lucastret23
Member
Hi! Some initial impressions of the translated names:
Honestly though, I think this game might be better off with the names untranslated for latin american spanish. Things dubbed/translated here usually don't translate the names at all (unless it's a very complicated english word) and you can see the aversion people have for translations given how much fan we make of translated names in brazilian/eurospanish dubs. If that's not on the table then thinking up some more original names (in the sense of deviating from the original name a bit) might be the best since most of these characters rely on cool sounding words that spanish can't offer in a 1:1 relationship.
- Haze: "Niebla" as a word is closer to fog, it loses the "hazy" part of the word and without it there's no sense of confusion, sleepyness, mistery. "Bruma" refers to very light fog caused from light drizzle which also loses it's hypnagogic feeling.
- Shiv: I'm saying this seriously, "El Navajas" sounds like a joke. It's a common joke to give someone a very bad nickname using an "el sustantivos" format. It's very hard to take seriously. Removing the article would do wonders here
- Wraith: "Espectro" just doesn't have the connotations of a wraith, the word sounds too much like a regular ghost. I like the idea of it having the masculine form of the noun though, with her dressing as a male gangster (women wearing suits didn't become socially acceptable until the 60's if i'm not mistaken).
- Mirage: So Mirage's name being in english has this exotic feeling reminiscing of old adventure stories (in this case coming from this non-descript "Arabia"). With "espejismo" this gets completely lost, since it's a very plain sounding word in spanish (unlike mirage which comes from french).
- Warden: Not sure how "Warden" feels to an english speaker, but "Guardia" feels way too pedestrian (it doesn't help that "guardia" can be used to mean either one person or a group of guardians). If the idea is to elevate a simple word to command authority something like "El Guardián" would work way better. The article here would help giving his name a sense of individualized prestige (i.e a single person with prestige instead of a person that comes from a prestigious group).
- Gray Talon: His english names rolls of the tongue nicely and sounds commanding. Neither "Jefe Garra" nor "Garra Gris" have that quality. Ironically "Talón Gris" would sound a lot better (it just doesn't make sense). Maybe here it might be a good idea to think of a different native american sounding name.
- Paradox: "Paradoja" lacks that exotic quality that the X gives to "Paradox". It just doesn't sound cool in spanish.
- Vyper: "Víper" is not a common word at all and I'm 99% sure that people are more likely to have heard the word "vyper" in english than "víper" in spanish. "Víbora" is a word you use to refer to small garden snakes and thus sounds weak and unimportant.
Honestly though, I think this game might be better off with the names untranslated for latin american spanish. Things dubbed/translated here usually don't translate the names at all (unless it's a very complicated english word) and you can see the aversion people have for translations given how much fan we make of translated names in brazilian/eurospanish dubs. If that's not on the table then thinking up some more original names (in the sense of deviating from the original name a bit) might be the best since most of these characters rely on cool sounding words that spanish can't offer in a 1:1 relationship.
