people gave me shit because they said it was supposed to be pronounced "Khet-See".

I really think that is complete bullshit. Anybody?

Also, Aerith makes me sound stupid when I pronounce it as such, so I say Aeris.

-JD

Excremento

Cait Sith (ケット・シー, Ketto Shī)

Eschatos

Does anyone really care that much about exact pronunciation?

JoshDunford

Christ Alive...All this crazy foreign talk!

Good thing I don't ever use him in my party that often! :)

-JD

Awesome Locks

I always said Strago from FFVI Stargo because I had bad vision as a child and couldn't read the television.

konchu

See I don't know if you can 100% go by the katakana phonetics on something like Cait Sith cause often times they may want to make a character with a foreign like name but those phonetics don't always match up for instance Fred might become Furedo and Jill might become Jiru(I don't think there is much confusion on how to say Jill Valentine but in Japanese it becomes Jiru Barentainu).

Samit Sarkar

Yeah, I�ve been saying �RYE-oo� forever, from Street Fighter back in the day, and then heard someone playing Ninja Gaiden Black say �REE-yoo Hiya-BOO-suh�. I�m standing by my original pronunciation, though.

Natali Alinskaya

Hello friends,this is a nice site and I wanted to post a note to let you know, good job! Thanks
Best regards, Natali, CEO of download free music

Comment with Facebook

Click connect and comment instantly!

Comment with Dtoid

New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds

Comments policy

Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?

Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!

All editorial content, including blogs, comments, and forums written by our community, are protected by a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing requiring attribution. Destructoid aka ModernMethod is an independently-run company forged by our childhood love of video games and adulthood hatred mainstream video game press.

Living the dream since March 16, 2006