Character names

[Zuggy]

Nice one, AyrYntake.

The Japanese "wave weaving" name itself is rather cryptic, comparable to the way we use Latin nowadays in (some) mottoes and law-related terms.

Could you expand on this?

Rei does have many compatible kanji, but I'm quite personally certain about 麗 ("beautiful") considering Gendo's intentions behind "if it's a girl, Rei". That, or you could go with the other one common in the (Taiwanese?) subtitles: 綾波 零 (="zero"). Which makes you wonder what Gendo was thinking at the time...

The odd thing is most the kanji for Rei seem to fit Rei in one way or another. I only know about 12 of them though, so I would be interested in Imp's list of 200 or so variants that he talked about.

[AyrYntake]

Oh, that...I just meant that in modern Japanese it would take much more wording to express the idea of "Waves whose beauty suggests silk-woven figures" entirely--which is apparently what 綾波 means.

「糸」 in 「綾」　is most often used in words relating to silk

The thing is, ancient Japanese and Chinese were very minimalistic languages. Poetic license basically allows you to leave out whatever isn't a principle idea: verbs "to be", pronouns like "I", "he" or "she". Anything implied stays implied, so you can write practically anything and make it sound artistic.

...the most common way is the 'God-Child'(are we on to something?)

I'm perfectly aware that "God-Child" is a legal kanjification of Shinji, but to say that it's the MOST common is way far from the truth. My guess is that it was 真嗣, the name Anno took from his friend Higuchi, since he himself says that's where the name came from. It's possible that he took the name and rekanjified it, like he did with Soryu (see my last post or here), but if he did he hasn't shown it publically.

[Cookie H Wilson]

I post a reply to this old thread to avoid creating a new one for a single question.
Since the name GENDO is spelled in hiragana and not in kanji I have some difficoulties in trying to find out what possibile meaning(s) it could have.
I recently found a black cat. My first thoughts about how to call it where Alaska or Kuro, at the end with my roommates surprise I decided to go for Gendo.
Lame reason for an answer.
Can somebody help me out?
:)

[monitoradiation]

Gendo, in the common Mandarin Chinese translation is 源堂. It literally means 源 = source, 堂 = hall.

To read a little bit more into it, typically 源 is referred to an aquatic/energetic/fluidic source. The name together itself would generally imply someone of a perhaps upstanding, official, and unyielding nature. It's not a name for a child.

[Cookie H Wilson]

Thank you very much, monitoradiation.
:)

[monitoradiation]

Thank you very much, monitoradiation.
:)

No problem - Gendo is an excellent name for a black cat; Ritsuko would be proud (that is, until EoE)

[Cookie H Wilson]

[MarqFJA87]

So according to this wiki article, Anno said that there's a pattern to the names of the characters introduced in Episode 15 (and others, if that's what "etc." means) -- which, in that particular episode, refers to Misato's unseen friends, named "Kiyomi" and "Kotoko". Does anyone know what the pattern behind those two names is? I couldn't find anything.