Where did Berserk names originate??

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Why Femto?

IsolatioN said:
...that, along with the Void coment, got me thinking: gutstonium? hmmm.. I'm just trying to piece it together. How does 10^-15 tie in with Berserk?
It sounds to me like you're trying too hard, dude.  :guts:

Examples like my Void BS are likely the extent of the meaning that can be drawn from 'Femto'.

PS: There's no such thing as gutstonium...
 

IsolatioN

Last Soldier Standing
Re: Why Femto?

oh, darn. You got my hopes all worked up Walter :judo:

haha, but yeah your right, I'm thinking too deep into it. Oh well!

Anyone else have any ideas on the origins of the name of our big blue friend?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Merged the thread...

Grunbeld said:
Femto could mean something in japanese. Or maybe even another language.

It doesn't mean anything other than what was said.

IsolatioN said:
I'm just trying to piece it together. How does 10^-15 tie in with Berserk?

It doesn't have to tie in with the story in that particular respect. He could have just liked the name, or it could refer to something we have yet to see. It could even be the name of another character in a Sci-Fi novel.

Androoh said:
The other day, I read on Wikipedia that Void's name is inspired by Frank Herbert's Destination: Void.

While a definite possibility (especially considering the Organic Mental Cores in the book), it's not a hard fact. It was never confirmed in any official manner so it's pretty much just speculation. "Void" isn't an uncommon word (unlike "Ubik" and "Slan") and Miura could have taken inspiration from a lot of different sources, see below. Anyway, Wikipedia isn't a very reliable source of information on Berserk, please don't refer to it.

Walter said:
Well, 'Slan', Joseph Conrad, and 'Ubik' are, but... not Void.

Well, Miura stated that he took inspiration for the names of the God Hand in the Sci-Fi book collection "ハヤカワ文庫(Hayakawa Bunko)SF" that he was reading while in high school. It's a collection containing hundreds of famous Sci-Fi works. In the old publications of that collection, to be precise the 500 first ones, the only fitting entry for "ボイド" is that of science fiction author John Boyd. Written the same in Japanese even if different in English. "ボイド-星の方舟" (Destination: Void) wasn't published in that collection, and the only edition of it I found came out in Japan on 1995/10/26, too recently to be a valid possibility.

Also, regarding what you quoted, I don't think Joseph Conrad is a strong possibility for the origin of the character's name.
 
S

Some Guy

Guest
Anything on Nosferatu Zodd? I know that "Nosferatu" basically means undead (coined from the silent German horror flick?), but what about Zodd? It seems distinct enough to have some sort of inspiration.
 
yeah, i'm curious about some of the apostles names like Zodd, Wyald (apparently it isn't "Wild" like i thought), Roshinu, Lokus, Rakshas, Grundbeld, etc.. maybe i haven't spelled them right. also, the first apostles never had names did they? i've only heard them refered to as "Snail Count", "Snake Baron" and "The apostle that Guts is banging at the beginning of vol 1"...
 

Aazealh

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Staff member
Knight o' Skeleton said:
I know that "Nosferatu" basically means undead (coined from the silent German horror flick?)

Bram Stoker made the word popular in his novel "Dracula", in which he states that "nosferatu" means "non-dead" in Romanian. I heard there are doubts about the veracity of this fact, and Bram Stoker himself just learned of the word in a book about folklore as far as I know. The director F.W. Murnau used the title "Nosferatu" for his adaptation of "Dracula" because he didn't have the rights to the story.

As for "Zodd", I don't know where it originates but I don't think there's necessarily a specific source for it. Miura could have invented it for all we know.

A.C said:
yeah, i'm curious about some of the apostles names like Zodd, Wyald (apparently it isn't "Wild" like i thought), Roshinu, Lokus, Rakshas, Grundbeld, etc.. maybe i haven't spelled them right.

Yeah, you haven't. We aren't sure of the spelling of several of these names though. Locus could be Roch, Rochine could be... Well something else, same for Grunberd. And it's Wyald indeed, as we've been saying on SK.net for years.

A.C said:
the first apostles never had names did they? i've only heard them refered to as "Snail Count", "Snake Baron" and "The apostle that Guts is banging at the beginning of vol 1"...

Well they probably had names, but we don't know what they are because nobody used them in the story. So for us they'll always remain nameless.
 

trapped_soul

"This is it. It's over."
Aazealh said:
Bram Stoker made the word popular in his novel "Dracula", in which he states that "nosferatu" means "non-dead" in Romanian. I heard there are doubts about the veracity of this fact

I recall our Art teacher at university stressing that "Nosferatu" originally means "the impure" or "disease carrier" and that the widespread rumour of it meaning "undead" is utterly wrong.

-TS
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
trapped_soul said:
I recall our Art teacher at university stressing that "Nosferatu" originally means "the impure" or "disease carrier" and that the widespread rumour of it meaning "undead" is utterly wrong.

If my memory serves me well it's not even "undead" in the original common wrong interpretation anyway but something more like "non-dead" like I said, so it doesn't even carry the appropriate meaning for a vampire. Since we're at it I searched quickly and found some precisions on the matter from this site:

A very tricky etymology. The word was popularized by its use in Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ (1899), hence the title of Frank Murnau's silent film _Nosferatu_. Many post-Stokerian sources give meanings such as "plague-bearer","not breathing", "not dead", and "an old Romanian word for Devil." There seems to be a general sense that it may be a Romanian word, as suggested by the "-u" ending, although some also give a "nosferat" as either an alternate form or a form inflected for different grammatical number. These sources differ on whether "nosferat" is plural and "nosferatu" singular or vice-versa, but I am inclined to discount this entirely since it is completely inconsistent with Romanian grammar. Indeed, I am inclined to discount most of the above etymologies due to their clear inconsistency regarding one another and the fact that both the "plague-bearer" and "not breathing" glosses can perhaps be seen to derive from rather doubtful attempts to find Latin morphemes within "Nosferatu". My guesses as to the logic behind a few of these attempts:
nos-feratu <- "nos" (?) + Latin "*feratu" (from "fero", 'bear' or 'carry')
no-sferatu <- Latin "non" (not) + Latin "spiratus" ('having breathed')

I have consulted a number of Romanian dictionaries and encyclopedias with no success in finding "nosferatu". I have asked several native Romanians whether the word was familiar to them and none have recognized it. This would imply that the word, if it really is Romanian at all, is an archaic or little-known dialect expression or perhaps both. It is also conspicuously absent from many books on Romanian folklore which have been compiled from actual field studies, and I have never found a reference which actually recounts any interview with a real live Romanian in which "nosferatu" is used. Considering the extraordinary number of Romanian terms for vampires and related creatures that have been enumerated in such studies, this is odd indeed.

Fortunately, Leonard Wolf, in his _Annotated_Dracula_ (1975), identifies Stoker's source for the word (which Wolf glosses as Romanian - "not dead", pg. 193) as _The_Land_Beyond_the_Forest_ by Emily Gerard (1888). From an excerpt in Wolf, th is book appears to be a travel sketch in the classic Victorian manner dealing with Transylvania. Unfortunately, I have never found a copy, so this is as far as I have gotten along these lines. The above evidence however inclines me to doubt the accuracy of Gerard's observation.

At one point it was suggested by Carpathian native Triszna Leszczyc on alt.vampyres that "nosferat" may be a corruption or foreign misapprehension of a term "necurat" which is used as a euphemism when referring to the Devil or assorted other evil beings. I haven't looked into it deeply, but there could be something to this. I find it highly possible that it may have influenced the accounts of the "nosferat"/"nosferatu" dichotomy, even if it is not the ultimate source of "nosferatu."

So basically it seems to be a recent and mostly fictional term that has no historical relevancy.
 
Aazealh said:
And it's Wyald indeed, as we've been saying on SK.net for years.

ah, well.. i'm not one of the people who has been here for years... still, how could you be so sure Wyald was the correct spelling of his name? what is "Wyald", where does it originate from and what does it mean?
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
A.C said:
how could you be so sure Wyald was the correct spelling of his name? what is "Wyald", where does it originate from and what does it mean?

Who said anybody was "so sure" about it? Without an official spelling you can never be 100% sure, if only because of minor distinctions like Wyard/Wyald. It's just that it was judged the most likely/sensible spelling by qualified people (like say, Olivier Hagué), as opposed to what poseurs who don't understand Japanese might have said elsewhere. Same goes for a lot of names in Berserk, like Schierke or Isidro, but also Guts and Casca. Not so long ago we were still the only community to spell them correctly. The name "Wyald" in itself has no meaning and as far as I know Miura invented it. It couldn't have been "Wild" because the two words are written differently in Katakana (ワイルド and ワイアルド).
 
If it helps: Roshinu or Rochine has been translated to "Rosine" in the German version of the manga, which would mean "raisin" in English.
I realize that this has been mentioned in several old threads before but none of them had brought up the fact that this is also a (very obsolete) German firstname of latin origin.
It's supposed to be a variation of "Rosina" (a more common name) and it originates from "Rosa" (the rose) a name that used to be common in Italy during the middle ages and became common in Germany later on through the novel "Rinaldo Rinaldini" by Vulpius which had a character named "Rosa" in it.
(This has been researched on various sites, I'll try to have it confirmed asap.)
 

Walter

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That would make sense except that if Roshinu was supposed to be "Rosine" it would have a different spelling: "Ro-zii-nu"
 

Aazealh

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Staff member
Chung said:
If it helps: Roshinu or Rochine has been translated to "Rosine" in the German version of the manga, which would mean "raisin" in English.

The German edition, you mean the one that translates Casca as "Kjaskar", Femto as "Femuth", Ubik as "Jubik", beherit with "lith" at the end, and best of all: Schierke with a 'L' instead of the 'R'? I'm not sure I want their insight on the matter, and unfortunately I don't think it can help us in any way. That being said, it is a possibility, regardless of the German edition's general quality. For info, here is what Olivier said on the matter a few years ago:

Olivier Hague said:
Once again, I'd really like to ask Miura how he'd spell that name. ^_^;;;
The spellings I came up with: "Rochine", "Rosienne", "Rosiene" and "Rocene".
I like "Rochine", myself. ^^;

At the moment I like "Rochine" as well. :beast: Hopefully someday we'll get a confirmation from Miura...
 
Yeah, I know they have stupid translations, but Rosine sounded quite plausible when compared to the other names of the characters you mentioned. And by getting it confirmed I was referring to get confirmed that it's an actual name by someone who knows latin, it's not like I didn't know that the translators of the German version were doing a crappy job  :troll:
But I do believe in Olivier  :puck: So, Rochine it is then.
 

Judo

Midlands finest
the translator of the german edtion spelled Schierke with an L because that's the name of a witch of an old tale in northern germany.
Kjaskar is also an old german name.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Chung said:
Rosine sounded quite plausible when compared to the other names of the characters you mentioned.

The tricky part is transliterating the word in Japanese. Although spellings/sounds can be close, some things work and others just don't.

Chung said:
And by getting it confirmed I was referring to get confirmed that it's an actual name by someone who knows latin

It's cool, but you could have asked me directly. :void: Actually "Rosa" and "Rose" are still used as first names in Europe nowadays, but they're currently not very trendy (that stuff always changes and goes through cycles so they might be popular names again in 10 years).

Judo said:
the translator of the german edtion spelled Schierke with an L because that's the name of a witch of an old tale in northern germany.
Kjaskar is also an old german name.

Well that's great but both are incorrect spellings. And Schierke is also a town in Germany famous for its witches, but I'm not blaming the translator here (especially if he had to choose between two very close spellings); my point was just that it can't be used as a solid reference.
 

Spirit of Ukko

Eclipse darkened the horizon
Re: Why Femto?

Grunbeld said:
Femto could mean something in japanese. Or maybe even another language.
Well, I've always thought that "Femto" simply means "fifth". It sounds like it and for example "fem" is a Swedish word for "five". I think it might be in other languages too but Swedish is only language I've been studying that has such word. This might be obvious but I'm just curious if it really is obvious for English speakers. If it is then just excuse my stupidness.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Why Femto?

Spirit of Ukko said:
Well, I've always thought that "Femto" simply means "fifth". It sounds like it and for example "fem" is a Swedish word for "five".

The word "femto" comes from Norwegian (and other related Scandinavian languages), from a word meaning fifteen, which is why the prefix femto is used to refer to a factor of 10-15. That's as far as it goes etymologically.
 

Spirit of Ukko

Eclipse darkened the horizon
Re: Why Femto?

Aazealh said:
The word "femto" comes from Norwegian (and other related Scandinavian languages), from a word meaning fifteen, which is why the prefix femto is used to refer to a factor of 10-15. That's as far as it goes etymologically.
Ok, but i still think that it has something to do with the fact that Griffith was the fifth member of godhand. Obviously it has something to do with number five when it means fifteen and 10-15 . Miura might have just been playing with words that refers to number five though and "Femto" sounds cool.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Why Femto?

Spirit of Ukko said:
Obviously it has something to do with number five when it means fifteen and 10-15

Sorry, I think my previous reply was a bit confusing, that'll teach me not to post so fast. Femto itself doesn't mean fifteen, it's just a prefix that was derived from a word having that meaning (femten). And I don't think there's anything obvious about this, as far as we know it doesn't have any connexion. The dominant notion of the word is that it refers to something very small. The other names aren't related to a possible number regarding their position in the God Hand either, so that's pretty unlikely IMHO. Once again, let's keep in mind that the names don't necessarily have to mean anything in particular.

Spirit of Ukko said:
Miura might have just been playing with words that refers to number five though and "Femto" sounds cool.

Honestly, I don't think he did. Sounds far-fetched to me, besides fifteen isn't fifth and femto doesn't mean fifteen.
 

Spirit of Ukko

Eclipse darkened the horizon
Re: Why Femto?

You are propably right. I just thought it means "fifth" when i first saw the name. It seemed so obvious, but i guess it's not...

Aazealh said:
Once again, let's keep in mind that the names don't necessarily have to mean anything in particular.
That is so easy to forget when it comes to speculating "bigger meanings" of words.
 
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