fortunesque wrote...
Railstay wrote...
fortunesque wrote...
Railstay wrote...
Bioware used both spellings prior to the release of the game.
But if you want to enter that technicality, lets call these things into evidence. In-game his name is pronounced KAY-DEHN rather than KA-EE-DAHN, which would be the Japanese pronunciation. "Kaidan" in Japanese very roughly means ghost story, whereas "Kaiden" in Arabic means companion.
Now what meaning seems to suit Kaidan more? Does he seem like a ghost story to you or an NPC companion?
And if he actually was born and raised in Malaysia, a country noted for its enormous Muslim population, then his parents giving him an Arabic name rather than a Japanese name makes much more sense.
Okay I'll play the technical game ![=]](https://lvlt.forum.bioware.com/public/style_emoticons/default/sideways.png)
They settled on Kaidan for the final spelling.
Ghost story fits for him as well. His whole situation with BAAT and Vyrnus fits for that translation of the name. He tells you the story about ghosts from his past.
Just because his mom was in Malaysia when the transport crash occurred doesn't mean that he's Malaysian. His dad was Alliance; it was likely that them being there was a temporary stationing.
That's a big stretch for me. When you bring in names like Saren which should be spelled differently than how they're actually pronounced in game to Kaidan's role as a companion, then for me I'd prefer to think they actually meant the Arabic name.
Also, names don't have any connection to race either. Many Chinese-Filipinos abandoned their ancestral surnames and adopted native or Spanish last names, especially after World War II during the communist scare. Jose Rizal is the national hero of the Phillipines, but he was full blooded Chinese. I'm an Asian American, but I have a Hebrew name, and I'm guessing the majority of the rest of you do as well. Most people named John, Mary, Isaac, Daniel, Michael, Adam and Sarah are not Jewish.
So given the area he's in, a place with a lot of Muslims, it makes a lot of sense that his parents would give him an Arabic name.
But you're assuming that he's living in Malaysia or that he was even born there. His mother could have been visiting Malaysia for a weekend and got some bad luck, you know?
Besides that, the transport crash was in Singapore, which currently is comprised of 74% Chinese and only 3.2% Arabic and Eurasians. So to say that they picked an Arab name doesn't quite make sense.
But your explanation is getting more and more complicated. I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong, but I am saying that it gets shred to pieces by Occam's razor.
http://en.wikipedia....i/Occam's_razorWhat are your reasons for assuming that Kaidan's name comes from the Japanese compound word for "ghost story"? It lies solely upon the fact that it could act as a metaphor for the "ghosts" in his past. What are my reasons?
1. He was born in Malaysia, a country where the majority of people are Muslim. So, his parents gave him the Arabic name Kaiden, which is simply an anglicized version of the Arabic word for "companion". It can be spelled any number of ways, including Kaidan, just like how Jonathan can be spelled Jonathan or Johnathan.
2. He is literally a companion in the game, fulfilling the role of his name.
3. Before Mass Effect came out, Bioware used both spellings of his name in the pre-release material. Also Saren, whose name is supposed to be pronounced
ser-ehn, is actually "misspelled" as well. His name should actually be spelled Seren, but Saren just looks nicer, and it's logical then to assume that Bioware thought Kaidan can look nicer than Kaiden.
4. Everyone in the game pronounces his name
kay-den, not
kai-dan.
Now, lets take Ashley. To me, she is very clearly a reference to Ashley Williams in the Evil Dead movies. Someone else could claim that's not true and she's actually named after the Welsh soccer player, but if he/she wanted to make that argument, that person would have to make more and more convoluted theories in order to support it. The basis of my theory is much simpler: On Virmire, Ash directly references the Ash of Evil Dead with the line, "Nothing like a nice walk on the beach, blasting bad guys with my boomstick."
So my theory follows some simpler connections. Kaidan is a companion, and Kaiden is Arabic for companion, therefore he's named after the Arabic name. He was born in Malaysia, a country made up mostly of Muslims, so therefore his name is most likely Arabic. Your links are more tenuous. His parent could have been just stopping by, he has ghosts in his past and the biggest question: Why give him a Japanese name? Seems totally out of the blue. But if his name is actually Arabic, a name that means companion, and he was born on Malaysia, it makes a lot more sense.
Anyway: More Asian guys in the game, please. As really interesting and cool party members. Here's hoping for Mass Effect 3.
P.S
The Singapore connection is muddy. It's never clarified whether eezo exposure happened only to people in Singapore or if wind could've carried it to other places, like Malaysia which is pretty close by. Either way, the prevalence of human biotics from all ethnic backgrounds means Singapore is a melting pot in the future, a military base or the exposure covered more than just Singapore.
Also, you use racial population as an assumption that race = religion. I think we covered before that race, culture, nationality and ethnicity are all completely exclusive from one another. Half of Singapore is Buddhist, but the second largest religion in Singapore is Islam, at about 14-15%. Race has nothing to do with religion. In fact China has
tons of Muslims, about 18 million, and has some of the richest and oldest Islamic history in the world. Zheng He, the admiral who led the great Ming Expeditions of the 1400s, was an ethnic Hui and a Muslim.
Modifié par Railstay, 28 janvier 2010 - 02:39 .
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