Lunar Threads

I was looking up some names to see their meanings when I ran across the name Xenobia, and I thought, "It would be neat to look up every Lunar character". So I did and here is what they mean:

NAME/LANGUAGE/MEANING

Lunar 1

Alex: (Greek) Defending men

Nall: (possibly from the Irish name Niall meaning champion)

Ramus: (possible combination of the Sanskrit, Hebrew and Latin names Ramos, and Remus, respectively; Ramos meaning pleasing/supreme and Remus meaning oar/swiftness)

Laike: (American/Laik) From near the lake

Dyne: (possibly derived from the Old English name Dane meaning from Denmark)

Luna: (Latin) Moon

Althena: (possibly a combination between the Greek names Athena and Althea meaning wise and healing herb, respectively)

Nash: (English) At the Ash tree

Mia: (Scandinavian) Sea of Bitterness

Kyle: (Gaelic) Straight of Water

Jessica: (Hebrew) God beholds

Tempest: (English) Storm

Fresca: (Spanish) cool or fresh EDIT *CREDIT Werefrog*

Mel: (American) Short form of Melvin (Gaelic/Old English) meaning gentle lord

Ghaleon: (possibly derived from the Greek name Galen meaning calm)

Xenobia: (Greek) the life of Zeus

Phacia: (possibly a derivation of the Greek name Ophelia meaning help)

Royce: (Latin) Rose

Taben: (possibly from a Irish name (Dagen) meaning black haired)

Myght: (possibly derived from an Old English name (Wright) meaning carpenter)

Lemia: (possibly derived from the English/French name Demia meaning half)

Quark: (possibly derived from the Irish or Gaelic name Cork meaning swamp or marsh)

Lunar 2

Hiro: (Japanese) second son

Ruby: (English) the red gemstone

Zophar: (possibly from the Arabic name Zaphar meaning victory) EDIT Also Hebrew, meaning doubtful *Credit KF*

Borgan: (possibly a derivative of the name Jorgan which is a variant of the Greek name
George meaning farmer)

Lucia: (Italian variant of the Latin name Lucy meaning light)

Leo: (Latin) meaning Lion (interestingly Lion in Hebrew means the strong one)

Ronfar: (possibly a combination of the Old English name Renfred meaning powerful peace and the Old French name Bonar meaning gentle/mannerly)

Jean: (Hebrew) meaning the Lord is Gracious

Lemina: (possibly derived from the Latin name Lumina meaning brilliant light)

Gwyn: (Old Welsh) fair

Lunn: (Irish or Gaelic) strong or war-like

Mauri: (possibly derived from Maurine a variant of Mary which is Miriyam in Hebrew which is unknown, but related to the mother of Moses)

Lunar Dragon Song

Jian: (Indian) Intelligent EDIT (the non-bastardized version of the Hebrew name Jean also means God is gracious in its masculine form) *Credit KF*

Lucia: See listing for Lucia above

Gabryel: (Hebrew) God is my might

Rufus: (Latin) Red/Red Haired

Flora: (Latin) Flower

Ignatius: (Latin) Fiery

Zethos: (Greek) A son of Zeus

Gad: (Hebrew) Fortune or luck

Zophar is also a biblical name (Book of Job, I believe). Xenobia/Zenobia () is also mentioned in the Bible--looking it up, she was the Syrian queen of Palmyra. KF

Luna means moon in my (Slovenian) language as well. Probably also in neighbouring Slavic languages.

I updated it, also if anyone knows what Fresca means in Spanish please tell me. I am guessing it means "fresh" but I figured I'd rather wait on that.

I'm trying to find definitions of the names not just references to historical figures. But if you have one I'll still add it.

also added Lunar DS

Aaron wrote:I updated it, also if anyone knows what Fresca means in Spanish please tell me. I am guessing it means "fresh" but I figured I'd rather wait on that.

It's Spanish for awful soda that's supposedly flavored like grapefruit.

Seriously though, it means "cool" when applied to temperature or "fresh" when applied to food.

I like the idea that it's supposed to mean "cool." That seems to fit better.

Jian's name is closer to the French Jean (pronounced "Jahn" as in Jean-Jacque Rousseau, not like the Jean in Lunar 2). The transliteration "Jian" was only picked to avoid confusion with the Lunar 2 Jean's name. KF

updated! and ty to Kizyr and Werefrog. Also if anyone can help me find new/better definitions for:

Gad, Miriam, and Xenobia

I looked in the Lunar I+II artbook and they also list Zophar's name as Zone Pharaoh.

Another possible angle on Ghaleon is the ship.

A Galleon was a European sailing ship.

And Zophar was indeed in Job. He was one of three friend's of Job and I believe he was the eccentric one.

Werefrog wrote:

Aaron wrote:I updated it, also if anyone knows what Fresca means in Spanish please tell me. I am guessing it means "fresh" but I figured I'd rather wait on that.

It's Spanish for awful soda that's supposedly flavored like grapefruit.

This is actually true. Well, not the Spanish part. But Vic got the name from the soda, then added the line about it being short for Francesca as camouflage.

I don't know if you're just being vaguely curious about the meanings of the names that happen to be in the games or speculating on why they were chosen. Because if the latter, you need to keep in mind that you're looking at translations which have factors like the above and that several of the original Japanese-version names are quite different and were chosen for different reasons. Here are some off the top of my head.

Alex: named Arhes in the J games as a rendering of the Japanese pronunciation of the English word Earth (aresu). Goes with Luna, of course.

Luna: As Kizyr has noted elsewhere, was named Elena in at least one piece of production art for TSS.

Quark: Name chosen by WD (I think Vic may discuss this briefly in the Making of SSSC disc) in part for the idea of quarks as being fundamental units of matter in the universe. Named Fidy in the Japanese games.

Dyne: spelled Dain in the Japanese games, just FYI. I don't know if there's any significance to his name, but do know that Akari Funato, in her manga about Ghaleon and his older brother, selected Zain as the brother's name as being one letter/character different from Dain.

Althena: I can't imagine this wasn't based on Athena, given the Greco-Roman vibe of the Goddess Tower in TSS. Althea/'healing herb' would fit nicely with my theory that Althena's primary bailiwick is healing, but I really doubt that was a factor.

Kyle: named Killy in the J games.

Tempest: named Temzin (Temujin) in the Japanese games. As has been frequently noted here, Temujin is what the Japanese call Ghenghis Khan, and this fits with the nomadic city of Pao.

Fresca: see above. Named Pilya in the J games.

Phacia: named Faithia in the J games. Perhaps it was intended to imply 'faith', which would fit with certain aspects of her role, but her first mention is (offscreen) in the Childhood's End manga, which has little, if anything, to do with her SSSC character.

Royce: named Rouyce in the J games. Still, 'rose' may not be far from the mark, as you do first meet her in Black Rose St.

Taben: named Batanen in the J games.

Myght: named Maight Fain in the J games.

Lemia: named Remilia (not to be confused with the Japanese version of Miria's name, Remieria). I can't imagine why you'd think this could be related to Demia.

Ruby: originally named Mink early in development.

Zophar: as noted, called Zone Pharaoh in the artbooks, so unlikely to be Biblical. But for what it's worth, Zophar was not that good a friend to Job, encouraging him to curse God and die rather than stay strong in faith.

Ronfar: named Rong-Fa in the J games.

Lemina: named Remiena in the J games. I think it's pretty unlikely to come from Lumina; if anything, I'd speculate that the 'na' came from Nasch. All of the Ausa names involve 'mi' and nearly all include L/R.

Gwyn: named Guen in the J games.

Lunn: named Rainus in the J games, but WD didn't want to use the obvious Linus.

Mauri: named Mauli in the J games, a traditional Irish name.

Gad: the name of one of the 12 Tribes of Israel. It won't have escaped you that there are a great many Biblical names in Genesis/Dragon Song, which I expect were selected to suggest that this was way back in history. It was mostly the humans with those names, as opposed to the Italian names of the beastmen; I'd guess that that was to suggest the Renaissance and the dominant, cultured group rather than the rustic peasant humans.

Miriam: the mother of Moses.

Most of what Alun said is accurate, although some of it is speculative--widely speculated to the point of being generally accepted, mind you. Just a few clarifications:

First, Dain/Dyne, Myght/Maight, Royce/Rouyce, Lemina/Remiena, Gwyn/Guen, and Mauri/Mauli are all almost purely transliteration differences. The pronunciation difference is insignificant for all of those. Phacia/Faithia would fall into that category, except the connection with "Faith" is very likely intentional.

Alunissage wrote:Tempest: named Temzin (Temujin) in the Japanese games. As has been frequently noted here, Temujin is what the Japanese call Ghenghis Khan, and this fits with the nomadic city of Pao.

Well, Temujin is what Genghis Khan's name really was (not just for Japanese, but for everyone). Genghis Khan was only his title. Considering that the Pao tribe in TSS was modeled after Mongolian nomads (like with the style of the tents), this was likely intentional.

Alunissage wrote:Lemia: named Remilia (not to be confused with the Japanese version of Miria's name, Remieria). I can't imagine why you'd think this could be related to Demia.

Miria's name in the Japanese EB was still Miria; there wasn't any change there. KF

Huh. I must've read Miria's name wrong once (probably 7 years ago), or read something that had it wrong, and never realized it. She's such a minor character that she's rarely mentioned anywhere that would use Japanese transliterations, nor have I ever noticed her name written in katakana.

I knew I'd get the Temujin/Genghis Khan thing wrong (I always forget which is which of name and title) so I settled for quoting someone. Who, I have no idea now.

I mentioned the different transliterations because if Aaron were going off of what they were in the English games he might head off in the wrong direction -- someone who thinks Lemia could be related to Demia is clearly going by exactly what it says and not likely to compensate for, say, Mauri vs Mauli. And as far as I've ever heard, Mauli is a "real" name (probably related to Molly, which is probably related to Mary, I'd guess) and Mauri is not.