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To the editors who have this article on their watchlists:

I am presently revamping the list of character names using the linguistic notation of romanization followed by the original script and translated in parenthesis with quotation marks delimiting synonyms. I am also changing several of the translations, mostly to include alternate meanings. I will apply capitalization for all romanizations of personal and family names in the mouseover text (even if they're fictional names) and remove it for translations. I would like to add some references, and while none of the translations are currently sourced, I may yet cite the Tibetan names as, unlike in Chinese, there's no ambiguity as to spelling. I plan to publish in the next 24 hours, if you have an objection please state it here.
Psilon No. 2 (wallcontribs) 16:47, August 12, 2014 (UTC)

Not an objection as I don't really concern myself with this page, but you might want to talk to TLane, who is generally invested in the upkeep of this page. Lady Lostris / 9?cb=20210808202057 SOAP 17:57, August 12, 2014 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to this in principle - I think this page needs some reworking in terms of improving organization and maintaining greater consistency which I haven't had the time to do. Without seeing specifically what you're proposing, however, I can't really comment on whether there's anything I'd suggest doing differently. If you created it in your sandbox - or just a small sample section to save time - and showed it to me before implementing your changes I'd be happy to look it over. telane (wallcontribs) 22:10, August 12, 2014 (UTC)

I'm definitely applying this format consistently, though with one variation for those that have canon Han names and one for those who don't. I've just updated my draft for the changes you made to the article today, some of which I had already made myself and others which are new to me, like the name given for Asami Sato. I'll assume that's from a recent episode similar to how I have for all the names on the list. I've even copied Chinese names from some Water Tribe character pages to flesh out that section a little but am not sure where they originated.

Here's the page, hope you don't my cuts: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/User:Psilon_No._2/Sandbox Psilon No. 2 (wallcontribs) 01:09, August 13, 2014 (UTC)

I have to oppose some of the changes made—specifically the addition of characters to names that we don't actually have characters for. To say that a name is spelled a particular way is purely speculative—for instance, 'Hakoda' could mean 'laughter, library, reach' (哈库达), or it may mean 'breath out, mouth, big' (take a big breath) (哈口大). We just don't know. Actually, talking about it, I do think we need to seriously go over these and try and find sources for the Chinese characters, otherwise it's speculative. I'm find with keeping things such as the Sanskrit names, as Sanskrit is not a written language used in Avatar. As Chinese is, it could confuse people as to whether it's canon or not. Frui (🌹🐝🐝🐝) 01:30, August 13, 2014 (UTC)
Like I wrote in my reply to TLane, I took those names from the character templates on the respective character pages. If they're non canon, they probably shouldn't be there. If those names have never appeared on screen, I imagine they're from a foreign language release (I can't imagine how else the editor picked the characters).

Psilon No. 2 (wallcontribs) 02:06, August 13, 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, yes, I've actually been meaning to remove those, but I don't spend a lot of time on the canon pages, so it's taking a while. There was a forum not long ago about requiring sources with the characters. I don't think that the foreign-language releases are considered canon, either. I found a version of ATLA in Chinese, but I've no idea how 'official' it is. Frui (🌹🐝🐝🐝) 02:11, August 13, 2014 (UTC)

I have a similar feeling. Some people go around adding in Chinese names that are dubiously sourced (or completely made up) and we have to be careful not to include those. I've tried to source all the Chinese characters on this page to specific episodes, with the exception of some that are simply highly probable (eg. Sha-Mo meaning "desert".) I don't think the foreign-language sources should be considered canon since they often seem to use transliterations for the names that are different for the ones used in-series (at least that's what a quick glance at Chinese Wikipedia tells me.) And of course apart from the uncountable possibilities in trying to reconstruct a name with Chinese characters from Pinyin there's the concern people will assume it's canon. Now, some comments about format: I don't think it's necessary to include the pinyin written out on the page when we have a template for the purpose of including it without looking cluttered. I think this should apply to other languages too - give the romanizations as a rollover of the native script. For example, in the Japanese names mousing over the characters could show Hepburn romanization instead of Pinyin, and similarly for the words in Tibetan or Sanskrit. Some of the romanizations I'm not convinced merit inclusion, since I'm quite sure nobody speaks Khitan and almost nobody could understand the reconstructed pronunciation - and I am also not sure whether the Chinese characters should be included, since they're nothing but phonetic transliterations. With the few Korean names I think it's enough to leave the Chinese characters, since they're a valid - if dying - way to write the language and unlike Hangul are used in the series (the same way we don't write out all the Japanese names in Hiragana.) telane (wallcontribs) 01:24, August 14, 2014 (UTC)

Is Yue the only water tribe supporting character whose name is written out in the original series? While some spellings are definitely chosen for their meanings as was hers, when it comes to choosing which explanation for authorial inspiration seems more likely, we must always remain skeptical in recollection of the sourced fact that Korra is 'not' named for Cora Baker, daughter of Bradley Dee Baker and the first to voice the character as young Korra in ep1, but actually is named after a dog belonging to the owner of an Econolodge in Alberta where the creators stayed overnight while attending a landscape photography conference.
As for format, I'm using the template to give a romanization of the full name with the same capitalization, spelling, and hyphen use as the English name, but I'm separately spelling in pinyin the readings for each character alone (in lower case) so I can follow up each one with its semantic value. I found that the original format didn't clearly indicate for those who don't recognize the characters which character corresponded to which part of the overall translation, knowledge of which is not only positive for better understanding the translation but also is useful for more easily making connections between names that use the same characters including ān 安, kǎ 卡, sū 蘇, ā 阿, etc. I formatted the text for a prospective Japanese template and even a Korean one which I specified as "Hanja" because I was using a traditional character (which, if they're still commonly used for anything, it's uncommon family names) but included the Hangul too so it's more easily recognizable as a Korean name. I included the Khitan just for consistency, but it did feel odd to use the same format for alphabetic orthographies (Cyrillic, the traditional Mongolian script, and Hangul) and even alphasyllabaries (Devanagari and the Tibetan "alphabet") with an alphabetic transliteration directly preceding them. Maybe I'll change those to use the format where the original language is named in parentheses followed by the original script as I did for the Noatak entry. The Chinese names for the Mongolian figures are transliterations, but they're the transliterations used in Chinese. Finally, I tried to leave the canon Han characters to the left of the dashes and the speculative spellings to the right (in what's stated to be translations and notes). However there are a few missing dashes and other errors which I've yet to correct. Psilon No. 2 (wallcontribs) 15:20, August 14, 2014 (UTC)

Not even Yue's name was ever written out; I'm pretty sure Katara and Sokka were the only Water Tribe people whose names were ever shown, and only in the title cards for "Tales of Ba Sing Se". In Yue's case they just said that she was "named for the moon" so I think that's confirmed enough to keep. But I agree there are some things on this page that it's certainly safe to say are a little too speculative: for example, that Amon was named for the Egyptian god. I can't really see a clear connection there and I don't remember ever hearing that in an interview or other published source, so it should probably be removed. I understand what you mean about the benefits of explaining each character separately, so I withdraw that comment. I was thinking though there should probably be some way to denote that most of the names are really just phonetic transliterations rather than having some profound meaning. I did notice you put in a Japanese template: the point I was trying to make is that I don't think it's necessary to have a separate template for every language when all will do essentially the same thing. You can just use the Chinese template to accomplish that goal. The main concern I have with having such a profusion of languages is it starts to look very cluttered an confused. I think putting all non-canon languages in parentheses is a good idea to keep them marked off. As for the Chinese transliterations of the Mongolian names, again the problem is that people might think they are canon, which they are not so it's safer to just stick with the Mongol writing (and personally, I'd go with the older script rather than Cyrillic). Don't worry about having a few errors, there are loads of errors on the page as it is so I'm sure whatever you come up with will by and large be an improvement. telane (wallcontribs) 17:16, August 14, 2014 (UTC)

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