Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6192846-20151223075113/@comment-6192846-20151223205506

Octofan wrote: Servant of Evillious wrote: Gaou Octo changed his name to Octo Gaou and was made magistrate to rural Izasa apparently due to his lineage that the shogunate and its isolationist policy alienated. Would you say this is confirmation that Jakokuese characters are intended to have their names spelled with the surname first? If this is the case for the other characters in the novel, like the Mirokus or Sudous, I believe we should change them to match. We already should change the Octos past Gaou to match, given this.

Other cases of their names being given name first might just be because the "source" of their names was intended as "western" by mothy.

Or is this all discussion for after the infodump- In terms of in-universe? The style is very clear. Characters who are part of Jakokuese culture go by the surname first convention; Gaou Octo's name is Katakana but he has it changed to Kanji to better assimilate himself into that culture, including the name order.

As for changing articles to match, we could leave it as is. This isn't the first series to have a mix of western and eastern characters names with wikis either translating them all western style. We have to also keep in mind cases like Gammon where both a western and eastern styled name are employed simultaneously. Similarly, in the west Kayo is Kayo Sudou (katakana); for easterners, she's Sudou Kayo (kanji). And then we have Chartette's name getting what seems to be an in-universe corruption as "Saruteito".

It's clear mothy is trying to reflect a distinction of culture; it's our decision on how to apply that. Personally, I feel the only thing we absolute should do is have our character quotes leave honorofics and eastern names as they are to reflect that change in style on mothy's part. Articles can be handled the same or done differently, but reflecting the cultural tones in the quote is essential imo.