How to properly write his name?

[Sventevith]

Is it Gendou, Gendo, Gendoh or something whole different? I've read so damn many, I don't really know... and I know 0% about kanji and so - I can't check it ;)

[Reichu]

Gendo's name is written in katakana -- kanji is something completely different. (Google will tell you the difference.)

All three spellings are valid. When Gendo's name is written in Roman letters in Japanese merch, it's commonly "Gendo". However, the "o" IS actually long; the spellings "Gendou" and "Gendoh" reflect this.

Read this if you want a more thorough explanation.

[Sventevith]

Gendo's name is written in katakana -- kanji is something completely different. (Google will tell you the difference.)

All three spellings are valid. When Gendo's name is written in Roman letters in Japanese merch, it's commonly "Gendo". However, the "o" IS actually long; the spellings "Gendou" and "Gendoh" reflect this.

Read this if you want a more thorough explanation.

Well, Katakana then... Sorry for my lack of wisdom! I'm just a mere slave...

[The Eva Monkey]

Other characters names that have more than one common Romanization.

Kaworu / Kaoru
Ryohji / Ryoji
Touji / Toji

In the case of the names Gendo, Touji, and Ryohji, there is a long o sound.

ge n do u
to u ji
ryo u ji

In the case of Kaworu, there is a wo which gets slurred into an o

ka wo ru

[Zooma]

Yep, as everyone has said the "u" in romanization equals a long sound in Japanese, for anything after o that is..

And yeah, wo is pronounced o

[Sventevith]

I say "Kaworu", "Touji" and "Gendou" or "Gendoh"... Never written "Ryohji" before, but I guess I would spell it like that...

[Toilet Duck]

don't forget souryuu/sohryuu/soryuu/soryu/souryu/sohryu.
sorry. i'm insane like that.

[Ryo]

don't forget souryuu/sohryuu/soryuu/soryu/souryu/sohryu.

... As well as the legion of fans that spell it Sohryo, Sooryo etc. etc...

Heh, I remember a fanfic where the author spelled "Makoto Hyuga" "Motoko Hyuohga."

[Sventevith]

don't forget souryuu/sohryuu/soryuu/soryu/souryu/sohryu.
sorry. i'm insane like that.

Yeah... damn these Japanese names! :P I will just learn how to write them in Japanese...

[Toilet Duck]

Yeah... damn these Japanese names! :P I will just learn how to write them in Japanese...

well, these are the official character name spellings as found on gainax's web site. you'll need to be able to display Japanese characters to see them. in internet explorer, a little box should pop up, asking you to install them; if not, go to view>encoding>more...>Japanese (shift-jis). if you have another browser, well... you'll have to find that out yourself.

remember that these (and the romanizations) are in Japanese name order, with family name first. gainax's site kinda screws around with the romanizations (putting "oh" instead of "ou", for instance), so i'm giving the literal romanizations, with notes when necessary.

碇シンジ - ikari Shinji

葛城ミサト - katsuragi Misato

綾波レイ - Ayanami Rei

惣流.アスカ.ラングレー - souryuu Asuka ranguree [langley] (yes, the site says "sohryu", but i checked the characters and this is the real rendering)

渚カヲル - nagisa kaworu

赤木リツコ - akagi ritsuko

碇ゲンドウ - ikari gendou

冬月コウゾウ - fuyutsuki kouzou

加持リョウジ - Kaji ryouji

鈴原トウジ - suzuhara touji

相田ケンスケ - aida kensuke

洞木ヒカリ - horaki hikari

日向マコト - hyuuga makoto (these characters can actually be either "hyuga" or "hyuuga", but "hyuuga" is the more common of them, and a google for the character name in Japanese along with either "hyuga" or "hyuuga" in hiragana produced 32 results for the latter and 0 for the former, so that's what i'm going with)

伊吹マヤ - ibuki maya

青葉シゲル - aoba shigeru (don't trust "mangle" entertainment on the pronunciation of his family name; they say "ay-oh-ba", but it's really "ah'oh-ba")

also a little bit of trivia: Rei's name is both a reference to Rei hino (sailor mars) from sailor moon and a play on "Rei", the Japanese word for "zero".

[AchtungAffen]

I always wondered about the Rei meaning. I don't know which Kanji is usually used for naming in Japan, as Rei is a true name. Yes, it can mean zero, but there are other interesting meanings:

伶 - Actor
冷 - cold, cool
儷 - companion
礼 - expression of gratitude
霊 - soul; spirit; departed soul; ghost
令 - command; order; dictation