The Wanted List: Video Game Names and Terms With Unknown Origins
This is a different sort of post. Whereas most of what I post on this blog stays as-is, save for an update here and there, this will be a running list of video game stuff — mostly names, sometimes other stuff — with uncertain origins. Ideally, as we find answers for these, they’ll be removed off the list and written up in their own posts, and as I think of more mysterious names, terms, general jargon and more, I’ll add it here.
The internet has a funny way of supplying you with an answer even when all the search engines don’t turn up anything. I’ve been writing online long enough that I’ve had many experiences with the phenomenon of posting online something to the effect of “No one knows the origin of this common, familiar thing,” only for the answer to eventually come my way — sometimes a day later, sometimes a decade, but it does happen. So if you have any theories, credible or otherwise, that you think could help me find the answer to any of these, let me know. Furthermore, if you can think of something that is, as far as you know, of unknown origin, let me know. I’ll do my best to research it and, if it truly does seem to be a question without an answer, I’ll add it to the below list.
In no particular order:
Ganon from Legend of Zelda
It’s actually my post “We Don’t Know Where Ganon’s Name Comes From” that gave me the idea to make this list in the first place.
Lakitu from Super Mario Bros.
As I explain in this post, we know where the Japanese name for the cloud-piloting weirdo comes from, but the English name is more mysterious. There’s a rumor online that it could come from Tukwila, Washington, as the warehouse Nintendo first began renting in 1981 was located there. If you shuffle the syllables in that city name, you’d get la-kwi-tu, which is awfully close to Lakitu’s name. But’s it’s just a theory, if a very convincing one. Surely someone somewhere must know if it’s accurate.
The Final Fantasy Spell Suffixes
There is a certain grammar to the spell names in many RPGs, and perhaps the best known is the one in Final Fantasy, where a series of suffixes tell you the degree to which a spell is powered up. For example, you start with Fire, and then Fira is the more powerful version of that, followed by Firaga and Firaja. Same with Cure: Cura, then Curaga and then Curaja. What is the origin of these suffixes? And for that matter, is there an origin to the “grammar” of spell classification in other RPGs, such as Dragon Quest?
Shadaloo in Street Fighter
Starting with Street Fighter II, a recurring element in the Street Fighter series has been the international criminal syndicate Shadaloo. What does this name mean? A lot of English-speaking players have just sort of shrugged and decided that it’s a mangling of “Shadowlaw,” which is actually how the group name was rendered in some materials back in the day, but I’m not convinced. The Japanese name, シャドルー or Shadorū, is very close to the katakana rendering of the word shadow, シャドー, however.
Geese Howard in Fatal Fury
The big bad of the Fatal Fury series, Geese Howard is the head of a criminal enterprise, and he’s supposed to be a scary guy. The scary factor is, in my opinion, mitigated a bit by the fact that his name just sounds very strange in English, even if you take into account that geese can be monsters. I’ve never been able to find an origin for why this name was chosen for the localized English version of any installment of the game, but it’s worth pointing out that looking at the katakana rendering of his name, ギース・ハワード, the first name is very close to キース, Kīsu, which would be the much more common western name Keith. Was is it just a wonky translation? The fact that the recurring Zelda enemy Keese has its Japanese name rendered the same way would just seem to be a coincidence.
Chadarnook in Final Fantasy VI
This one has been on the tip of my tongue for decades. It’s one minor boss in Final Fantasy VI — an evil spirit taking the form of a woman in a painting. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the origin of the name might be or why it feels like there’s an obvious connection I’m just not making. For what it’s worth, the Japanese name is チャダルヌーク or Chadarunūku.
Garland in Final Fantasy
Speaking of Final Fantasy, can you think of a good reason why the first game’s villain should be named after a wreath of flowers?
Dedede, Lololo and Lalala in Kirby’s Dreamland
Though King Dedede has been the longest-lived of the three, all three are introduced in the first Kirby game, Kirby’s Dreamland. They’re all bosses and their names have a clear pattern, but none of the other bosses or enemies in this game follow that pattern. Lololo and Lalala would seem to be based on the hero and heroine of the Eggerland series, which like the Kirby games was developed by Hal Laboratory. But why Hal would want to differentiate between the good guy version and the more villainous versions in the Kirby series by adding one more syllable seems… arbitrary? And then base the big bad on that pattern as well, and then nobody esle.
The Grinders of Yoshi’s Island
Separate from the Kong family, there’s a weird thing happening with monkeys in the Super Mario games. There’s this one species of generic monkey enemy that shows up in Yoshi’s Island. At the time, they were called Grinder, and this name has just always struck me as being completely inexplicable because none of the senses of that term in English make sense for these playful, mischievous monkey dudes. The next year, Mario encountered a similarly mischievous monkey named Ukkiki in Super Mario 64. At the time, it wasn’t necessarily clear that this was supposed to be the same character as in Yoshi’s Island, but soon enough all of them became standardized as Ukkiki in Yoshi games and Mario games both. And that is itself odd, I guess, but I’m less interested in the two separate things being conflated into one than I am why anyone called this monkey character Grinder to begin with. In Japan, the Yoshi’s Island version of the character is Osarusan (おさるさん), saru meaning “monkey,” while the Super Mario 64 character is Ukkī (ウッキィ), which onomatopoeia for the noise monkeys make.
EDIT: Whelp, it’s been pointed out in the comments already that I missed a very obvious explanation for this name. Post forthcoming.
Brainwashed Blond Women in Fighting Games
Not everything I’m posting here will be etymology-related. As I mention in the miscellaneous notes to this Street Fighter II post, something weird about Super Street Fighter II is that Cammy’s name was originally going to be Sarah. It’s possible that Capcom changed the character’s name to avoid being too similar to Sarah Bryant in Virtua Fighter. Both games debuted in arcades in October 1993, and both characters are blond women who suffer from amnesia related to being brainwashed. What’s extra weird is that the following year, Tekken debuts with Nina Williams, who is also a blond woman who gets brainwashed. This seems like a curious trend, even accounting for how often brainwashing and amnesia are plot points in melodramas, but I was wondering if all three of these stories might be riffing on some older pop culture thing that I’m just not getting.
Coin Heaven
As I explain in the miscellaneous notes on this post, I’m curious if anyone knows how we came to use the term coin heaven for the up-in-the-clouds bonus areas in the Super Mario games. It makes sense, obviously, but considering that the idea the developers were drawing on had more to do with the Jack and the Beanstalk story, what with a beanstalk leading someone to treasure in the sky, I’m more curious to know who the first person to use this phrase was. Did it come from Nintendo? Or Nintendo Power specifically?
1-Up
And finally, the strangest one of all, perhaps: At some point, the meaning of the term 1-up shifted to how we use it today, but exactly when and how that happened is a mystery, as Kate Willaert explains in this Twitter thread.
I will update this list as I think of more — and hopefully, as some answers are found!