Topic: Why's it called that (video game etymology)

[Mop it up]

Personally, I don't see it as Nintendo retconning anything. It is proper to refer to a transgendered person using the pronouns of the gender of which they present themselves, so Nintendo of America calls her "she" out of respect. Also, in recent years, Nintendo's been a bit more inconsistent. Ever since 2005, Nintendo hasn't referred to Birdo using a gender-specific pronoun, and instead always refer to her by name. The trophy in SSBBrawl calls her a "creature of indeterminate gender" and uses the pronoun "it," and the website for Mario Strikers Charged uses "he."

[Morari]

The term "it" is very offensive. I think that Nintendo needs to stop being so insensitive to the transgendered community.

[ThePerm]

in the Japanese manual it says "her name is Catherine, but would like to be called Cathy" in Japanese of course, according to Wikipedia.

wasn't Mario Strikers made by an American or Canadian team? Birdo is indeed one of Nintendo's most interesting characters. I'm kinda pissed I don't have Birdo anything.

[TJ Spyke]

Actually, Birdo's Japanese manual profile says "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Cathy.'" From what I can tell, the first game to actually refer to Birdo as a female (rather than just wanting to be female) was the N64 version of Mario Tennis in 2000.

The Mario Strikers games were made by the Canadian based Next Level Games (who also made Punch-Out!!).

[Mop it up]

Neither of those are correct. I've had the Doki Doki Panic manual translated by several people, and a more accurate translation would be this:

"Convinced that he's a female, this dude vomits eggs and such from its mouth. Will be in a good mood if called Cathy."

I can also offer a literal translation if anyone wanted it.

wasn't Mario Strikers made by an American or Canadian team?

Yes, a Canadian developer. Also, the game was released first in Europe and the website I mentioned is based in the UK, so I doubt it had influence from NOA.

[TJ Spyke]

I am pretty sure you are wrong on the translation. Every translation of it I have seen has been similar to the one I quoted. I have never seen any translation mention vomiting eggs, being in a good mood, or being called a dude. I just used Microsoft Translator (not as good as a person, but still) and it gave this as the literal translation:

Guy who convinced myself female foil, egg from the mouth. Call Kathy deadlines is good.

Either way, it's clear that Birdo was considered a male for the first 12 years of its existence and it was Camelot Software who messed it up by claiming it was a female. Now Nintendo tries to avoid using gender based pronouns when talking about it.

[Mop it up]

The line you quoted is the one seen in the North American instruction manual for SMB2, except it says "Cathy" instead of "Birdetta." People just claim it's what the JPN manual says because it's close enough. I'm not surprised that Google gave you that. A lot of those are similar to the words used, but Japanese is such a complicated language that a computerized translator will be rather poor.

Here, let's break it down.

Scan of the manual

First, here is it Romanized:

"Jibun wo mesu to omoikonde kuchi kara tamago nado wo haku yatsu. Kya shii to yobu to kigen ga ii."

Jibun ~ self
mesu ~ female (animal)
omoikonde ~ compound verb, meaning: to be under impression that; to be convinced that; to imagine that; to set one's heart on; to be bent on; etc.
wo & to ~ necessary grammatical particles, giving the phrase the meaning "under the impression that self is female (animal)"

kuchi ~ mouth
kara ~ from
tamago ~ egg
nado ~ and such; etc.
wo ~ again, necessary grammatical particle
haku ~ vomit
yatsu ~ "dude"... informal term used when referring to a person (essentially, informal term of "person"). In the translator's experience/impression/observation, this is used only for males, and "dude" is actually a pretty close translation, if a little bit "euphemistic"... (I don't think "dude" is ever used in a derogatory fashion, but "yatsu" definitely can be). Highly doubt it's used in a derogatory way here.

Kya shii ~ "Cathy" or "Kathy" or "Cathie" or however you choose to spell it.
yobu ~ (verb) to call (or to summon, to call out, or to invite)
kigen ~ humour, temper, mood
ii ~ good
to & to ~ necessary grammatical particles... in this case, essentially meaning "if... then"
ga ~ another particle... essentially an equivalent of "is"

So there you go. If you put those words together in that order, it makes no sense, so you can construct it however you want as long as all the key words are there.

[ThePerm]

Nani?

[Stratos]

That was some awesome language pwnage.

I stand in awe of your linguistic knowledge.

[ThePerm]

my jp dictionary says haku is "to wear" or "exhale", "spit" "vomit"

"believing it is a female this person shoots eggs from the mouth, Cathy brings the comedy"

my guess

[King of Twitch]

..It just clicked for me.

[Sundoulos]

Anyone know where the recurring FF character name "Cid" came from?  I recall there was a reason for it but I can't remember where I heard it.

I'm now wondering that myself. Google was no help.

I've never seen anything that indicated official confirmation of this, one slightly plausible theory is that Cid's name was probably inspired by the Spanish legend of "El Cid," loosely based on the life of a Castilian nobleman named Rodrigo Díaz de Viva.   

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/nchara.shtml

The Tale of El Cid was one told by Spanish minstrels and bards called juglares. It was a well known story throughout Spanish cities and towns as it was told in town squares across the land; each bard had a different interpretation for the tale. It is also believed that there was an actual Cid de Castilla who took the kingdom of Valencia from Moorish rule through certain artifacts that were found in Valencia. Some people claim that they found his two mythical swords La Tizona and La Colada which he used to slay actual Moorish kings. cristobalcid9 says: One legend tells that El Cid was killed in a battle with the Moors, but then later was resurrected to help finish the war. This may explain Cid's constant reappearances in each game.

[apdude]

I guess it would be more convincing if those two swords were in the games as well.  But that does seem to be the most probable explanation of the Cid character.  Though if they were going for fictional Spanish knights I wish they went with Don Quixote since the FF stories sometimes need some comedic relief.  Imagine fighting a Dragon that turns into a windmill.

[SixthAngel]

I believe Mario was named after Miyamoto's plumber when he travelled to the U.S.

[MegaByte]

Yes, because everybody needs a plumber while traveling... (WTF?)

He was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of NOA's early offices in Tukwila, WA.

[TJ Spyke]

And specifically it was because Nintendo was actually behind on the rent for the building (this was before they released Donkey Kong and all of their arcade games had flopped in the US).

[Stratos]

According to the Age of Empires 2 Cid campaign Cid died in a final Moor siege but he wife kept his death secret and then posed his body in full armor on his horse the last day to keep the army's morale up so they could overcome the siege. If something like that really happened it would explain the resurrection rumors.

[Mop it up]

I've never seen anything that indicated official confirmation of this, one slightly plausible theory is that Cid's name was probably inspired by the Spanish legend of "El Cid," loosely based on the life of a Castilian nobleman named Rodrigo Díaz de Viva.   

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/nchara.shtml

Thanks for the link. Since the swords of the legend aren't in the games, I'm inclined to think it actually isn't because of that. It may be just as simple as one of the designers liking the name of "Cid" or knowing someone with the name. I guess we will never know unless someone from the development team ever offers an explanation.

As an aside, Cid is the only character whose name I would leave as default.

[SixthAngel]

Yes, because everybody needs a plumber while traveling... (WTF?)

He was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of NOA's early offices in Tukwila, WA.

Didn't Miyamoto meet him because he traveled to the US for NOA business purposes?
When you rent offices/houses on a business trip you sometimes need to have people like a plumber, you're not on a one week vacation.

He was the landlord but I also thought he was the reason Mario became a "plumber" so I confused it a bit.  I don't think he was supposed to be a plumber originally.
Why is he a plumber?  Is it the tubes he always goes down?

[TJ Spyke]

Mario was not a plumber originally (he became one in 1983's Mario Bros.). He was originally a carpenter.

[UncleBob]

Here's one of the best resources I've read in regards to the Mario naming story.
http://technologizer.com/2010/04/25/mario/

[ThePerm]

mario became a plumber in mario bros. because of the pipes, its been that way ever since.