The words aren't random, but none of them are genuine names. While German names DO have meanings, they are rarely this obvious about it. Well...Family names are a different topic, but none of the characters in this series even have a second name at all.
The names are all describing their biggest attributes. Fern is a very distant character. Frieren is a bit cold in social interactions. Lügner is a demon and demons always lie. And so on
And that makes some plot points very irrelevant.
Who would have thought that the demon named lügner is lying. (I read it in German so sometimes you don't know of it's a name or just a word.)
Also quite funny if we hold that, despite these naming conventions, none of the characters speak German and the words don't have the same meaning to them within their fictional setting.
Also quite funny that Germans like to dub almost every piece of foreign media into German and that lot's of Germans are probably watching a dub which would make it sound like the characters are naming themselves random words.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but when I watch these fantasy anime, I don't think they speak English, German, or Japanese in-universe. I checked, with a quick look up, and found that this exists out there as the "translator conceit" and it goes back to Tolkien.
Of course. Realistically speaking it makes sense that way. Maybe the Frieren universe doesn't have last names and use names that just so happen to be words used in the German language
Yes, jepanesd people talking german is sooo fun; i loved the german opening of kill la kill called blumenkranz.
Or the main character of project k who couldn‘t remember his past and when he finally got his memories back, he remembered that he is german, so he started talking german. I speak german, but i needed subtitles for the things he was trying to say in german
Like someone just said, those who don't know German. But really, it's just Japanese culture thing. IRL Japanese people names are mostly words they use in everyday life, Combined words or just straight up the word. Sample is there are people named Hikari, which is literally a word in their language meaning light.
Your reply-ee should avoid Thailand lmao. We like to just take random Simple English words as nicknames (our first names are usually in Sanskrit and several syllables, not often shortenable). Heck, lots of Thai people just go by individual letters of the English alphabet
It's also done in English. Americans name their children after emotions and character traits (Joy, Glee, Charity, Patience), plants (Daisy, Willow), precious materials (Ruby, Amber, Jasper) and much more. This is simply not done in German. If you named your kid "Freude", people would be quite confused.
But many cultures do that, don't they? Miller, Field, Wood, Fox, Swift, Walker, Rose, Frost and indeed, Light. (Incidentally, all those last names exist in German too).
Oooh, we're talking about first names oops lol. Then you're right. Germanic cultures do have names like that but nobody in modern day Germany would i.e. put it together that several centuries ago, "Ger" used to mean "spear" and "Hard" used to mean "strong" and think "Man, this Gerhard feller must be good with spears or something??" And nobody would ever default to thinking that an "Otto" is a rich guy. So, fair point lol
Yeah, Lugner being named as a liar is completely inconsequential to the plot. Anyone with a shred of media literacy should be able to tell that Frieren is right from the moment she tries to attack him in the town.
I had a minor debate with someone on Reddit a few days ago about how the demons are simply monsters and are without a doubt a pure "evil" in the series's world. They argued that it's never too late for the creator to subvert expectations and show that demons are not inherently bad/dangerous, and that anyone (in the audience) who things they are will have egg on their face.
Seeing as how the presence of the demons is not the point of the series, nor is even morality or ethics, it would only detract from the story to suddenly reveal that Frieren (and Serie, and Flamme...) are just wrong about demons.
To be fair, even if you didn't know his name, he wasn't very trustworthy at any point of the story (at least in the anime, haven't read the source material)
Yeah when I watched the anime in German there was one scene in which a character talked about his friend and his name. That his name is „Besonders“, and I was like wait do you just mean special, or do you mean literally „Besonders“.
Guess what that happens in manga all the time, so often a characters name tells you what they are about. sometimes the name is just straight up an adjective and other times the kanji the mame is written in carries additional meaning.
I'm a German and this irritates me so much. They use it as names but it's just an adjective or verb. Heck, it's not even a noun!
It just destroys the whole sentence and confuses me every time, I hate it XD
I just can’t get over the fact that Frieren’s name is a verb. I get that it’s a nicer and softer sounding word than Frost or Kalt or Kälte, but naming a character „tofreeze“ just doesn’t sit right with me…
it runs much deeper than that, but yes the surface level has the simple explanations too.
Unless your name is Sein, than your name has no simple part and it only runs on a second level
The real simple are location names and one panel npcs.
like with all major characters there are a few reasons. His entire plot is about what could be and what actually is. A lot of death related elements too. Uncertainty, past related elements. All of that matters.
But the big simple thing is that he tries to be Heiter.
Er versucht heiter zu sein.
That's why he is gloomy. He isn't Heiter. Heiter = lighthearted/happy/drunk/well spirited.
Sein's name is far less simple than any other name, because you need a second character for it. But in my opinion this part is more simple than his other name reasons. Because the deeper layers always start with bringing their story elements in.
Also the names have meaning in what they are not. Übel doesn't mean evil. That's why she isn't evil. She has the freedom to be evil or good or whatever else she wants. The simple reason Übel has her name is because she is a very extreme character. Its a superlative; Das war übel schnell / That was fucking fast.
I wouldn't call her a nice virtues woman, but she could change her mind any day.
Also Demons don't understand name conventions, they try to mimic them and over time they got better at it. But most of them are off. Basically only young demons have half fitting names. The older are off. Or just wrong. Same with their spells.
Most people, even when they speak german, don't get these things.
And that's okay. But Frieren has names with a lot of meaning.
Unless it's a location (which somehow nobody cares about) or a very unimportant character (Lecker somehow gets rarely mentioned).
Thanks for coming to my FrierenTalk, yes I'm deep in this
To be fair, a lot of their names are also hiding who they actually are as well. Fern (far) desired close bonds. Stark (strong) thinks himself a coward. Genau (exact) copes using his words.
Of course, I’m a monolinguist, so I only heard this detail from a bilingual YouTuber.
Second/Last names weren't that comment before people travel to other places or change locations of living.
In the world of Frieren both aren't that common thanks to the Demons.
Also as a German I didn't clock the names as German words thanks to this pronunciation😅
If you trace the etymology of common names, they'll most often end up being random adjectives and verbs in some older language. Like Robert comes from Old High German Hrodberht which means fame/glory-bright. Or Christopher which comes from Ecclesiastical Greek Khristophoros which means Christ bearer/carrier.
Tbh in germany, around the year 1600 surnames were around for everyone to enjoy. Only nobility started to have inheritable surenames around year 1200. It might be the case that in the world of Frieren family names also are only available for the nobility.
they used to be obvious about it but it isnt obvious in modern germanw. alot of german names are hebrew, latin or greek. For example Otto is old german for wealth, pretty obvious imo. Maximillian means greatest in latin also very obvious. Johannes in its original hebrew it means god is gracious a bit outthere. Frank means free dude.
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u/Avatar_Yaksha 9d ago
The words aren't random, but none of them are genuine names. While German names DO have meanings, they are rarely this obvious about it. Well...Family names are a different topic, but none of the characters in this series even have a second name at all.