Talk:Jan Minakaze

So, uh, to bring up this old discussion, I'm one of the people who disagree with transliterating this kid's name as Jan. See this post here wherein I argue for his name to be the male French name Jean, which is not only an acceptable transliteration, but jibes better with the backstory of him being half-French.

As far as I know, there's no official Japanese source that renders his name in Roman letters, so it's kind of a preference call... I know Western fans have thought of him as Jan for the past decade or so, but I believe my research is sound, and it's not as though we don't buck tradition for the sake of accuracy here.

Thoughts, Japanese-speakers, French-speakers, and our home audience? --Monzo 08:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, it seems that "John" may also be an acceptable transliteration, although it does not appear to be as common as Jean is. Here's a breakdown.

• Katakana + Jean = 514,000 hits
• Katakana + John = 315,000 hits
• Katakana + Jan = 243,000 hits

--Monzo 08:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, though pronounce "Jan", ジャン is usually refer to "Jean" in Japanese usage... errrr, romanization again. By the way, the picture of Patty, Minerva and another girl(Illumina?) is awesome, do you know where I can find the original? Thanks a lot! ;D --TX55 08:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the romanization insight, TX.

(The original picture is here, from this book. I had to cut off Patty's legs to avoid putting Minerva's underwear on the wiki.) --Monzo 08:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome and thank you too for the information. ;D (Seems I got to go to the shop tomorrow.) --TX55 09:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've also always thought "Jan" was a rather poor translation, though my initial thoughts were that his name was "John". However, withyou bringing up that he's half-French, "Jean" does indeed make a lot more sense. I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to "Jean" (with of course a note on translation included), but I have a feeling we'd be in for an uphill battle if the whole "Deszaras/Deathsaurus" thing was any indication on how people react to decade-old translations being altered for this wiki... --DrSpengler 17:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Had I known years ago when I first started spreading the "Jan" spelling that the kid was half-French, I probably would've gone for the "Jean" spelling too. Having said that...I could've sworn the kid's last name is Minamikaze. Unfortunately, my copy of the TF manga collection isn't at hand to check.--Apcog 17:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

<blinks, sees redirect> Well, that was fast...--Apcog 18:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Is... is the second "mi" silent or something? Because it's spoken as "Minakaze" throughout the Victory anime. Also, I will point out that the R2 (and soon to be R4) DVDs use "Jan" (but as Monzo says, bucking tradition for the sake of accuracy is not a bad thing). - Chris McFeely

I don't know. I haven't seen a Victory episode in ages, much less one in which J(e)an's last name is mentioned. Again, I don't have my written sources handy to check. It's entirely possible it was "Minakaze" in the show and "Minamikaze" in the manga; both pronunciations are valid for the name kanji. --Apcog

I got out my copy of Transformers the Comics and on page 538 Patty identifies herself as "Patty Minakaze" and the name "Minakaze" is used several times in the issue, so it's not a one-off type-o or anything. No clue where "Minamikaze" came from, but I've never heard it anywhere else but in this article. --DrSpengler 21:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Weird. I won't deny I can be senile, as there's too much evidence to the contrary (for one thing, I thought I'd signed my last response), but this was one of which I was fairly sure, considering the direct juxtaposition with Solon Kitakaze.--Apcog 22:04, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Should Jean and Patty be moved back to Minakaze, then? --Monzo 00:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, go ahead. I just located the relevant TV Magazine issues, and it's Minakaze. Senility was at work, after all...--Apcog 00:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

What I'm interested in now, though, is that bit about Solon's last name. I wasn't aware he had one! That, of course, is, um, because I can't read Japanese, but does that come the from the manga too? I mean, it's a bit odd that Jan wasn't "Minamikaze," if they were going for that juxtapose ("Minamikaze" meaning "south wind" and "Kitakaze" meaning "north wind," for those playing along at home). - Chris McFeely 01:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

For whatever reason, it didn't occur to me this wasn't already known. Yes, Solon's last name is Kitakaze. Now that I have my TV Magazine issues at hand, I can even pinpoint it. It's mentioned on the third page of Chapter 3 (the debut of Leozack), when Solon transfers to Jean's school. I suppose the writer (or Takara or Toei staff member) who came up with the names figured that the kanji would be enough for the symbolism without going so far as to have Jean's last name pronounced "Minamikaze". ("Minakaze" seems to be somewhat more frequent in usage than "Minamikaze", at least from what I can find online, meaning the former would be a more "standard" pronuncation.) Unfortunately for this day on the wiki, I didn't realize I'd misremembered that fact until today.--Apcog 01:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh, that's interesting. I was under the impression - maybe from one of Hydra's translations? - that Solon's last name was Sorakaze, but I've never tried looking it up myself. (Their names are supposed to represent "South Wind" and "North Wind", right?)--Monzo 01:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Just go to check, "Minakaze" is used for last name, while "Minamikaze" is used for "the wind from south". --TX55 02:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for moving it to the wrong surname. Interrobang 05:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Half-French?

Where would this information come from? I don't recall it from the manga or the anime and the article doesn't have it sourced. Was it mentioned in TV Magazine? Geewunling 12:34, 29 October 2010 (EDT)

For the record (only 2 and a half years later!) a Victory Q&A in TV Magazine. --abates 23:40, 29 April 2013 (EDT)

Name origin

Sooooo, in spite of all of the above justification from years ago given towards his name being "Jean" instead of "Jan", along comes issue #67 of the TCC magazine with an article about the development of the Victory franchise, which includes newly-arisen information on the origins of the kid's name, which peg him as having been "Jan" all along:

Several origins are given for Jan's name: it was derived from "Japan," "jump," "join," junior," "justice," and "jumbo."

Though Jan's mother being half-French is also mentioned, there is a special note attached to this mentioning that refers to the fandom's using her background to render the boy's name as "Jean", and how the fandom's having done so is technically a misnomer:

*Jan's name is often interpreted as "Jean" due to his half-French lineage, but this idea was not present in the development of his character.

Furthermore, included in the article are two images of production documents that contain early design sketches and concept notes pertaining to Jan that denote the aforementioned origins of his name, and which spell his name as "JAN" in English three times (the first of which is written in huge bold letters as the page title in one of the pics) and include the English words "JR" (twice), "JAPAN", "JOIN", and "Justice". There's also an arrow pointing the second "JAN" to "JAPAN" like "JAN →JAPAN".

I think we can now safely say that the name was supposed to be "Jan" after all and the half-French thing was just a bonus aspect, rather than an integral aspect, of the character. Plus, since this Wiki has a history of using production info from such materials as these, like episode scripts and model sheets, the same would apply for these conceptual character sketches and notes, too, right? --Sabrblade (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2016 (EST)

I already slapped the move template on the article, so we'll see if there's any disagreement in the next few days. Saix (talk) 23:33, 18 February 2016 (EST)

*poke* I'll do it tomorrow if there's no objections. Saix (talk) 19:31, 25 February 2016 (EST)

And now I'm inspired to watch Victory just to get this dumb stub done with... maybe next week. Saix (talk) 19:34, 25 February 2016 (EST)

I guess "Jan" is more orthographically sensible where Japanese is concerned, but I also feel that "Jean" the French spelling makes more sense as a name. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 20:26, 25 February 2016 (EST)

Read what Sabrblade said. "Jean" was not the intention of the name and it's not our place to push personal interpretations of names. (The Ark II uses "Jan", if you need another official English document.) Saix (talk) 10:13, 26 February 2016 (EST)