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If Togashi originally conceived the names in Japanese, for example Furikusu, how was it decided that this would translate into the decidedly weird Freecss, with 2 's'?

How did Zorudikku become the decidedly English-sounding Zoldyck?

How is the official spelling of names like Zushi decided from Zooci, or Killua over Kirua? Or when Chrollo is used over Kuroro?

Is it all simply a translator's discretion, or is there input from someone else about what they might have been intended to be?

650aa6a2
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  • This might answer your question [Is it common practice to change names and titles into different things?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/7812/1458) – Dimitri mx Sep 16 '19 at 19:09
  • Related: [Why do Japanese names change within a manga to have various forms at different times?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/39722/2516) (especially the case of *Akame ga Kill*'s official English character name) – Aki Tanaka Oct 19 '20 at 14:48
  • Also, for comparison, [the official romanized names mentioned in the official Japanese databook](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11115208516) (no, all of them are not typos) – Aki Tanaka Oct 19 '20 at 16:02

2 Answers2

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Because this is how it translates to phonetical English. Furikusu basically sounds as "Freakks" (Sounds like Freak but with a bit more emphasis on k sound). Kirua would be pronounced as Killua. Kuroro is Chrollo.

This is because of the lack of vowels and consonants in the Japanese language. To compensate for it, they add a vowel of their own after a consonant. For example -

  1. The English word "Freak" would be pronounced as "Furiku".
  2. "Accent" would be pronounced as "Akkosento".
  3. "Hunter" would be pronounced as "Huntoru"

Trust me, they are all right. To understand this yourself, you can go here > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTYB3-pQk8o

Aki Tanaka
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Gon_Freecss
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    As you said, フリークス can be read as either 'Freecss' or 'Freaks'. How, then, did they choose one over the other? – W. Are Oct 06 '19 at 22:09
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    @W.Are I'm pretty sure they didn't want to add the negative implication that Ging and Gon are freaks. – RichF Oct 25 '19 at 01:01
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    @RichF Good point XD But there's got to be different variations to spelling and such to a name that sounds like 'Freecss' and what I'm interested in knowing, and what the OP wants to know, is that above all these variations, how did they choose the appropriate English translation? Why not 'Freecs' or 'Freekss' or 'Freeks' or 'Frikss' or 'Frikks'? (Just examples) I might be wrong but I don't think this answer addresses this. – W. Are Oct 25 '19 at 09:05
  • W.Are correctly interpreted the question and it remains unanswered. – 650aa6a2 Oct 30 '19 at 19:47
  • The Japanese pronunciation/transliteration is unfortunately wrong: freak -> *furiiku* (long i), accent -> *akusento* (no double consonant), hunter -> *hantaa* (different from the spelling at all). – Aki Tanaka Oct 19 '20 at 14:28
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Because the creator provided proper romanizations of the names. Every name as it is written in the subtitles appears that way on official material

Voodin
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  • That would do it. So Togashi himself wrote those translations, and I'd just have to find wherever he first wrote them to prove it. And the cases where there are different spellings used like Zooci vs Zushi and Killua vs Kirua must simply be a matter of the given translator not having seen those official romanizations? – 650aa6a2 Dec 04 '21 at 18:06