Character Name Origins
When Anno created NGE, he borrowed from everywhere, which is more than evident
with the way the characters were named. In the essay section of his personal
website, he revealed most of the secrets for us fans with a ravenous thirst
for such tidbits. Fortunately for those of us who can't read Japanese,
“massangeana”
did a rough translation and posted it on the newsgroup Japan.Anime.Evangelion
in December of 2000. Presented here is a slightly tweaked version, supplemented
by Japanese characters (injected as HTML numbered entities; you just need a
suitable CJK font) and some additional information. Notes by massangeana are
this
color
; notes added by me (mostly taken from info provided by MDWigs)
are
this color
. Additions and edits to
massangeana's translation are by me (although, be warned, some of the stuff
I had to translate completely by myself may not be entirely correct, and some
of my edits may be misguided).
Anno's official page:
http://www.gainax.co.jp/hills/anno/
Essay page:
http://www.gainax.co.jp/hills/anno/essay1.html
2000/11/02 (Entry 1)
Sorry to trouble you with such an old story now, but I'm going to go a little
into the creation of the Eva character's names. In the first volume of Sadamoto's
manga, I touched a bit upon a few of the Eva character's names and how they
take shape according to my so-called rule. A little more about how I created
them below.
碇シンジ
Shinji Ikari
|
Ikari
[anchor]
is a component
of a ship. It's also borrowed from the name of a friend from my college
years.
Shinji
is also borrowed from a long-time friend
[Shinji
Higuchi]
. Incidentally, since both his wife and daughter's names
have been used for anime protagonists, I wanted to do the same for the
husband and make them an anime family -- but, that said, my reasoning
wasn't too logical. Sorry, Shin-chan.
- Higuchi's given name is written 真嗣. Perhaps
if Anno had not opted to write the NGE characters' given names in katakana,
Shinji's would have been written like this, as well.
|
綾波レイ
Rei Ayanami
|
Ayanami
is from a warship of the former Japanese navy.
Rei
is just a pun of
rei
零
[zero]
,
but actually named after Rei Hino of
Sailor Moon
[by
Naoko Takeuchi]
. At the time, this was a bait to invite Iku-chan
(Kunihiko Ikuhara) to the staff, but he ran away. Too bad.
- Rei's name is a pun about the Japanese
“Zero” fighters. You think it's any accident Rei pilots EVA-
00
(零号機)? ;;>
|
惣流・アスカ・ラングレー
Soryu Asuka Langley
|
Soryu
is from a warship of the former Japan navy
[different
kanji]
;
Langley
is from the US navy warship.
Asuka
is borrowed from Shinji Wada's manga heroine
[
Chou-Shoujo
Asuka
]
.
- The name of Wada's heroine is written
明日香.
- The name of the warship Soryu is written 蒼龍.
|
葛城ミサト
Misato Katsuragi
|
Katsuragi
is from a warship of the former Japanese navy.
Misato
is borrowed from a heroine of Minako Narita's manga
[Misato
Izumi of
Aitsu
]
.
- The given name of Narita's heroine is
written みさと.
|
赤木リツコ
Ritsuko Akagi
|
Akagi
is from a warship of the former Japanese navy.
Ritsuko
is borrowed from a friend of mine in middle school.
|
加持リョウジ
Ryoji Kaji
|
Kaji
[rudder]
is a component
of a ship.
Ryoji
is also from a hero in Minako Narita's manga
[Ryoji Sawada of
Aitsu
]
.
- The given name of Narita's hero is written
涼司.
- The ship part is written 舵.
|
2000/11/13 (Entry 4)
碇ゲンドウ
Gendo Ikari
|
Ikari
is the same as with Shinji.
Gendo
is borrowed from another anime project before Eva that was aborted. I
didn't notice Gendo and Shinji is the same combination as in Ken Ishikawa's
manga until one of my friends pointed it out.
[I
think he means Shin'ichi Kuruma and Genzo Kuruma of
Majuu Sensen
.]
His former name Rokubungi 六文儀
[sextant]
is also a component of a ship. Just FYI, Rei Asuka of
Raideen
is also
a coincidence. I didn't do this knowingly, as until
Super Robot
Taisen
was made, I had completely forgotten that
Raideen
existed. Sad, I know.
|
冬月コウゾウ
Kozo Fuyutsuki
|
Fuyutsuki
is from a warship of the former
Japan navy.
Kozo
just has a nice ring to it.
|
碇ユイ
Yui Ikari
|
Ikari
is the same as before.
Yui
sounds similar to
Rei
,
and it's also a simple pun on
yui
唯
[only
one]
.
- Interestingly, at one point in the production,
the prototype for the character Rei had dark hair, green eyes, and was
named
Yui Ichijo
.
“Ichijo” is believed to have come from Hikaru Ichijo
of
Macross
,
an anime which Anno had worked on.
[
Source
]
|
キール・ローレンツ
Keel Lorenz
|
Keel
is also a component of a ship.
Lorenz
is named after
a zoologist or something, but I can't remember clearly. Am I just getting
old? Oh, well.
- Anno remembered correctly: Konrad Lorenz
was a famous German zoologist (1908-1989), whom you can learn more about
here
.
Interestingly, Anno used the name “Konrad Lorenz” unchanged
in a prelimary NGE scenario.
|
赤木ナオコ
Naoko Akagi
|
Akagi
is the same as with Ritsuko.
Naoko
is
from a friend of mine when I was in elementary school.
|
惣流・キョウコ・ツェッペリン
Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin
|
Soryu
is from the same Japanese warship
as Asuka.
Kyoko
is also from a character in Shinji Wada's manga.
Zeppelin
is from a warship of the German navy that was envisioned
but never made.
|
ペンペン
Pen²
|
Super straightforward naming, but I thought the repetition sounded
cute. His name has officially become the 2nd power of Pen
[Pen²]
.
I was reluctant at first, but we thought we needed a mascot character,
so we had an animal appear in the show. As it happened, the show is
set in Hakone, which one associates with hot springs, which in turn
are associated with monkeys. But that is no fun, so we decided to make
it a penguin, the animal most unsuited to a hot spring. I'm positive
that "hot spring penguin" was Sadamoto's idea.
- “Pen” comes from “penguin”.
(As if you couldn't figure that out. ;;>)
|
2000/11/17 (Entry 6)
日向マコト
Makoto Hyuga
|
Hyuga
is from a warship of the former
Japanese navy. But what was
Makoto
? I don't remember. Maybe because
I liked Ryou
[taro]
Shiba's Shinsen-gumi?
Sorry, I'm not sure about this one either.
|
青葉シゲル
Shigeru Aoba
|
Aoba
is from a warship of the former Japanese navy.
Shigeru
is a spoof of the movie title
Aoba Shigereru
directed by Kihachi Okamoto.
- Okamoto's movie is written 茂れる, so if
Shigeru's name were written in kanji, it would probably be 茂.
|
伊吹マヤ
Maya Ibuki
|
Both
Ibuki
and
Maya
are borrowed
from warships of the former Japanese navy because they sounded good. Ibuki
is also a commanding officer in
Kaette kita Ultraman
whom I like, but
that's a very minor reason. I chose Maya (摩哉) because I love Takao-class
heavy cruisers best after Yamato-class battleships.
|
鈴原トウジ
Toji Suzuhara
|
Borrowed unchanged from a Ryu Murakami novel I read on my friend's
recommendation.
- The novel by Murakami is
Ai to
Gensou no Fascism
, within which Toji Suzuhara is a main character.
- The given name of Murakami's character is written 冬二.
|
相田ケンスケ
Kensuke Aida
|
Also from Murakami's novel. BTW, I was just interested in a character
“Zero” in this novel, rather than the story about revolution and dictatorship
itself.
- The given name of Murakami's character
is written 剣介.
|
洞木ヒカリ
Hikari Horaki
|
Horaki
also comes from Murakami's novel.
Hikari
, her
older sister
Nozomi
, and her younger sister
Kodama
are
borrowed from Tokaido Shinkansen express train names.
- The name of the train is written ひかり.
|
渚カヲル
Kaworu Nagisa
|
This character was named by the screenplay writer Akio Satsukawa.
Nagisa
[shore]
is a word related to the sea. Also the kanji
nagisa
渚 consists of katakana SHI シ and kanji SHA 者, therefore he's SHISHA
シ者 [messenger 使者]. He said it also comes from the movie director Nagisa
Oshima. But what is
Kaworu
? Sorry, I will ask him next time.
- Here is some interesting stuff written
by Patrick Yip on the name “Kaworu”:
I was flipping through the old Japanese classics
Genji Monogatari
(Tale of Genji) the other day. It's been quite some
time since I looked at the final part of this monumental work, and I
found that the name of the hero in this part of the story is “Kaworu”!!
I did some more research on this name. These are the facts about “Kaworu”
that I [found] out:
- The reason why “Kaworu” is written with
a “wo” character ヲ is probably influenced by classics work like
Genji
Monogatari
. In the Heian ages and medieval period, “wo” and “o” were
quite separate [sounds]. At that time “Kaworu” was indeed written with
“wo” character. The two characters merged in their pronounciation in
the Edo period and thus created the confusion as to why “Kaworu” should
have a “wo” character. It is possible that some Japanese may not even
know this, and it has become common practice to write “Kaoru”. This
creates more confusion.
- “Kaworu” is a serious but also romantic
hero in the last third of the
Tale of Genji
. And literally the kanji
for “Kaworu” means fragrance (of incense wood). Indeed in
Tale of Genji
,
Kaworu was born with a very special bodily feature: His body bore a
sweet fragrance smell. So the name “Kaworu” is commonly related to the
idea of intelligent, handsome and romantic hero.
- And one more striking thing. “Kaworu” can
be a girl's name as well!! This adds to the ambiguity of sex implicated
by this name. Put it into the context that Kaworu is an epitome of shoujo-anime
bishounen (handsome boy) with ambiguous sexuality. Now it seems to me
that Gainax actually put some thought in choosing his name.
Interestingly, “Rei” is a unisex name,
as well.
|
[Shiro]
Tokita (時田), Manda (万田), and
Yasugi (八杉) of episode #07 also come from Murakami's novel. Nozoku Takahashi
(高橋覗) of episode #11 comes from the name of a production manager and my friend.
It's a staff in-joke.
[Takahashi Nozomu of Studio
Ghibli. Actually, Ghibli did animation work for this episode.]
The
names of characters in episode #15, etc., also follow a hidden convention.
Guessing the rule might be fun if you have the time.