Sword Art Online - Names and Terminology

[Ushwood]

Personally, I prefer "Solterina Selrut"... and "Underworld" in one word.

[dim1]

We encountered an interesting point on the wiki, one of the members of the Black Cats of the Full Moon can't be found, Ducker the thief. So we were wondering if anyone knew where that name was from since it is all over the net but no official origin.

[Lery]

Well, his name is shown on the credits' list at the end of the 3rd episode


(Because of his voice actor, who's wanting to get credit for his work)

[Gsimenas]

Thanks for the help. We've gone through many different place to find it and didn't think of the obvious source

Let's settle all of the new names for consistency's sake. Here's a list of stuff with conflicts.
If anyone has any objections or alternate suggestions to any of these, state them.
Otherwise, I (or someone else) will change all mentions to the main suggested name in a week's time.

Format:
SuggestedName (JpName RomanName) [description]
{reasoning}
AltName1, AltName2, etc

Characters:

Spoiler! :

Sadore (サードレ Saadore) [artisan who crafted blacky]
{__dre seems to be usually represented as ドレー rather than ドレ, so I placed more emphasis on the o}
Sadre

Ronye Arabel (ロニエ・アラベル Ronie Araberu) [Kirito's valet]
{author's illustrations during WN period}
Ronie Arabel, Arabell

Tiezé Shtolienen (ティーゼ・シュトリーネン Tiize Shutoriinen) [Eugeo's valet]
{illustrations put as Tiese, but I changed it to a zé for proper pronunciation}
Tiese, Tieze

Sortiliena Serlut | Liena-senpai (ソルティリーナ・セルルト Sorutiriina Seruruto | リナ先輩 Rina senpai) [Kirito's senior]
{illustrations for first name, author mentioned Serlet on Twitter, but that's missing the "ru" part}
Solterina, Soltirina Serlet, Celulute | Rina, Lina

Gorgolosso Baltoh (ゴルゴロッソ・バルトー Gorugorosso Barutoo) [Eugeo's senior]
{based off katakana, b/v randomly decided, it's "トー", so "toh" instead of "to"}
Golgosso Valto

Humbert Zizek (ウンベール・ジーゼック Unbeeru Jiizekku) [Dumbass with one hand]
{I just threw it in Google}
Wanbell Jizek

Raios Antinos (ライオス・アンティノス Raiosu Antinosu) [Dumbass with no hands]
{Based off katakana}
Rainos Antinous

Locations:

Spoiler! :

Underworld / Under World (アンダーワールド) [world created for Project ALICE]
{Under World is technically correct, since they're separate words...}

Sword Mastery Academy (修剣学院)
{Because MSA's somewhat misleading, and btw, does "Master Arts Academy" actually exist? The four mentions of it in v10 were all actually MSA or SMA or ___ in the raws.}
Master Sword Academy

Real World Terms:

Spoiler! :

Soul TransLator(ソウル・トランスレーター)
{its acronym is STL, not ST}
Soul Translator

Rath (ラース)
{written in English alphabet in v11, it's not an acronym, anyway}
RATH

Fluct Light (フラクトライト)
{FLA is shortform for Fluct Light Acceleration}
Fluctlight

Light Cube (ライトキューブ)
{matching the rest}
Lightcube

Artificial Labile Intelligent Cyberneted Existence (A.L.I.C.E)
(it's currently "Cybernetic" for some reason, despite it being "Cyberneted" in katakana, even if it doesn't make much sense)

Underworld Terms:

Spoiler! :

Life (天命) [HP in Underworld]

Transgression Quotient (違反指数) [chance of Human Units breaking a law]
Taboo Breaking Index

Sacred, Divine Instrument, Tool (神器)
{Am I the only who find "instrument" extremely odd?
Final Fantasy 11 used the same term and they translated it to "Mythic Weapons", but we're using the term for clock towers and stuff here.
Maybe something in a similar vein?}

Art Ritual (術式) [The chant spoken to use sacred/dark arts, or the text involved in said chant]
{I do want a better term for this. "art ritual" sounds awkward.}

Luminous Element (光素)
Umbra Element (闇素)
Cryogenic Element (凍素)
Thermal Element (熱素)
Wind Element (風素)
{Should these remain as these names, with formatting changed when they're said in English?
These were used as furigana in the web novel once, outside of the English sacred art lines.
But the novel edition has them with furigana in hiragana, read as it would in Japanese}

Sun God Solus (陽神ソルス)
Land Goddess Terraria (地神テラリア) {revealed to be female in v12}
Darkness God Vector (闇神ベクタ) {keeping consistent with the two above}
Goddess of Creation Stacia (創世の神ステイシア) {revealed to be female in v12 + "of" to account for the difference of "の (no)"}

I'd personally go for FluctLight (as it seems more logical as a compound, seeing as it is a shorter form of Fluctuating Lights) and UnderWorld (it depends on the meaning you are trying to achieve though).

And if no one is volunteering to do this change, I could do it myself, if I get permission.

[Lery]

You're welcome

Well, if you want to change them all for consistency's sake, you should maybe drop a word on the main thread (I'm not sure that so much people are looking at this one )

[Gsimenas]

Does anyone know where there is any reason why グランザム was romanized as Grandum instead of Granzam in volume 1? I'd like to settle this for consistency's sake on the SAO wiki. Thank you in advance for any help.

[Tap]

Is there an official English transcription of it?
It would be romanized as Granzam(u), but the pronunciation would be more like "Granzum".

Well, v1 was translated from Korean anyway, so there's probably inconsistencies here and there.

[Gsimenas]

Well, I don't know of any official English transcription of it. I only know that it is the katakana used in the raw and an editor on the wiki claimed:

""Dum" and "Zam" far enough apart that you can't fudge the pronunciation; "du" has an existent rendition as ヅ in Japanese, pronounced "zu." If it were that, it would be written that way. The standing text is ザ, pronounced "za.""

I'm not very competent in Japanese, so I can neither affirm, nor deny this statement, that's why I hoped that you would have more knowledge in this case.

And I know that the volume was translated from Korean, I have done a bit of reading on the forum and came across it somewhere. But we do now have the original version, so I was wondering if that changes anything.

[Tap]

It's romanized as "za".
But "zam" in English is pronounced like how it would be in "alakazam", while "zamu" (katakana) in Japanese would be pronounced like "jump", with a z sound instead of a j.
So if you expect the reader to pronounce it in Japanese, "zam" is accurate, but it would be "zum" when pronouncing in English.
Click on the listen button here and decide on your own, I guess? If there's no official English name.

[Gsimenas]

Ehm... I actually pronounce it the Japanese way... probably because I got the pronunciation from the anime stuck in my head

Anyway, as the wiki is more focused on the novel than the anime, we most use the version used by BT in most cases. Hence why I brought this issue up here. Personally, if there is no evidence to support Grandum, I'd go with Granzam or Granzum, as these two better suit the katakana, though I'm not sure which of these is better. As I've said, I pronounce it the Japanese way, so I don't see much of a difference

[Gsimenas]

Is there any reason why 安岐 ナツキ was translated as "Aki Natsumi", instead of "Natsuki"? Originally, I thought that somebody used google to get the Japanese for it, but, apparently, that's how it's actually written in the version of the raw that I checked.

[Tap]

Nah, it's just Natsuki.

[ckyuu]

in fact, why 絶剣 is translated as "Absolute Sword"..? personally i think, ultimate, or something like that might better suit the story...

[Tap]

Probably because that's how Lisbeth explained the kanji in the name in the prologue.
I don't think the meaning behind the name was actually explained anywhere, though.
Honestly, I would personally just leave it as Zekken and use TL notes for those.

[Cryum]

I think the meaning of "absolute" is a little different in japanese. Take ZHP, or Zettai Hero Project. Zettai means Absolute, so it becomes "Absolute Hero Project". I'm pretty sure Zettai means "without question or doubt" or "the perfect form of", but I'm probably off the mark in the subleties. Absolute doesn't seem to be a perfect fit for zettai, but I think it's the closest one we've got.