SpellMyNameWithAnS alternate/fan spelling uses?

Someone keeps changing all instances of "Kyoko" to "Kyouko" on the Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion page; the former is the official working romanization, while the latter has been used officially a few times, and captures the pronunciation better, but is almost never used in official romanizations/translations anymore.

Now, I don't think that this wiki should impose rules requiring people to use the official romanization of names of this type, but what do other people think of this? Personally, I think that people should use whatever spelling they want, but if someone goes through an article to change all instances of an official spelling to a fan/alternate spelling, someone should change all instances back to the official spelling.

Example:

• Suppose we have a character whose official romanized name is "Toya", but fans often use the spelling of "Touya" because it's more accurate to the Japanese pronunciation.
• On the series' trope page, there are mixed instances of "Toya" and "Touya". Nothing should be changed.
• Someone goes through the page changing all instances of "Toya" to "Touya". At this point, all instances should be changed back to "Toya".
• Afterwards, adding more "Touya" instances is fine, unless all "Toya"'s are changed to "Touya"'s again.

What do you think?

edited 13th Dec '13 5:36:48 PM by DarthMegatron

I agree with that. At the same time, though, the alternate spellings need to be noted somewhere on the page in all of these cases. It can be confusing for people who aren't fans of Japanese works, and there are many cases in fiction of two characters in the same work having names off by one letter.

Gah. Again with these spelling arguments?

I am not particularly interested in these disputes, but I would say that a character being named inconsistently can create confusion. I would stick with the English release spelling and use something like Fan Pronunciation for such a fan spelling.

I'd say generally leave it alone. It's like the difference between British and American English. Well, sometimes it's just a fan translation that got used in one place but is neither official nor used elsewhere, in which case it probably should be changed.

The most accurate romanization is the one with the macron anyway. Just use whatever the official english release uses.

While we're on the subject of the o/ou romanization, I disagree that "ou" somehow 'captures the pronunciation better', as in English that vowel combination is used primarily to create an 'ow' sound and not an 'oh' sound (with the notable exception of 'ough' which has like eight different pronunciations anyway).

edited 15th Dec '13 11:55:46 AM by Stratadrake

We shouldn't go with "official English names only" as a policy, that's for sure. *cough4KIDScough*

That's a different issue altogether. That is outright changing names, not just spelling. And it's something video games do all the time and no one bats an eye.

Video games aren't really that involved in the Subbing vs. Dubbing conflict that exists in anime, which is part of the spelling battles mentality. Also that there are far fewer fan-translated video games, and that many video games allows renaming characters. It's a different culture.

I agree that there shouldn't be any outright policy forcing people to use official translations, but the problem is if someone meticulously goes through the page to replace all instances of the character's/item's name with an unofficial romanization/translation that they find to be more accurate. This also applies to dialogue snippets and stuff.

Like I said, some "Kyoko" and some "Kyouko" on the page is fine, but not if someone goes through the page to replace all "Kyoko" with "Kyouko". Or in the case of Death Note, replacing "Light" with "Raito" or "Ryuzaki" with "Ryuuzaki".

Dub Name Change is a different matter altogether.

Just had a look at the official Madoka/Oriko Magica manga translation and it indeed uses "Kyouko", so that confirms that both spellings are correct. It just means that, if all instances need to be replaced, "Kyoko" should be used for the anime and "Kyouko" should be used for the manga, in my opinon. But ideally, pages on either should use both spellings depending on the editor, since neither should really dominate.

edited 30th Dec '13 8:03:13 PM by DarthMegatron

Just saw so I'm going to comment. I don't think Kyoko/Kyouko is same as Light/Raito. The former is merely variation in romanization style. The latter, though, is an English word versus a rough romanization. The English word should be considered proper so long as it's clear that the intent was to use that word and not deliberately spin it (like Taiga).