On Kanda's Name

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

I was reading the latest chapter when I noticed a sort of pun that overjoyed my inner language geek. The currently available scanlation doesn’t convey it, so I thought I’d share it here for potential discussion.

This has to do with the meaning of Kanda’s name.



On page 11 (page 12 on Mangastream), the top and central panels read something like:

The malignant weapons, the “Akuma”
The “Millennium Earl”
“Innocence”
“Exorcists”
The reason we were born,
And the reason we live—
It’s a world like a mitoshiro, where everything has been prepared.

I leave mitoshiro untranslated because there’s no direct English equivalent, and it’s the word I want to discuss. A mitoshiro is a rice paddy where rice is grown to be offered to the gods. It’s written 御戸代 here, although different Kanji can be used. 神田 (read shinden or kanda) is listed as a synonym. This meaning is also explained under the Japanese Wiki entry for 神田 (kanda).

So, essentially, Kanda and Alma are like the rice grown in order to be offered to the gods, and Kanda is directly comparing the research facility to the rice paddy. I was wondering why Kanda had a Japanese name, and I think this answers my question. For all that she has Americans named Jasdero and Skinn, and Chinese named Komui and Linalee, Hoshino gets some of her names very, very right.

Comments

[grey-damaskena.livejournal.com]

I . . . wow. Thank you so much for pointing that out. I never would have thought of that at all, but that's really perfect. ::in awe:: Now, I wonder-- did Kanda choose it himself, or was it given to him by the scientists?

[lavilena.livejournal.com]

That’s some awesome point!
Thank for sharing! ^-^

[aorin107.livejournal.com]

Wow, that does make a lot of sense and it is very appropriate for the situation. It seems that Hoshino did put some thought in naming Kanda and it's nice to see how she hints it in the dialogue :) Thanks for sharing the info.

Komui and Lenalee, however, still confounds me though, that and Noise Marie and Howard Link are both listed as German 83

[mittens-220.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info and the clear explanation!

[tossino.livejournal.com]

That makes very much sense~ But it's somewhat sad too... :/ Kudos to you for finding that~

[main-titles.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this information. I love facts like these.

[animegoil.livejournal.com]

You know, don't they just call him Yuu in that chapter? I don't remember them using 'Kanda' at any point-- and thinking about it, there would be no need for him to have a last name, either. So I'm thinking he may have picked it himself. (Which on another note, could maybe explain why he hates people using his first name so much-- it was the name given to him by the facility)

[sky]

It's extremely interesting, but I wish Hoshino would give some thought to what sorts of things would actually be possible or likely by in-universe rules when coming up with stuff like this :|a It doesn't seem very likely that an Asian boy being raised among mostly Chinese and white people, and presumably zero Japanese people due to the Earl's control over the islands, would be named after an obscure point of Japanese culture/religion.

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

That's true. Symbolically it makes sense, but the question remains of why the heck anyone would name him that.

I could see making an homage to a fallen Japanese colleague or acquaintance named Kanda, but if anyone purposely named him after a 御戸代 then they have a twisted sense of humor. And considering how Kanda refers to it in the narrative, it makes even less sense...How would would he know about that tradition in the first place? If it were a commonly used comparison in Japanese, then it could be seen as a matter of different metaphors in different languages, but I've never seen that word before, and it appears to have been chosen very deliberately.

But now I'm reading too much into it. Considering it on a logical level still doesn't work. So yes, I agree.

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Me too. It was an awesome new word to learn, and I found the connection rather exciting and had to share. <3

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Yes, it fits in further with the sacrifice theme, so it's something of a cruel name for Kanda.

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Happy to share! :)

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Yes...the "god" Kanji is clear, but I had no idea 神田 was a religiously significant word as well.

Yes, the Chinese names are very much not Chinese. Noise Marie is odd, but I think we're just lucky Howard Link has an actual name.

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

No problem, I thought it was pretty interesting.

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Yes, it really fits his character.

It would have taken a twisted sense of humor for a scientist to name him that. And if Kanda gave it to himself, I wonder where he would have heard about mitoshiro/shinden. I still don't why Kanda as a character has a Japanese appearance (?) and name, though...

[aorin107.livejournal.com]

Hmm... we all know now that Yu is his given name but I wonder when did he pick up Kanda?

Unless the Lee siblings are actually from a minority ethnic group, for instance, the Uyghur or Mongols. If not, their names are quite unusual for Han Chinese naming conventions... not to mention, I can't even find a proper Hanzi that equates to it X3

As for Noise Marie and Howard Link... I'll just assume that they British-born German or something :P

[fantasia0829.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about Lenalee and Komui's names as well, and honestly, while Komui's name might sound like he's from an minority ethnic group, his family name Lee is definitely a Han family name. And Lenalee's name is in no way a Han name either; it's actually a very... Caucasian name, in fact.

I'm guessing Hoshino-sensei either didn't really care, or names such as Komui and Lenalee Lee fit into stereotypical names that Japanese thinks Chinese have.

[aorin107.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Lee is definitely a Han family name but otherwise, their names are still rather confusing. As you said, Komui's name can be passed of as some rare minority enthnic group name but I'm not sure if Lenalee's name fit anywhere. Or perhaps, their names are not romanized from the Mandarin pinyin and its based on some other dialect, like Cantonese or Hokkien (same for Bak Chang, which I believe is Cantonese).

Still, I really don't expect Hoshino to realise these naming conventions but it's rather funny that Bak Chang is named correctly while Komui and Lenalee's names are just strange (unless she was listening to Teresa Teng and assumed all Chinese has English names or something =.=)

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't Lee be 李 (Li), one of the most common surnames in China? If you're referring to the first names, though, I completely agree. She uses Hanzi for Rikei and Loufa's names, but I can't picture any that would be used for Komui and Linalee, and "Linalee" is odd inasmuch as it has three syllables...I wonder what characters the Chinese release of DGM uses for their first names?

...Come to think of it, I have seen a Chinese edition of DGM. All I remember is that the friend who owned it said that Komui and Linalee weren't real Chinese names, since I asked her about it.

"Noise" seems like it would be problematic in any European language. Noise, Skin, Ease...sometimes Hoshino needs to stay away from the English nouns. XD

[fantasia0829.livejournal.com]

It's possible, but I don't think so. Komui and Lenalee's names are really much too... un-Chinese, and I can't think of any dialect that would result in their names. Another thing about Chinese naming conventions is that only 1 or 2 characters are used, excluding their family names. So a Chinese person's full name is usually only 2 or 3 characters, as opposed to the 4 that Komui and Lenalee have. Of course, ethnic minority would have more characters for their names, but we've already agreed that Komui and Lenalee have a Han family name.

Really? Bak's name is romanised from Cantonese? It doesn't sound Cantonese to me at all, his name, though his family name could pass for a Cantonese family name. It'd be Chan though, instead of the Chang you typed.

Ha ha, the Teresa Teng theory sounds possible. XDDD

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

Lenalee's name makes more sense when you know that when she was first designed, she wasn't going to be a Chinese character. Originally, she was half Japanese and half some other (unnamed) nationality - but Hoshino didn't change her name along with her nationality.

[fantasia0829.livejournal.com]

I've seen Lenalee and Komui's names romanised as 李娜丽/莉娜丽 and 科穆伊/考穆伊, and their family name is definitely 李.

And yes, their names are definitely not Chinese.

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! That's really interesting.

I'd really like to know who gave Kanda his 'family' name. If he picked it himself...I wonder if it's as a reminder of where he's from?

[symbolism-egg.livejournal.com]

Hmm, so they are treated like foreign names assigned characters according to pronunciation? And "Komui" becomes three characters too... Interesting, and thanks for the info!

[aorin107.livejournal.com]

Yes, Li (Lee) is the most common Chinese family name. As for their first names, well, Hanzi can be rather confusing; there's only one written for each word and yet, different dialects pronounce it diffently. For instance, 李 is read as Li in Mandarin but Lei in Cantonese and of course, there's no rule to romanization unless one follows the pinyin strictly. Regardless of it, Komui and Lenalee still doesn't seem like common Chinese names since it has three syllables each.

To my knowledge, there are two Chinese release: Taiwan and Hong Kong. Personally, I have a preference for the Taiwan release as it uses Mandarin while Hong Kong uses Cantonese. Either way, your friend is right, they didn't give Komui and Lenalee real Chinese names and they just romanized their names as 利娜莉 (Li-Na-Li) and 科穆伊 (Ke-Mu-I) [for comparison, the HK version is 李蓋梅 (Li-Ge-Mei) and 李利鳴 (Li-Li-Ming, whut?].

Just for clarification, 莫‧张 (Bak Chang, pinyin: Zhang Mo), 芙 (Fou, pinyin: Fu), 李佳 (Rikei, pinyin: Li Jia), 蠟花 (Rohfa) :)

True, Hoshino's naming sense is always a good topic for debate XD