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.
- 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)
