If you are REALLY curious about the meanings of character names, read below. Might be a little LONG. No spoiler. First of all, we should know that Chinese is a tonal language, while English assigns stress to one syllable of every word. Tone is one of the distinctive features of standard Chinese(Mandarin). If we neglect the four tones in the transcription of Chinese names, we may lose/misunderstand informations, sometimes are quite important. Just look at these names: Chén Guǒ(Boss), Wèi Chēn(God of shamelessness), and Wǔ Chén(Captain of Team Everlasting). We’ve got three “Chen”s here but they don’t share the same tone. Yep, there are still two of them alike, but if we write them down in ideogram, you’ll see that they are completely different(of course their meaning varies). Now we’re at around Chapter 800, as a Chinese fan who has run through the whole novel four times, if you already find it hard remembering Chinese names, well, keep working, cuz still loads of new names ahead. I mentioned this point just because I saw a comment saying their names are similar. In fact, not at all😂. Second, Chinese is a high-density language, it means it carries more information per syllable than English, besides, Chinese has an enormous amount of so called set phrases(Chinese idioms) which are in general consist of only 4 ideograms each, but can tell a whole story!(that’s an insane information density). For the fluency of reading, it’s not possible to translate their names accurately. The translator has had to trim. Butterfly Blu is a vey talented writer, his works are written with much literary skill, as well as naming. We know that names can convey something, and almost every author would use this technic. For instance, in the Beggar’s Opera of John Gay, we have Lockit, Macheath, Peachum, etc. Without knowing the meaning of the names, it will definitely be a great loss. So, enough talk, let’s get started. [1] 叶修[Yè Xiū], MC 叶秋[Yè Qiū], the younger brother In Asian culture, if we are brothers, our names are usually some how similar, as if to demonstrate that we are brothers. It’s kinda like the rhetorical figure anaphora😄 another example will be more obvious: 苏沐橙[Sū Mù Chéng] 苏沐秋[Sū Mù Qiū] (Sū is their family name, not Sū Mù.) They doesn’t need to rhyme, but “anaphora”. Here we can see 叶秋 and 苏沐秋 have a character in common—the last character [Qiū], means autumn. This is merely a coincidence.But in the case of “One Autumn Leaf” is not. *I’ll write word-for-word translation between【】 一叶之秋[yí yè zhī qiū]【One Leaf ’s Autumn】 The second and the last character are exactly the name of Yè Qiū. Or, it might be a combination of Yè Xiū and Sū Mù Qiū. We know that it’s Sū Mù Chéng who picked this name for YX. She knows YX’s real name from the very beginning, so maybe she wished that they could fight together in the Glory. And, “One Autumn Leaf” is a mistranslation, cuz the literal translation should be “The autumn of one leaf”, “one leaf” is actually an attribute of the word “autumn”. We shift the order, and the artistic conception changes. P.S.Chinese is an isolating(analytic) language, means it plays with word order, and lacks inflections in morphology. That’s one of the reasons why it has such a high information density. BUT! When Sū Mù Chéng picked this name, she made a typing error. She wanted to type “一叶知秋”[yí yè zhī qiū],the pronunciation is exactly the same as “一叶之秋”[yí yè zhī qiū], but you already found that the third character has changed. The third character “知” here means “know, foresee”, so the whole meaning changed completely, because “One Leaf ’s Autumn” is a noun phrase whilst the one with “know” is a sentence which means “From a falling leave we can tell this year/my life(here’s a pun) is coming to an end.” 【One leaf heralds autumn】This is precisely the set-phrase I mentioned above. Sū Mù Chéng preferred a poetic name, but her fingers slipped. So here we have 【One Leaf ’s Autumn】instead of 【One leaf heralds autumn】. Sad story. What about “Lord Grim”? Another mistranslation! 君莫笑[jūn mò xiào]【you don’t laugh】 “Lord” in this context is the second person imperative when you address sb in a very respect way, kinda like “my lord” in English, but a little different. The sentence means “please don’t laugh”. It comes from a verse of a poetry of Tang Dynasty. The whole poetry is: (There are two translating versions) Version One： Grapewine I would like to taste, have to go yet I would crave. Thou dost not tease drunk soldiers of all, Long ago few come back from war. Version Two: Exquisite wine in cups that glitter at night, The pipa(a Chinese instrument) playing on horseback urges us to drink. Laugh not if we lie drunk on the battlefield. Since ancient times how many have ever returned from campaigns afar? So “君莫笑[jūn mò xiào]【you don’t laugh】”are the last three words of the third verse. What the hell is “Lord Grim”?😂 When we see this name, we can perceive the solemn and stirring shadings, when YX just got kicked out of EE then bring out a Card with this name. And thinking about the pro league is just like a battle field, only very few of the players could enter the pro circle and those who win the cup are even fewer. Nevertheless, we can not ask more, cuz as the translator of the Anime of TKA said, it’s a pity that we cannot make subtitles very much “faithful”, the cross-culture translation is so hard. I bet some of you has already blamed that the English subtitles just flying through the screen and you can not catch up with them. If anyone is interested in the true meaning of their names(not only for characters but also the names of guilds are so beautiful), please give me a thumb or reply in the comment, to let me know if it’s worthy to continue. btw, My major is foreign languages and literature. I major in German and live in Italy currently. So please forgive my low Englisch level.😂
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Wow! That's so incredible! You comments are really useful! I'm going to give a like to let other people see it!
I also have some other character's name: 夜雨声烦[yè yǔ shēng fán] The id card which Huang Shao Tian uses【night rain's sound is noisy】 黄少天[huáng shào tiān] The alternate captain in Lan Yu[蓝雨(lán yǔ)【Blue rain】] 王不留行[wáng bù liú xíng] The id card which Wang Jie Xi uses【Cowherb Seed(Wei Cao's id card's name are all Chinese herbal medicine】 王杰希[wáng jié xī] Captain of Wei Cao[微草(wēi cǎo)【Small grass】] Well...I will write more information if I have time...
Thank you for taking the time to write this! I found it really interesting, especially the part about One Autumn Leaf :)
This is very useful! I'm Chinese and my native language is also Chinese, and despite that, I learned a thing or two from this comment. I feel like such a disAppoiNtmeNt sighs Though I've only studied in china until I was in grade 1;;; but again, I can't blame my lack of efforts to continue to learn about my native language for me being lazy
Recall my friend hating me after pulling him multiple times to explain stuffs (his fault for making me read the original as my way to practice, not my fault I only started learning after uni... yeah, I dishonor our cow)
I have a question. In this novel and in others, I frequently see the word 'tyrannical' used when someone is surpressing another with sheer strength or ability. In TKA we obviously see the same word used for the Team/Guild, and often to describe Ye Qiū/Xiū's fighting. What does this mean precisely? Is there a difference between, say, 'Tyrannical Ambition' and the common phrase "it was too tyrannical?"
Thank you! It’s good to know this kind of info.
Please write more of this
Man you wrote a book, good job nice way to explain things!
Yeah, I kinda remember the meaning of some names because they were mentioned in the story. But mannn, do more! I really love this novel
Thanks
Keep writing them
AHHHHH! We should be friends!!!
Lol, I'll do the replying since Charlatan is busy af. Sorry, to make you wait. The word "Tyrant" is 霸王 [bàwáng] in Chinese, while Tyrannical Ambition is 霸气雄图 [bàqì xióngtú], with 霸气 being "Tyrannical". When describing something as "tyrannical", it's usually either 霸气 [bàqì] or 霸道 [bàdào], so yes, they are the same. What it means, precisely, is imposing, intense, overwhelming, powerful, etc. in a way that asserts oneself and one's power/superiority. I think so, at least, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong haha
Jordan_D:I have a question. In this novel and in others, I frequently see the word 'tyrannical' used when someone is surpressing another with sheer strength or ability. In TKA we obviously see the same word used for the Team/Guild, and often to describe Ye Qiū/Xiū's fighting. What does this mean precisely? Is there a difference between, say, 'Tyrannical Ambition' and the common phrase "it was too tyrannical?"
This was really insightful, knowing this information gives knew meaning and life to the characters and game avatars. It might be easier for information like this to be posted in a more set place since wading through is a little difficult. Maybe make tumblr posts or something similar? I hope you continue this and thank you!
Never in my life did ever want to learn a language so that I can finish reading it. Of course it is not happening anytime soon, but thanks to this kind of informative posts, I get to appreciate the story more. I cannot remember the day where I did not reread a part of the novel before going to sleep sometimes I get read until up to the latest chapter translated.
30 minutes ago you posted and I am liking it as 100th person. Would like to know more. Continue it you can
My reply was to charlatan.
It was a great read ^_^
Shut up Sword Saint o more talking!!!! ...lol
