Fullmetal Alchemist: Names

[branchandroot]

FMA names come from all over. Some have to do with alchemy. Many are standard given or surnames from European countries. Many of the officer's names in FMA are drawn from WWII people and hardware. As mentioned on the Historical Parallels page, this increases the identification between Bradley's regime and the Nazi's, despite a timeframe that, were the parallels more direct, would make Bradley the equivalent of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor.

Before we go on, a word about the official transliterations. I always approach official Roman-alphabet spellings with some wariness, as they are often rather peculiar to the eye of a native English speaker. In general there are two reasons for this: either the author knows what s/he is doing, and has chosen to deform the spelling in an effort to mark the people or the whole world involved as not-this-one, or else the author/producer/promoter/translator, not being a native English speaker, or, even better, being an English speaker with no understanding of how English words sound when rendered into Japanese, quite simply got it wrong.

I am unsure which reason obtains in the case of FMA. It is possible that Fuery gained an extra "e" to skew it, so that it would not quite be the name of an aircraft from our history. But if that was the case, it is very strange that this was not done for any of the other aircraft-derived-names. It is possible that Hawkeye's given name is spelled with an R and a z in order to make it strange. On the other hand, the pronunciation indicated by the katakana (ree-za) is a rather bizarre hybrid, which could argue for simple lack of awareness of the vagaries of English on the part of the originator. After all, if the "z" is hard, then the vowel before it should be long, rhyming with eye. If the vowel is pronounced "ee", then the aspirant that follows it should be soft, giving us sa rather than za.

All of this brings me down a little on the side of "mistake". Certainly this is the kind of arcana that no non-native speaker could be expected to know or even find easily by research. Thus, rather than use the official spellings that make nonsense English (or French or Spanish or German or whatever), I work with the viable names that the transliterations come closest to.

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Cities and Towns

Riesenburg. This is my personal supposition for what that rather mangled transliteration is supposed to be. "Riesen" is German for "giants" or "colossi", which most certainly describes Hohenheim, his sons, and, for that matter, Pinako.

Aquroya. Aqua Regis (royal liquid) is an alchemical term for nitric and hydrochloric acids. Gold is considered the royal metal, in alchemy. Those acids able to dissolve it get to be royal, too. "Roy" and "regis" both stem from the Latin "rex", for king.

Zenotime. This one is a mineral.

Ishvar. Interestingly enough, Ishvar/Ishvara is a Hindu word. It refers to the concept of a Supreme Being, a god in the monotheistic sense. As such it is a very appropriate name for a cultural/ethnic group of monotheists in the middle of polytheistic Amestris at large.

Lior. I suspect that this one may be taken from a Hebrew name (which I cannot find an attested meaning for). Given that Scar tells us the citizens of Lior are, ethnically, close to the Ishvarites, and the Ishvarites function as a Jewish population in this timeframe, this seems like a reasonable supposition.

• Leto. In our own history, Leto is a Greek deity, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, sun and moon respectively. Taking her name for Lior's sun god is not a large jump.

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Elrics and Family

Hohenheim. As mentioned above, this was the name of an historical alchemist, known as Paracelsus.

Trisha. A common diminutive of "Patricia". The totally unattested derivation usually given for that name on name-meaning sites is from "patrician": of the Imperial Roman aristocratic class.

Edward. Common English name. Incidentally, quite a popular name in several royal dynasties.

Alphonse. This, on the other hand, is a French name. Its Spanish form is, again, not an uncommon name among kings of Portugal and Spain.

I am vastly entertained that all three of the above names appear to have some connection to nobility.

Winry. Possibly what happens to an attempted transliteration of "Winnie". This is variously given as a diminutive of Winifred, a somewhat old-fashioned girl's name in Britain, or a feminine form of "Edwin". The latter possibility does entertain me, for its similarity to Ed's name. Mikkeneko has suggested that Winry is, itself, an old diminutive for Winifred, though, which gives the former an edge.

Pinako. I'm reasonably sure that her name was not derived from the Kapampangan word "to rob". It is a part of a German word: pinakothek. This derives from the Greek "pinacotheca", for "picture repository" and appears in the name of art museums. Pinakos itself originally refers to engravings, though the meaning has expanded over time.¹ The association with art is certainly appropriate to her approach to automail creation, and her standing in that profession, if this is the source.

Seig. Most likely a short form of Seigfried, one of the few inarguably German names in here.

Izumi. This is one of the few names that appears to actually be Japanese, for all it's given in katakana. The most common spelling means "spring" or "fountain". As she is a source of nurture and growth for the boys, this is quite appropriate.

Moreover, like the army insignia, it adds an extra spin to the mix of nationalities and cultures we see in Amestris. Amestris is not merely alter-Germany. Culturally, and even geographically, the world we are shown in FMA draws from other sources, beyond even Europe. The Japanese insignia, the desert that appears around Lior and Ishvar, the subject position of the Ishvarites as Jews while the visuals of character design and architecture suggest an Arabic desert culture and their name gestures toward India, the vast variation in name sources among both people and places--all of these things indicate that Amestris is an amalgam, a reflection of a whole world rather than a single nation.

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Military

If anything more were required to show that Arakawa wished to play with time, culture and causality, this set of names would do it. Many of these are taken from WWII planes, machines which do not seem to exist in the FMA world, and a war which has not apparently taken place. At least, not precisely.

To begin with, I must thank the anonymous commenter, back in January of 04, when I first started poking at this stuff, who pointed out the WWII aircraft connection to me and set me looking for more.

Daisoutou King Bradley . "Soutou" is a word for "president" or "ruling general". "Dai", of course, is an intensifier. The translation "Fuehrer" is both a very good parallel and also a direct pointer toward the Third Reich-related themes of this story. In fact, I suspect that "Daisoutou" was chosen in the first place as the best possible translation for "Fuehrer", rather than the other way around.

King as a given name is a nice repetition of the "ruler" theme, and also connects Bradley and Roy, as noted below.

In keeping with the hardware theme, there is a Bradley fighting vehicle, but it came along after WWII and was itself named after Omar N. Bradley, the only American, five-star general to survive through WWII. I suspect the general himself is the source of the character's name. Moreover, the opinions of Omar on George Patton sound remarkably like a jaundiced description of Roy Mustang:

As a soldier, a professional officer, Patton was the most fiercely ambitious man and the strangest duck I have ever known. He appeared to be motivated by some deep, inexplicable martial spirit. He devoured military history and poetry and imagined – in the spirit of reincarnation – that he had fought with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Caesar, [sic] Napoleon. He dressed as though he had just stepped out of a custom military tailor shop and had his own private bootblack. He was unmercifully hard on his men, demanding the utmost in military efficiency and bearing. Most of them respected but despised him. Although he could be the epitome of grace and charm at social or official functions, he was at the same time the most earthily profane man I ever knew. I sometimes wondered if this macho profanity was unconscious overcompensation for his most serious personal flaw: a voice that was almost comically squeaky and high-pitched, altogether lacking in command authority. Like Douglas MacArthur, Patton was a born publicity hound, a glory seeker.”

“A General’s Life,” by General Omar N. Bradley, page 98. (qtd)

Not that Patton seems to have had an iota of the empathy (albeit a bit twisted) that Roy shows. I think the parallel, if it is intended, focuses more on how Bradley regarded Patton than on Roy = Patton.

Roy Mustang. The Mustang was an American fighter/pursuit craft. As mentioned above, "Roy" is a anglicization of the french "roi", one of the latinate variations of "king". This matches nicely with his ambition.

Maas Hughes. The last name seems most likely to be based on Howard Hughes, the maker of the HK-1, a flying boat incidentally nicknamed the "Spruce Goose". (Thanks to BlueDelerium for this citation.) His first name is likely a Dutch shortening of Thomas. Why that should be rendered in Engrish as Maes, I have no idea. The people who transliterated these names from kana seem to have a thing for adding extraneous "e"s.

Gracia. Grace is certainly something Hughes' wife needs.

Elysia. The variations in pronunciation and spelling are wide enough that it could also be Elicia or Alicia. Elysia, however, derives from a Greek word for paradise, which seems to match nicely with her mother, so I favor it.

Lisa Hawkeye. The Hawkeye was an American recon plane. All the possible variations for her given name are short forms of the English name Elizabeth. I adopt Lisa, out of the various possibilities, because it is the viable name closest in pronunciation to the katakana, preserving the long "e" sound at the beginning while softening the aspirant in the second syllable as per English linguistic practice.²

Black Hayate. This was a Japanese fighter.

Jean Havoc. The Havoc was a bomber, which goes nicely with the character's taste for heavy firepower. Jean is a French man's name.

Breda. The Breda was an Italian fighter.

Kain Fury. The Fury was a British fighter. Kain is one of the variations of a biblically based name (brother of Abel). I do not credit the alternate derivation that suggests he was to be named Huey. That notion hinges on the supposition that, there being no character for "hu", "fu" was used in his name instead. In fact, the katakana for his name start with "fyu", which is a non-standard character while there is a standard character for "hyu".

Farman. The Farman was a French bomber.

Alex Louis Armstrong. The Armstrong was a British heavy bomber. (Thanks to Luxetumbra for this citation.) Alex Louis is a Continental sort of name, and the fact that he uses the whole thing seems to me a bit of a parody of the kind of gentry who have, historically, supplied sons for the officer corp.

Hakuro. This is another name that may actually be Japanese. With a short terminal vowel, it is a word for "morning dew". With a long terminal vowel, for "white wax". I can find no weaponry connection so far. It's possible this is a somewhat backhanded reference to his status as an HQ staffer rather than a field officer.

Basque Grand. Given his attitudes, and in light of the "d" official spelling insists is in his name, I'm tempted to suggest that he was named after the Grand Slam bomb, which was an aircraft weapon. The "d" in his name, however, is consistently unpronounced, giving the name as a whole a French flavor, the Basque being a distinct ethnic group located between Spain and France and partaking somewhat of both cultures. At least it makes some contribution to the national variety of names.

Maria Ross. One possible connection, here, is to the Canadian produced Ross rifle, but those were most heavily in use during WWI.

Denny Bloch. Bloch was an French aircraft maker that numbered their models. If I'm not mistaken, the terminal "ch" is soft, thus the pronunciation "Blosh".

Sciezka. This being an actual word, Polish for path or road, this is the spelling I go with. The meaning suits her position as tracker-through-the-paper, too.

Kimberly. One possible WWII connection here is to the Kimberly-Clark corporation, which produced anti-aircraft guns. Given Kimberly's antagonistic position in relation to most of the aircraft-named characters, this seems fitting.

Juliet Douglas. Douglas was an American aircraft manufacturer. In fact, they made the Havoc.

Frank Archer. The Archer was a British anti-tank vehicle. Its main gun bears a strong resemblance to the one that replaces Frank Archer's arm.

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Villains

Dante. The most likely source for her name would seem to be the poet Dante Alighieri, who wrote The Divine Comedy. These three epic poems feature the poet's travels, tourist-like, through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. I suspect that Dante herself would feel she has traveled through hell, exists in purgatory and is trying to reach paradise.

Homunculi: Seven Deadly Sins. In alchemical terms, a homunculus is an artificial man, a golem. One of Paracelsus' great accomplishments was supposed to have been the creation of one. Dante names the ones she nurtures and controls after the cardinal sins of Christianity: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. These were a popular artistic conceit during certain periods, and Dante the poet made extensive use of them in the second part of The Divine Comedy, which increases the likelihood that the FMA Dante was named after the poet.

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Footnotes

1. Many thanks to my Llama for looking pinakothek up for me. Primary source was the Oxford English Dictionary.



2. In the manga, the East City General who plays chess with Mustang is named Grumman, after a major US aircraft manufacturer. The second volume of the Perfect Guide indicates that he is Hawkeye's grandfather. This would be nicely symmetrical, since the Grumman corporation made the Hawkeye model. There is, however, no indication that either of these things hold true in the anime.

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Sources

A major source, in my searches on WWII aircraft, was Flightline.

Dictionaries: The online Polish <-> English dictionary I used. Note that in order to search for Polish terms, you will need to be able to input them with proper diacriticals. My favorite German <-> English dictionary. My favorite Japanese <-> English dictionary.