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To-do list:

  • It was decided to rename Spell My Name With An S to Inconsistent Spelling, only allow official and intentional examples, and allow long vowels by removing the rule forbidding long vowels. Clean up that don't fit the revised definition. Only official and intentional alternate spellings are allowed; fan spellings are not allowed, but may fit Viewer Name Confusion instead.
    • Clean up on-page examples.
    • Clean up wicks.

    Original post 

Note: This thread was proposed by RallyBot2.

Spell My Name Wick Check

This trope has many, many problems. The last thread for it came to a non-crowner consensus to restrict to official examples, but was never actually cleaned up.

The trope's own description implies it's for works not officially released in English, explains why fans use weird spellings, and then goes into a long-winded rant about transliteration that has nearly nothing to do with the trope. It then gives an arbitrary rule that "minor differences" such as the various ways to transliterate long vowels are barred from being examples.

Fan spelling examples are more prevalent that official spelling examples at the moment, but outright misuse (usually for other translation tropes or My Nayme Is) is more common than either.

My proposed solution:

  • Make the trope for only official and intentional spellings in the same language (i.e. fan spellings, third-party sources, and the English differing from the romaji don't count.)
  • Remove the "no long vowels" rule as it's an artifact from the era of fan spellings.
  • Rewrite the description to clarify what the trope is supposed to be.

Other possible solutions:

  • Rename or merge into Inconsistent Dub. (Only if the problems with the trope are so widespread as to make it unsalvageable, which I did not quite find.)

Wick check:

As of writing, there are 3241 wicks in Characters/ and 4735 from other namespaces (excluding Sandbox as usual.) I'll split the character pages proportionally from the rest, leading to a check of 50 character pages and 73 non-character pages.

If a page has more than three examples, I'm only counting the first three (to prevent misuse from a single work page throwing off the numbers.) I will ignore a pothole/sinkhole if there's a proper example for the same name on the same page.

Categories are:

  • Multiple Official Spellings
  • Fan Spellings
  • Unclear (it's not clear whether it's two official spellings)
  • Unsure (more information needed; the line between these two categories is pretty thin)
  • Misuse
  • Sinkhole
  • In-Universe
  • Meta

    Character Pages 

Multiple Official Spellings (16/72)

  • Castlevania The Belmont Clan: His name is listed as Simon Belmondo at the end of the first game (as well as Chronicles), but it's Simon Belmont in the sequel. Japanese material tends to be based on the former, while the latter is the English standard.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe: ...with his only permanent companion being his beloved car, Bessie (there renamed "Betsy"). Pothole on a Demoted to Extra example, at the end of a long unrelated paragraph.
  • .hack//First Generation: Early English-language printings of the manga romanized her name as "Orca."
  • EDENS ZERO: Oración Seis Galáctica Associates: Kodansha's simulpub originally spelled her name as "Milani", which was changed to "Mirrani" in the volume edition once its mirror-related theme became apparent. I'm assuming "simulpub" here means English.
  • Fairy Gone: The Funimation subs for the show spell her name as "Marlya" while in other materials it is Maria.
  • Jellystone!: Jonny's name is spelled 'Johnny' in the closed captions and episode credits. Existing character (Jonny Quest) so the "Jonny" spelling is known to be valid.
  • Kim Possible - Villains: The DisneyNOW closed captions spell her name as "Sheego".
  • My Hero Academia - Katsuki Bakugo: The last part of official hero name, "Dynamight", is pronounced the same way as "Dynamite", and the katakana used doesn't lend itself to one spelling over the other. Initially, "Dynamite" was used for the official translations, but it was later updated to use "Dynamight".
  • Need for Speed Rivals: It's clear his name is spelled F-8, but it's also clear the onscreen subtitles at times display "Fate" instead of F-8. Is that an intentional pun?
  • Sailor Moon Dark Kingdom: In the DiC dub, their official site and the synopsis on the back of their VHS's spell his name "Neflite", but other sources have spelled his name "Nephlite" (which most fans of this dub agree on nowadays) or "Neflyte".
  • Scott Pilgrim: "Roxie" in the comic, "Roxy" in the movie.
  • The Boys (2019): Other: What exactly is her last name? The show's subtitles and dialogue calls her Mannheim, but a chryon calls her Manning. Assuming the "chryon" [sic] is not an in-universe mistake or something.
  • The Garden of Sinners:
    • Even the official manga translation can't seem to decide if it's "Kokutou", "Kokuto" or "Kokutoh".
    • His second name is "Godot Word" in the official subtitles.
  • The Nostalgia Critic: Tamara's Characters: It's not quite clear whether her surname is two words or one. It's typically spelt as "Hyper Fan Girl" on social media and in the titles of in-character vlogs, but a few spell it as "Hyper Fangirl" (such as her Q&A video). Hyper lampshades in her hate comments video how many fans misspell her name, but she singles out "Fan Girl" as the misspelling, despite that being the spelling used in that same video's title.
  • World End What Do You Do At The End Of The World Are You Busy Will You Save Us: The official site spells her name as Lillia, but the anime shows it on-screen as Lilya.

Fan Spellings (15/72)

  • Aikatsu Stars! Flower Song Class: Her name is officially romanized as "Rola Sakuraba". Most fans however find Rola to be a strange name and often refer to her as Laura and less commonly, Lola, both of which were theorized names before it was confirmed.
  • Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro:
    • His family name "Hachiouji" can also be spelled "Hachioji" or "Hachiōji".
    • Her family name is romanized as "Gamou" by the author himself, instead of alternatives like "Gamō" or indeed "Gamo". The last option wasn't taken probably because as spelled in Japanese script, it's clear that the "Gamo" in "Gamo-chan" is pronounced-slightly differently from her family name.
    • "Ichiro" could also be spelled "Ichirou" or "Ichirō".
  • EDENS ZERO: Oración Seis Galáctica Associates: Before the ship's name is shown in the manga proper, it's spelled as "Berial Goer", then "Belial Goer", and finally "Belial Gore". The English anime dub and subtitles stick with "Belial Goer".
  • Fairy Gone: Its name as spelled in the subtitles literally translates to "Egg Head." It's probably supposed to actually be "Eisenkopf" which means "Iron Head."
  • Honkai Impact 3rd - Anti Entropy: His surname is either "Young" or "Yang", though his Stigmata set, the comics and Post-Honkai Odyssey's English localization go with the latter. Considering that in Japanese version, his name is read as "Welt You", it's likely that "Yang" is the more proper spelling.note 
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: Mashymre is his official English name, though "Mashymyre" and "Mashmyre" have been used in unofficial translations.
  • My Hero Academia - Katsuki Bakugo: His last name can be romanized as "Bakugo", "Bakugō", or "Bakugou". Official materials translate it as "Bakugo", but fans use "Bakugou" just as often.
  • My Hero Academia - Shota Aizawa: His first name can be spelled "Shōta", "Shota", or "Shouta".
  • Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream: Rizumu's name is canonically spelled "Rizumu" on official marketing, but you still have fans writing her name out as "Rhythm."
  • Shaman King: Like his master, he runs afoul of this due to the Chinese language transliteration. In his native language, it would be Ma Sun, which becomes either Ma Son or Ba Son in Japanese, depending on how the kanji is read. The English translation and the anime decided on the latter, so Bason it was.
  • Trails Series Erebonia Thors Class VII Original:
    • Does his name need that second "l", or not? XSEED settles with two "l"s.
    • Is it Miriam or Millium? It's Millium in XSeed's official localization.
  • WCWNWA: Officially, his last name is spelt Zbyszko, but is sometimes misspelled like Zbysko or Zybysko.

Unclear (22/72)

Unsure (8/72)

  • Fairy Tail – Edolas:
    • Her name is spelled "Knightwalker" by Funimation. From context, it's clear that Kodansha USA spells it Nightwalker. The example is valid if Funimation's translation is, but a commented-out note claims that Knightwalker is from a fan translation.
    • Other sources spell Natsu's last name 'Dragion'. What other sources, and are they in English?
    • Despite his Japanese name being pronounced something akin to "soh-ROOJ", his surname is commonly spelled as "Surge". Spelled by whom?
  • Hawkeye: Enemies: Sort of. He’s Trickshot, his predecessor was Trick Shot. Pothole on a Legacy Character example. If it's not the same character and the only difference is a space, I'm leaning towards it not being an example.
  • Ring of Honor: Also known as Ty Darius, Ty Darious and...well most people just call him TD. "Also known as" by whom? Is it canonical? (Does wrestling even have canon?)
  • Street Fighter II: His wife's name can be spelled as either Sari or Sally, while son's name is either Datta, Dhatta (accurate for Indian culture), or (going by SVC Chaos' "translation") Dadda. The latter makes me think we have two actual translations, though Capcom did not develop or publish SVC Chaos.
  • The Inbetweeners: The Lads: Alternates between spelling his name as "Neil" and "Niel" throughout the yearbook, presumably because he's too stupid to know how to properly spell it consistently. Does a character not knowing how to spell his own name count as this trope?
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Other Characters: Her original name is シンディア, which can be transliterated as Cyndia, although some spell it as Cynthia or Cindia. Then there's her dub name, Cecelia Pegasus, which becomes Cecilia, despite the fact that the proper dub name was shown in episode 40. The first sentence is fan spelling, but does the second sentence imply it's shown up as Cecilia once? Weird phrasing.

Misuse (10/72)

In-Universe (1/72)

  • Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: An in-universe running gag is whenever she's in battle with the group, the result screen will write her name as "Aeris". As this is machinima, I'm assuming that "results screen" refers to clips from FFVII itself, in which she can be renamed. This makes it an intentional decision on the part of the creators, thus a valid in-universe example.

    Others 

Multiple Official Spellings (13/79)

Fan Spellings (11/79)

  • GratuitousEnglish.Video Games: In the Japanese Tales of Symphonia, two of the main characters were named in Gratuitous English: the healer was named Refill, and her brilliant little brother was named Genius. These were thankfully changed to Raine and Genis for the English translation, although some fans use them anyway.
  • Headscratchers.Yu Gi Oh Sevens: Neiru is a valid, if very literal, transliteration of the character's name. Nail is also valid, though a lot of subs go with Neil. It's a decent compromise, but it's ultimately up to personal preference.
  • Disgaea Novels: Most of the new characters' names, since there are no official spelling for their names in English. Also a ZCE.
  • Full Metal Panic!: Tessa's full name seems like it ought to be "Theresa" or "Teresa," but the official spelling is "Teletha" instead.
  • NMB48: Word of God hasn't confirmed how カモネギックス is spelled: most common spellings are Kamonegics, Kamonegikkusu and Kamonegiks.
  • Sunmi: Sunmi can be spelled as "Seonmi".
  • Kamen Rider Gaim:
    • The name of the monsters might be seen as Inves, Invase, Inbess, and so on. Officially, it's "Inves"; though "Invase" might be more accurate since the name is derived from "invasive species" (as Ryoma calls the Helheim flora in #20).
    • Is "Lockseed" one or two words? Officially, Lockseed is just one word.
    • Mitsuzane's nickname could be spelled as "Micchy", "Micchi", "Mitchy" or "Mitch".
  • Noob: Happens a lot among fans only following the webseries, despite the fact that cursors keep the name of anyone that matters from getting any worse than a Freeze-Frame Bonus. Kary is a big victim of it, with mispelling going up to "Carrie" and anything in between existing. Other common mistakes are "Istos" and "Gaia".
  • Tales Of The Rays: The naming scheme for the Bifrost Empire is heavily based on Norse mythology which is already rife with this trope. And with no official romanizations, expect fan translations to have different spellings for all of them.

Unclear (10/79)

Unsure (8/79)

Misuse (31/79)

Sinkhole (3/79)

In-Universe (1/79)

  • The Dark Hunters: From Acheron... to Asheron... and later Ash... note 

Meta (2/79)

Totals:

  • Multiple Official Spellings: 29/151 (19%)
  • Fan Spellings: 26/151 (17%)
  • Unclear: 32/151 (11%)
  • Unsure: 16/151 (21%)
  • Misuse: 41/151 (27%)
  • Sinkhole: 3/151 (2%)
  • In-Universe: 2/151 (1%)
  • Meta: 2/151 (1%)

Assuming fan spellings are out, that means that at best around one-third of examples are correct usage with proper context. It's more likely closer to one-fourth.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2023 at 11:43:42 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#1: Jul 18th 2023 at 3:51:13 AM

To-do list:

  • It was decided to rename Spell My Name With An S to Inconsistent Spelling, only allow official and intentional examples, and allow long vowels by removing the rule forbidding long vowels. Clean up that don't fit the revised definition. Only official and intentional alternate spellings are allowed; fan spellings are not allowed, but may fit Viewer Name Confusion instead.
    • Clean up on-page examples.
    • Clean up wicks.

    Original post 

Note: This thread was proposed by RallyBot2.

Spell My Name Wick Check

This trope has many, many problems. The last thread for it came to a non-crowner consensus to restrict to official examples, but was never actually cleaned up.

The trope's own description implies it's for works not officially released in English, explains why fans use weird spellings, and then goes into a long-winded rant about transliteration that has nearly nothing to do with the trope. It then gives an arbitrary rule that "minor differences" such as the various ways to transliterate long vowels are barred from being examples.

Fan spelling examples are more prevalent that official spelling examples at the moment, but outright misuse (usually for other translation tropes or My Nayme Is) is more common than either.

My proposed solution:

  • Make the trope for only official and intentional spellings in the same language (i.e. fan spellings, third-party sources, and the English differing from the romaji don't count.)
  • Remove the "no long vowels" rule as it's an artifact from the era of fan spellings.
  • Rewrite the description to clarify what the trope is supposed to be.

Other possible solutions:

  • Rename or merge into Inconsistent Dub. (Only if the problems with the trope are so widespread as to make it unsalvageable, which I did not quite find.)

Wick check:

As of writing, there are 3241 wicks in Characters/ and 4735 from other namespaces (excluding Sandbox as usual.) I'll split the character pages proportionally from the rest, leading to a check of 50 character pages and 73 non-character pages.

If a page has more than three examples, I'm only counting the first three (to prevent misuse from a single work page throwing off the numbers.) I will ignore a pothole/sinkhole if there's a proper example for the same name on the same page.

Categories are:

  • Multiple Official Spellings
  • Fan Spellings
  • Unclear (it's not clear whether it's two official spellings)
  • Unsure (more information needed; the line between these two categories is pretty thin)
  • Misuse
  • Sinkhole
  • In-Universe
  • Meta

    Character Pages 

Multiple Official Spellings (16/72)

  • Castlevania The Belmont Clan: His name is listed as Simon Belmondo at the end of the first game (as well as Chronicles), but it's Simon Belmont in the sequel. Japanese material tends to be based on the former, while the latter is the English standard.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe: ...with his only permanent companion being his beloved car, Bessie (there renamed "Betsy"). Pothole on a Demoted to Extra example, at the end of a long unrelated paragraph.
  • .hack//First Generation: Early English-language printings of the manga romanized her name as "Orca."
  • EDENS ZERO: Oración Seis Galáctica Associates: Kodansha's simulpub originally spelled her name as "Milani", which was changed to "Mirrani" in the volume edition once its mirror-related theme became apparent. I'm assuming "simulpub" here means English.
  • Fairy Gone: The Funimation subs for the show spell her name as "Marlya" while in other materials it is Maria.
  • Jellystone!: Jonny's name is spelled 'Johnny' in the closed captions and episode credits. Existing character (Jonny Quest) so the "Jonny" spelling is known to be valid.
  • Kim Possible - Villains: The DisneyNOW closed captions spell her name as "Sheego".
  • My Hero Academia - Katsuki Bakugo: The last part of official hero name, "Dynamight", is pronounced the same way as "Dynamite", and the katakana used doesn't lend itself to one spelling over the other. Initially, "Dynamite" was used for the official translations, but it was later updated to use "Dynamight".
  • Need for Speed Rivals: It's clear his name is spelled F-8, but it's also clear the onscreen subtitles at times display "Fate" instead of F-8. Is that an intentional pun?
  • Sailor Moon Dark Kingdom: In the DiC dub, their official site and the synopsis on the back of their VHS's spell his name "Neflite", but other sources have spelled his name "Nephlite" (which most fans of this dub agree on nowadays) or "Neflyte".
  • Scott Pilgrim: "Roxie" in the comic, "Roxy" in the movie.
  • The Boys (2019): Other: What exactly is her last name? The show's subtitles and dialogue calls her Mannheim, but a chryon calls her Manning. Assuming the "chryon" [sic] is not an in-universe mistake or something.
  • The Garden of Sinners:
    • Even the official manga translation can't seem to decide if it's "Kokutou", "Kokuto" or "Kokutoh".
    • His second name is "Godot Word" in the official subtitles.
  • The Nostalgia Critic: Tamara's Characters: It's not quite clear whether her surname is two words or one. It's typically spelt as "Hyper Fan Girl" on social media and in the titles of in-character vlogs, but a few spell it as "Hyper Fangirl" (such as her Q&A video). Hyper lampshades in her hate comments video how many fans misspell her name, but she singles out "Fan Girl" as the misspelling, despite that being the spelling used in that same video's title.
  • WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?: The official site spells her name as Lillia, but the anime shows it on-screen as Lilya.

Fan Spellings (15/72)

  • Aikatsu Stars! Flower Song Class: Her name is officially romanized as "Rola Sakuraba". Most fans however find Rola to be a strange name and often refer to her as Laura and less commonly, Lola, both of which were theorized names before it was confirmed.
  • Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro:
    • His family name "Hachiouji" can also be spelled "Hachioji" or "Hachiōji".
    • Her family name is romanized as "Gamou" by the author himself, instead of alternatives like "Gamō" or indeed "Gamo". The last option wasn't taken probably because as spelled in Japanese script, it's clear that the "Gamo" in "Gamo-chan" is pronounced-slightly differently from her family name.
    • "Ichiro" could also be spelled "Ichirou" or "Ichirō".
  • EDENS ZERO: Oración Seis Galáctica Associates: Before the ship's name is shown in the manga proper, it's spelled as "Berial Goer", then "Belial Goer", and finally "Belial Gore". The English anime dub and subtitles stick with "Belial Goer".
  • Fairy Gone: Its name as spelled in the subtitles literally translates to "Egg Head." It's probably supposed to actually be "Eisenkopf" which means "Iron Head."
  • Honkai Impact 3rd - Anti Entropy: His surname is either "Young" or "Yang", though his Stigmata set, the comics and Post-Honkai Odyssey's English localization go with the latter. Considering that in Japanese version, his name is read as "Welt You", it's likely that "Yang" is the more proper spelling.note 
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ: Mashymre is his official English name, though "Mashymyre" and "Mashmyre" have been used in unofficial translations.
  • My Hero Academia - Katsuki Bakugo: His last name can be romanized as "Bakugo", "Bakugō", or "Bakugou". Official materials translate it as "Bakugo", but fans use "Bakugou" just as often.
  • My Hero Academia - Shota Aizawa: His first name can be spelled "Shōta", "Shota", or "Shouta".
  • Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream: Rizumu's name is canonically spelled "Rizumu" on official marketing, but you still have fans writing her name out as "Rhythm."
  • Shaman King: Like his master, he runs afoul of this due to the Chinese language transliteration. In his native language, it would be Ma Sun, which becomes either Ma Son or Ba Son in Japanese, depending on how the kanji is read. The English translation and the anime decided on the latter, so Bason it was.
  • Trails Series Erebonia Thors Class VII Original:
    • Does his name need that second "l", or not? XSEED settles with two "l"s.
    • Is it Miriam or Millium? It's Millium in XSeed's official localization.
  • WCWNWA: Officially, his last name is spelt Zbyszko, but is sometimes misspelled like Zbysko or Zybysko.

Unclear (22/72)

Unsure (8/72)

  • Fairy Tail – Edolas:
    • Her name is spelled "Knightwalker" by Funimation. From context, it's clear that Kodansha USA spells it Nightwalker. The example is valid if Funimation's translation is, but a commented-out note claims that Knightwalker is from a fan translation.
    • Other sources spell Natsu's last name 'Dragion'. What other sources, and are they in English?
    • Despite his Japanese name being pronounced something akin to "soh-ROOJ", his surname is commonly spelled as "Surge". Spelled by whom?
  • Hawkeye: Enemies: Sort of. He’s Trickshot, his predecessor was Trick Shot. Pothole on a Legacy Character example. If it's not the same character and the only difference is a space, I'm leaning towards it not being an example.
  • Ring of Honor: Also known as Ty Darius, Ty Darious and...well most people just call him TD. "Also known as" by whom? Is it canonical? (Does wrestling even have canon?)
  • Street Fighter II: His wife's name can be spelled as either Sari or Sally, while son's name is either Datta, Dhatta (accurate for Indian culture), or (going by SVC Chaos' "translation") Dadda. The latter makes me think we have two actual translations, though Capcom did not develop or publish SVC Chaos.
  • The Inbetweeners: The Lads: Alternates between spelling his name as "Neil" and "Niel" throughout the yearbook, presumably because he's too stupid to know how to properly spell it consistently. Does a character not knowing how to spell his own name count as this trope?
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Other Characters: Her original name is シンディア, which can be transliterated as Cyndia, although some spell it as Cynthia or Cindia. Then there's her dub name, Cecelia Pegasus, which becomes Cecilia, despite the fact that the proper dub name was shown in episode 40. The first sentence is fan spelling, but does the second sentence imply it's shown up as Cecilia once? Weird phrasing.

Misuse (10/72)

In-Universe (1/72)

  • Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: An in-universe running gag is whenever she's in battle with the group, the result screen will write her name as "Aeris". As this is machinima, I'm assuming that "results screen" refers to clips from FFVII itself, in which she can be renamed. This makes it an intentional decision on the part of the creators, thus a valid in-universe example.

    Others 

Multiple Official Spellings (13/79)

Fan Spellings (11/79)

  • GratuitousEnglish.Video Games: In the Japanese Tales of Symphonia, two of the main characters were named in Gratuitous English: the healer was named Refill, and her brilliant little brother was named Genius. These were thankfully changed to Raine and Genis for the English translation, although some fans use them anyway.
  • Headscratchers.Yu Gi Oh Sevens: Neiru is a valid, if very literal, transliteration of the character's name. Nail is also valid, though a lot of subs go with Neil. It's a decent compromise, but it's ultimately up to personal preference.
  • Disgaea Novels: Most of the new characters' names, since there are no official spelling for their names in English. Also a ZCE.
  • Full Metal Panic!: Tessa's full name seems like it ought to be "Theresa" or "Teresa," but the official spelling is "Teletha" instead.
  • NMB48: Word of God hasn't confirmed how カモネギックス is spelled: most common spellings are Kamonegics, Kamonegikkusu and Kamonegiks.
  • Sunmi: Sunmi can be spelled as "Seonmi".
  • Kamen Rider Gaim:
    • The name of the monsters might be seen as Inves, Invase, Inbess, and so on. Officially, it's "Inves"; though "Invase" might be more accurate since the name is derived from "invasive species" (as Ryoma calls the Helheim flora in #20).
    • Is "Lockseed" one or two words? Officially, Lockseed is just one word.
    • Mitsuzane's nickname could be spelled as "Micchy", "Micchi", "Mitchy" or "Mitch".
  • Noob: Happens a lot among fans only following the webseries, despite the fact that cursors keep the name of anyone that matters from getting any worse than a Freeze-Frame Bonus. Kary is a big victim of it, with mispelling going up to "Carrie" and anything in between existing. Other common mistakes are "Istos" and "Gaia".
  • Tales Of The Rays: The naming scheme for the Bifrost Empire is heavily based on Norse mythology which is already rife with this trope. And with no official romanizations, expect fan translations to have different spellings for all of them.

Unclear (10/79)

Unsure (8/79)

Misuse (31/79)

Sinkhole (3/79)

In-Universe (1/79)

  • The Dark Hunters: From Acheron... to Asheron... and later Ash... note 

Meta (2/79)

Totals:

  • Multiple Official Spellings: 29/151 (19%)
  • Fan Spellings: 26/151 (17%)
  • Unclear: 32/151 (11%)
  • Unsure: 16/151 (21%)
  • Misuse: 41/151 (27%)
  • Sinkhole: 3/151 (2%)
  • In-Universe: 2/151 (1%)
  • Meta: 2/151 (1%)

Assuming fan spellings are out, that means that at best around one-third of examples are correct usage with proper context. It's more likely closer to one-fourth.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2023 at 11:43:42 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#2: Jul 18th 2023 at 3:51:53 AM

Paging ~RallyBot2 to the thread. Anyway, I agree with the proposed solutions, and I think renaming wouldn't hurt either due to the clunky name.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Vilui Since: May, 2009
#3: Jul 18th 2023 at 4:01:59 AM

The "long vowels" rule is there because Japanese おう can be transliterated as o, oo, ou, oh or ō, all of which are valid (and similarly with other vowels). It's meant to avoid the trope being bogged down with having to list this fact for every character whose name contains a long vowel (mainly Japanese; some other languages may have similar issues).

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#4: Jul 18th 2023 at 4:08:47 AM

That wouldn't be relevant if we only list official and intentional spellings, as mentioned in the bullet point above the one about the long vowel rule, since how many ways a long vowel could be transliterated wouldn't matter if the creators only use a small amount of transliterations.

That strikes me as something that ended up there due to fan spellings, but we already have Viewer Name Confusion for fan spellings, so this should be limited to spellings actually used by the creators.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 18th 2023 at 6:12:58 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
RallyBot2 Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
#5: Jul 18th 2023 at 4:14:59 AM

[up][up]The reason the "no long vowels" rule exists is to prevent cases such as "しろう can be romanized in six different ways." That's not a trope, it's a quirk of language.

If the name is romanized in two or more different ways within a work, then it becomes noteworthy.

Edit: [nja]

Edited by RallyBot2 on Jul 18th 2023 at 7:16:17 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#6: Jul 18th 2023 at 4:16:46 AM

[up]I agree.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 18th 2023 at 6:16:54 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#7: Jul 18th 2023 at 6:14:31 PM

Plus there's cases, especially with foreign names, where there's a fairly obvious name the author was going for but the translator was apparently ignorant of it. E.g. Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight! has a character whose name was officially translated as "Maria Louisa Riviera", but she's Brazilian so the name was almost certainly meant to be "Maria Luisa Ribeira". Or Leoncio Echevalria in Reign of the Seven Spellblades, whose surname was spelled "Etchevalria" in the Japanese version's color inserts but was undoubtedly supposed to be the Basque "Echevarria".

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#8: Jul 18th 2023 at 7:16:33 PM

[up]If we enact the proposals the OP lists for Spell My Name With An S, I'm pretty sure those would go under Dub Name Change instead of Spell My Name With An S (or whatever we call it if we rename it).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 18th 2023 at 9:17:00 AM

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RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#9: Jul 18th 2023 at 7:28:16 PM

I'm leaning on renaming because I don't feel the name is demonstrative.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#10: Jul 18th 2023 at 7:51:01 PM

[up]I agree that the name is non-indicative. That's why I called the it clunky, and why I'm also in favor of renaming.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 18th 2023 at 9:51:38 AM

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SamCurt Since: Jan, 2001
#11: Jul 18th 2023 at 11:50:44 PM

Gaston, can you explain what do you mean by "intentional" spelling differences? As in, how do you know if it's intentional or not?

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GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#12: Jul 19th 2023 at 12:03:29 AM

[up]Variant spellings are intentional if official materials use them, including official supplementary material external to the main work (such as the main work using one spelling and a Concept Art book using another). That's what we were getting at with the push against using this for fan spellings and focusing on official ones.

I think the use of this for fan spellings is due to a very long-lasting case of Missing Related Trope, since Viewer Name Confusion didn't exist until late 2020, while this trope was launched before the site tracked article creation dates.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 19th 2023 at 2:10:10 PM

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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
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SamCurt Since: Jan, 2001
#14: Jul 20th 2023 at 6:41:42 AM

[up][up]Great. I thought you were introducing a new (and potentially subjective) standard. In this case, I have no opposition to it.

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Karxrida The Unknown from Eureka, the Forbidden Land Since: May, 2012 Relationship Status: I LOVE THIS DOCTOR!
The Unknown
#15: Jul 20th 2023 at 5:31:24 PM

Is there any reason not to merge with Inconsistent Dub? I feel like the proposed solution of only using official spellings creates too much overlap.

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RallyBot2 Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
#16: Jul 21st 2023 at 4:26:32 AM

[up]This is narrow enough to be distinct (as it only applies to transliterations of names, while Inconsistent Dub also covers "full" Dub Name Change or non-name stuff.)

bwburke94 Friends forevermore from uǝʌɐǝɥ Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
Friends forevermore
#17: Jul 23rd 2023 at 5:48:30 PM

I feel like the "long vowels don't count" rule could be retooled into "diacritics don't count". To give the obvious non-Japanese example, Jose/José would be treated as the same spelling.

99% of the time, when a diacritic should exist in an English-language work but doesn't, it's laziness on the part of the creator (or a technical limitation if it's a video game), not a deliberate creative decision to omit the diacritic.

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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
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#18: Jul 26th 2023 at 10:01:29 AM

So, what do we do here? Do we have enough discussion for a crowner?

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bwburke94 Friends forevermore from uǝʌɐǝɥ Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
Friends forevermore
#19: Jul 26th 2023 at 10:54:24 AM

Not quite yet. We can take this slowly.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#20: Jul 26th 2023 at 8:15:03 PM

We might be able to make a crowner with the options in the OP, but I'd prefer if someone else drafted a crowner because I haven't been feeling the best lately, so lately I've been having to pace myself with mod work and I've been sticking to simpler crowners while deferring to everyone else on more complex ones.

Edit: Also, I'd like to point out that we've already been taking this slowly because this thread was made on the 18th.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 26th 2023 at 1:17:41 PM

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RallyBot2 Since: Nov, 2013 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
#21: Jul 29th 2023 at 1:01:56 PM

Came back from vacation to discover next to no progress... maybe I should have checked in more often.

Anyway, let's get that crowner going.

Options are:

  • Only official and intentional spellings count.
  • Remove the "no long vowels" rule.
  • Rename.
  • Merge into Inconsistent Dub.

themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#22: Jul 29th 2023 at 1:08:25 PM

[up] Thanks Rally! Was going to write out crowner options but I've been disorganized and unfocused lately so I didn't get a chance.

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MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
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Berrenta MOD How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#24: Aug 1st 2023 at 9:35:33 PM

Calling in favor of the following:

  • Rename
  • Only allow official and intentional examples
  • Allow long vowels

Get the name options ready.

Edited by Berrenta on Aug 1st 2023 at 11:36:01 AM

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MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#25: Aug 1st 2023 at 9:40:51 PM

Well, maybe the redirect Transliteration Trouble? That's probably too limiting though so scratch that.

Spelling Inconsistency or Name Spelling Inconsistency then.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 1st 2023 at 12:43:40 PM

Macron's notes

Trope Repair Shop: Spell My Name with an S
3rd Aug '23 11:48:44 AM

Crown Description:

Consensus was to do the following with Spell My Name With An S:
  • Rename
  • Only allow official and intentional examples
  • Allow long vowels

What should the trope's new name be?

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