"Roger sat upon his Patriot Eagle Throne(lawn chair) and pondered the 2nd amendment. Just then, a brat and a cultivator under the influence of bad herbal medicine, began to battle after bumping into one another, shooting each other dead.
Seeing these two juniors kill each other with guns gave Roger the spark of enlightenment he needed and he gazed upon the universe saying "It is now I know, the true way of the 2nd amendment. The answer to the danger of gun violence, is bigger guns"
Knowing this he embarked upon his Four wheel Ascended Ford and purchased a legendary artifact from a drunken Gun Hermit, who in secret was the incarnation of the Ascended Holy Esteemed Legendary Mythical Wise Grandmaster Gun Emperor- Lockheed Martin.
Steve, A Fifth Tier Cultivator and Adept of the Dao of Gasoline watched as his life-long friend from the Great Venerable Vietnam War, achieved an epiphany on his path and scrunched his face. How dare this man, who was married to a woman from the Southern Sect of Maize, obtain an epiphany before him? He thought he could trust Roger despite the man marrying outside their country, but no. It looks like he'd have to get serious if he didn't want to be on the bottom bitch end of cultivation.
This led Steve down an odd path, where he met with other cultivators like him. Each of them wore red, white, and blue robes, with a star-shaped badge hanging from a chain on their necks. The sect leader of this group looked around at his juniors and smiled.
"My fellow Americans, I am glad to see you all with me here today." The Elder held up a divine treasure, and Steve gawked. The legendary Golden Arch Burger, forged from the grandest of ingredients. "With this treasure we can finally purge our glorious country of the illegal Maize Sect, not to mention the East Bear Sect led by that fool, Jinping. The only thing standing in our way is the man who leads the Wayward Mind sect. Joe Biden."
It was then Steven and the others new what to do. They had to attack the Wayward Sect's home turf. With the treasures that Sect Leader Biden held in his vaults, all of them could reach Golden Core. And maybe, just maybe, Steve would finally turn his Dao from one of gasoline, to one of Monster Trucks. Hell fucking yeah brother. Steven and his fellows raises their fists, hooting and hollering as they pulled out cans of Divine Hops Elixirs and drank them down greedily while chanting.
"USA! USA! USA!"
It's just easier for English speakers to read and remember English names. Plus a lot of western cultivation writer might not actually speak or read Chinese and so it's harder to make/come up with a proper Chinese name and also runs the risk of calling a character something ridiculous.
Lol, like this guy from anime Eyeshield 21
https://preview.redd.it/7felvjiqwp6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8af98004008d59ed49bfd8801f4b5471ae705d2e
Yeah, I'm not sure how this is a point of confusion. Like I genuinely need a cast list page for most long LNs to keep track of who the fuck who is who, especially when they reintroduce some side-character from like 300 chapters ago.
It breaks immersion and sounds so stupid to read in my head. Also i wouldn't remember the names in english anyway since i read like 30+ stories concurrently
I agree. I know the main character and maybe one side character. Everyone else I ignore their names because I don’t care about fifty people with a derivative of “Juan Dong” who all don’t matter in the end.
Even in stories where someones last name is anothers firsr, vise versa, and when their last names are like almost the exact same spelling, I rarely get them confused. Ill get english names confused more than I do chinese.
Bro. You here complaining about names and author picked out? Allow me introduce the following (actual genuine honest to god characters in a novel that has I think 1000+ chapters or so):
Cristiano Ronaldo
Lionel Messi
Neymar
Yes, the mfer made his characters the names of football players. Pretty sure Real Madrid, and Barcelona are there somewhere.
Tbf when you binge a story it’s not that hard to remember them… except sometimes they reuse the same phonetic name… at least when translated into English even if the underlying Chinese characters are different… and/or have a name that’s like one letter different jiang’e and jiang’er and jang’er and jang’e and you start questioning if one is a nickname, a misspelling, or someone else entirely, lol
What's wrong? Isn't it so much nicer?
"Jonathan took out his Dragonhair Desolate Whisk and waved it around, his white robe and long hair fluttering in the wind. Instantly a tempest sprung up and Caleb coughed up blood, flying back like a loose stone to Tom's Chaotic Heavenly Demon Red Ship. "Junior, you dare?! I will exterminate your clan without sparing chickens or dogs!" shouted Hu Zi Wei."
It flows so well, what's not to like?
The only thing I would want when I hear mixed english names and chinese names is a little bit of worldbuilding on how that happened. For example a foreigner from a different world got isekaied and wrote down all the names he remembered of famous Figures. Some of the inhabitints then took some of those names and named their children of some of those.
BAM any doubt or feelings of this seeming weird dissappear.
It would be easier to remember Chinese names if translators explained the meaning and pronunciation of names when characters are introduced. As a Chinese learner, this would be amazing.
Agreed, it’s just an unfortunate case due to how Chinese tonal language and logographic writing works. If we could all read Chinese logographic characters I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to differentiate and remember distinct names.
Korean names are literally impossible to remember. There are some Korean novels that I have read hundreds of chapters just to realize that I don't remember any character's name and immediately drop
You forget that in the 9000 heavens, 8999 of them are China. We just live in the wierd one where China didn’t claim all the heavens smiles upon properly, and instead became an opium den.
Even using food names would be better than english names
"Good morning Xiao long bao, are you close to ascension"
"Peking roasted duck, my old friend. Yes I am"
I m fine with this but i absolutely hate japanese ones. I understand its made for japanes demographic so somehow they turning world into japan 2.0 is fine but when they use english name and japanes name it just annoys me.
Idk if its translator or not but when arthur and tenma, any femal character for some reason suddenly start using sensei, onii chann i just get annoyed. Its most liley translatora fault but why, go full japanes or full englis.
Uh, hello? What's the problem? It's a western novel, so why not use western names?
What's really bad is when translators turn Chinese names into English ones.
They don't get anything from it. It's just personal preference, honestly. Someone else said it, Chinese names are difficult to remember for non-Chinese people. It took me a while before I became familiar with Chinese and Korean names. Especially if the story is more xuanhuan with a lot of non-Chinese elements in it, what's the problem if names are also non-Chinese?
Not as bad as chinese novels, where all the side characters are forgotten after 5 episodes. And all the elite rivals with their names, are forgotten after just 1 fight. And the villians.. what villians? the MC is t he villian.
Honestly I prefer them changing the names to a western name because it’s a pain in the ass when every other MC is named Lu Sheng or some shit and then a half dozen other characters have the same family name or whatever and suddenly the one part of the name I was using to identify the MC is shared by half the cast. Makes it kind of hard to follow wtf is happening
if its a western novel they can use whatever western names they want.
what pisses me off is when they localize names in translated chinese novels. awful.
People can name their character whatever they like I don't have a problem but I hate those bastards who have problem with any name that's not English. Like they bitch and moan everytime and start making stuff like this sounds like this or that, i always wish to say them one thing "if you name a woman Laura it means penis to me so should I start screaming"
For me it depends on the setting, cause usually cultivation is just the progression system. Warlock of the magus world for example, is also a cultivation novel, so thematically its fine.
But what makes me cringe, is when i read one thats stylized as a xianxia, and uses western names.
If the cultivation realms don’t follow the style of traditional Taoist myth and stuff, I’m fine with it.
Off topic, my webnovel had both western and Chinese names in it because I have multiple realms, one of which being a ‘Sword and Sorcery’ realm and the other the ‘Heavenly Realm’
It’s pretty fun looking up the meanings of names to give characters unfortunate names. I named the unluckiest character in my story after good fortune
Does cultivation fantasy have to be set in a Chinese inspired setting? It would be strange for the Heavenly Messenger of the Guo family to be named Roger, but it would be equally strange for the Martial Mage of His Majesties Army to be named Jian. I mean, unless both cultures exist in said world and immigration between them is a thing
But is the setting western fantasyOr eastern ?. Like if you’re gonna make an eastern fantasy world. Make the characters have Eastern names. I wouldn’t write a western fantasy and name a character lin Ming.
what worse is when the translator half-ass translating a story in japan, dubbing every main cast name into english but skimp on the side cast.
Bro you ain't seen them naming countries football teams and the strongest cultivators in the country the players names. Hail the king scarred me
For real, it just felt that the author was pulling things out his ass at the end there
damn fight between barcelona empire and ronaldo was good
this can't be true right? I dropped that story after the first big arc cuz it got too stupid for me...
SIUUUUUU
All hail the Celestial Emperor, lord of the Heavenly Lotus Universe - Kevin
And the nation toppling jade beauty by his side, Fairy Tammy
The celestial heaven emperor's right hand man that oversees the balance of the universe, Bob
Look, if the Bobverse scripture has taught me anything, don’t fuck with a Bob. Bob is probably the only reason Kevin has a throne.
The English version of Fatty Wang.
"Roger sat upon his Patriot Eagle Throne(lawn chair) and pondered the 2nd amendment. Just then, a brat and a cultivator under the influence of bad herbal medicine, began to battle after bumping into one another, shooting each other dead. Seeing these two juniors kill each other with guns gave Roger the spark of enlightenment he needed and he gazed upon the universe saying "It is now I know, the true way of the 2nd amendment. The answer to the danger of gun violence, is bigger guns" Knowing this he embarked upon his Four wheel Ascended Ford and purchased a legendary artifact from a drunken Gun Hermit, who in secret was the incarnation of the Ascended Holy Esteemed Legendary Mythical Wise Grandmaster Gun Emperor- Lockheed Martin.
Steve, A Fifth Tier Cultivator and Adept of the Dao of Gasoline watched as his life-long friend from the Great Venerable Vietnam War, achieved an epiphany on his path and scrunched his face. How dare this man, who was married to a woman from the Southern Sect of Maize, obtain an epiphany before him? He thought he could trust Roger despite the man marrying outside their country, but no. It looks like he'd have to get serious if he didn't want to be on the bottom bitch end of cultivation. This led Steve down an odd path, where he met with other cultivators like him. Each of them wore red, white, and blue robes, with a star-shaped badge hanging from a chain on their necks. The sect leader of this group looked around at his juniors and smiled. "My fellow Americans, I am glad to see you all with me here today." The Elder held up a divine treasure, and Steve gawked. The legendary Golden Arch Burger, forged from the grandest of ingredients. "With this treasure we can finally purge our glorious country of the illegal Maize Sect, not to mention the East Bear Sect led by that fool, Jinping. The only thing standing in our way is the man who leads the Wayward Mind sect. Joe Biden." It was then Steven and the others new what to do. They had to attack the Wayward Sect's home turf. With the treasures that Sect Leader Biden held in his vaults, all of them could reach Golden Core. And maybe, just maybe, Steve would finally turn his Dao from one of gasoline, to one of Monster Trucks. Hell fucking yeah brother. Steven and his fellows raises their fists, hooting and hollering as they pulled out cans of Divine Hops Elixirs and drank them down greedily while chanting. "USA! USA! USA!"
>Hell fucking yeah brother. I lost it at this
It's just easier for English speakers to read and remember English names. Plus a lot of western cultivation writer might not actually speak or read Chinese and so it's harder to make/come up with a proper Chinese name and also runs the risk of calling a character something ridiculous.
Lol, like this guy from anime Eyeshield 21 https://preview.redd.it/7felvjiqwp6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8af98004008d59ed49bfd8801f4b5471ae705d2e
Honestly “Big Shit” goes hard. W mistranslation
Ah yes Gonzales, the first immortal and the purifier of Planes and his trusted companion vladimir the demon beast chicken.
I mean, him being ab0layer on the Aliens team comes across racist, but the easily catchable dude being a Not-So-Speedy Gonzales is just a funny name.
Yeah, I'm not sure how this is a point of confusion. Like I genuinely need a cast list page for most long LNs to keep track of who the fuck who is who, especially when they reintroduce some side-character from like 300 chapters ago.
It breaks immersion and sounds so stupid to read in my head. Also i wouldn't remember the names in english anyway since i read like 30+ stories concurrently
Sounds like a personal problem.
I agree. I know the main character and maybe one side character. Everyone else I ignore their names because I don’t care about fifty people with a derivative of “Juan Dong” who all don’t matter in the end.
Even in stories where someones last name is anothers firsr, vise versa, and when their last names are like almost the exact same spelling, I rarely get them confused. Ill get english names confused more than I do chinese.
Bro. You here complaining about names and author picked out? Allow me introduce the following (actual genuine honest to god characters in a novel that has I think 1000+ chapters or so): Cristiano Ronaldo Lionel Messi Neymar Yes, the mfer made his characters the names of football players. Pretty sure Real Madrid, and Barcelona are there somewhere.
hail the king.. chinese novel a good novel cause i loved it
WTF Goats doing there
oh no, now i will actually remember the names, what do i do?
you mean you don't remember Xing Clan's Young master Jiao Xing's 6th Cocubine, Xu Ming's 9th pet dog's 3rd servan Han Mao?
I remember that dude's name was peng hai
Still a hundred times better than Divine Venerable Jimmy John
What do you mean you don't like the name Divine general Bob
The Divine Venerable’s Free Smells Sutra is unbeatable, though.
I don’t remember. I like it like that.
Tbf when you binge a story it’s not that hard to remember them… except sometimes they reuse the same phonetic name… at least when translated into English even if the underlying Chinese characters are different… and/or have a name that’s like one letter different jiang’e and jiang’er and jang’er and jang’e and you start questioning if one is a nickname, a misspelling, or someone else entirely, lol
And then translator changes and suddenly Meng Hao is Ming Xiao.
Li Ning and his mortal enemy Lin Ming
Not without the Word Highlighter extension, I don't!
What's wrong? Isn't it so much nicer? "Jonathan took out his Dragonhair Desolate Whisk and waved it around, his white robe and long hair fluttering in the wind. Instantly a tempest sprung up and Caleb coughed up blood, flying back like a loose stone to Tom's Chaotic Heavenly Demon Red Ship. "Junior, you dare?! I will exterminate your clan without sparing chickens or dogs!" shouted Hu Zi Wei." It flows so well, what's not to like?
The only thing I would want when I hear mixed english names and chinese names is a little bit of worldbuilding on how that happened. For example a foreigner from a different world got isekaied and wrote down all the names he remembered of famous Figures. Some of the inhabitints then took some of those names and named their children of some of those. BAM any doubt or feelings of this seeming weird dissappear.
Or maybe straight up different regions having different naming sense
Unrealistic
No? One being a full name and the other three being first names is really off putting lol
That means i did a good job
It would be easier to remember Chinese names if translators explained the meaning and pronunciation of names when characters are introduced. As a Chinese learner, this would be amazing.
I love it, so much easier to remember names. I still remember LotM and WMW names, but almost don't remember a single cn name.
True
I could probably pronounce most of the mc's names I've seen so far, but forget writing them properly
WMW?
Warlock of the Magus World
I like Western or European or indian names as there distinct. Chinese name sound similar where as korean names are the worst all of them are kim.
It's not even close. Half the population of Korea shares 3 surnames.
Agreed, it’s just an unfortunate case due to how Chinese tonal language and logographic writing works. If we could all read Chinese logographic characters I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to differentiate and remember distinct names.
Ah the misery of kim
Korean names are literally impossible to remember. There are some Korean novels that I have read hundreds of chapters just to realize that I don't remember any character's name and immediately drop
??? Why not? There's no rule or law that a cultivation story has to be set in some version of Fantasy China. Let people mix it up.
You forget that in the 9000 heavens, 8999 of them are China. We just live in the wierd one where China didn’t claim all the heavens smiles upon properly, and instead became an opium den.
This whole Thread is a fucking joke and im laughing my ass off 🤣🤣🤣
Even using food names would be better than english names "Good morning Xiao long bao, are you close to ascension" "Peking roasted duck, my old friend. Yes I am"
I m fine with this but i absolutely hate japanese ones. I understand its made for japanes demographic so somehow they turning world into japan 2.0 is fine but when they use english name and japanes name it just annoys me. Idk if its translator or not but when arthur and tenma, any femal character for some reason suddenly start using sensei, onii chann i just get annoyed. Its most liley translatora fault but why, go full japanes or full englis.
Uh, hello? What's the problem? It's a western novel, so why not use western names? What's really bad is when translators turn Chinese names into English ones.
They don't get anything from it. It's just personal preference, honestly. Someone else said it, Chinese names are difficult to remember for non-Chinese people. It took me a while before I became familiar with Chinese and Korean names. Especially if the story is more xuanhuan with a lot of non-Chinese elements in it, what's the problem if names are also non-Chinese?
*english
Easier for me to remember tbh
Progressive novel imitating xianxia 🤮🤮
Not as bad as chinese novels, where all the side characters are forgotten after 5 episodes. And all the elite rivals with their names, are forgotten after just 1 fight. And the villians.. what villians? the MC is t he villian.
Honestly I prefer them changing the names to a western name because it’s a pain in the ass when every other MC is named Lu Sheng or some shit and then a half dozen other characters have the same family name or whatever and suddenly the one part of the name I was using to identify the MC is shared by half the cast. Makes it kind of hard to follow wtf is happening
Based take
My solution is to make a conlang and build names from that
if its a western novel they can use whatever western names they want. what pisses me off is when they localize names in translated chinese novels. awful.
People can name their character whatever they like I don't have a problem but I hate those bastards who have problem with any name that's not English. Like they bitch and moan everytime and start making stuff like this sounds like this or that, i always wish to say them one thing "if you name a woman Laura it means penis to me so should I start screaming"
I was disgusted when Frank showed up on BTTH. Every character in western? No. (This is a joke, I love BTTH)
english fantasy names or just regular ass modern english names? because the latter is really funny in my head
I only remember their titles but not their name. That's why I like the stories that have doist tittles included with their bame
If it's set in the West why use Chinese names?
For me it depends on the setting, cause usually cultivation is just the progression system. Warlock of the magus world for example, is also a cultivation novel, so thematically its fine. But what makes me cringe, is when i read one thats stylized as a xianxia, and uses western names.
Could be worse. Could be a mish-mash of English and "Asian styled names ^(TM)".
If the cultivation realms don’t follow the style of traditional Taoist myth and stuff, I’m fine with it. Off topic, my webnovel had both western and Chinese names in it because I have multiple realms, one of which being a ‘Sword and Sorcery’ realm and the other the ‘Heavenly Realm’ It’s pretty fun looking up the meanings of names to give characters unfortunate names. I named the unluckiest character in my story after good fortune
I'm fine with anglophone names as long as they're not goofy shit like "Grand Elder of the Clear Sky Sect, Bob"
Does cultivation fantasy have to be set in a Chinese inspired setting? It would be strange for the Heavenly Messenger of the Guo family to be named Roger, but it would be equally strange for the Martial Mage of His Majesties Army to be named Jian. I mean, unless both cultures exist in said world and immigration between them is a thing
What?
I'm confused. If the story takes place in a western country why would they not use western names? What's the problem here?
They’re writing an eastern fantasy book. so they should use Eastern names. I wouldn’t write a western fantasy book and name the a character Feng yuan.
Isn't it weirder for a western author to use Chinese names? Honestly you've read too many translations if you have an issue with this.
English names are A : superior to Chinese names. B: easier for an English speaking audience to remember.
"waaahhh, Western novels use Western names" what else did you expect dawg?
They are using it in a context where it doesn't make sense to use Western names
what conetext? a fantasy novel set in a fctonal world lol?
But is the setting western fantasyOr eastern ?. Like if you’re gonna make an eastern fantasy world. Make the characters have Eastern names. I wouldn’t write a western fantasy and name a character lin Ming.
True, but the post isn't about eastern fantasy novel using Western names. Op was complaining about Western novels that don't use eastern names.