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In Tower of God, people's names changed from one chapter to the next.

Example:

  • Jahad to Zahard
  • Lahel to Rachel

Why is that?

Aki Tanaka
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okarin
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    @user112825 My knowledge of Korean is... not much... but it looks like those are just differing romanizations for the same Korean word. Why do they differ from chapter to chapter? Probably different translators for each chapter (and/or the translators are forgetful, lazy, or incompetent). – senshin Dec 22 '13 at 17:54
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    Jahad to Zahard was understandable for me. Lahel to Rachel lost me for a moment though. In Kenichi, when they changed Ba (Sougetsu) to Ma (Sougetsu), I became a really confused into angry person. – krikara Dec 22 '13 at 18:21

1 Answers1

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Name changes could be for a few different reasons. Most of the time, however, the English spelling differs because two different translators just decide to spell it differently.

In Korean, there is no Z sound. There is only a J sound, so words with the J sound like Jahad might be translated into Zahard depending on the translator's interpretation. As for the additional R in the name, that is really up for interpretation as well because English soft A sounds can be spelled like that. In this case, Zahard and Jahad will produce the same sound in Korean despite the English spelling differences. The spelling difference was only due to translator interpretations.

As for the Lahel to Rachel, this is a somewhat different case. Lahel is actually how the name sounds phonetically (pronounced lie-yell). Rachel is the English conversion of the name. It is like how the name Steven is Etienne in French. Lahel in Korean translates to Rachel in English.

krikara
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