Many of names in various Diablo 4 regions are heavily inspired by existing cultures. The NW of the map is a Slavic land. NE is British Isles, Southern areas are Turkic/Persian, etc.
What I noticed a lot is many of the NPC names are borrowed from other cultures. They are, however mostly pronounced wrong. It’s almost as if the names were picked at random from a text source without anyone verifying how the words are originally pronounced.
Early in the story we encounter the widow of man named Julek. It’s a common name in Poland (where I am from), but it should be read as Yulek. Instead, the voiceovers feature the same J sound as in John or James.
Yonca is a common Turkish name, but once again the pronunciation is all wrong. Her name (meaning “clover”) should read more like Yondja - but instead we are served with Yonka.
There are a whole bunch of these all over the place, and I am only touching on Polish/Slavic and Turkic/Persian influences that I am personally familiar with. No idea if Celtic and Nord words are butchered in equal measure.
The whole situation reminds me of that old Super Nintendo game Fighting Baseball where some Japanese developer was tasked with coming up with plausible-sounding US names. These are the ones on the attached image.
Rant over.
I really like Diablo 4. I just wish the multicultural influences received the same level of polish and attention as the graphics, mechanics and other areas.
It’s like this in almost every game though. Writers just find cool looking names or names that sound cool in their head and put them in as they imagined they were pronounced
I think this would be a fair criticism to raise if Diablo was set on Earth, but it’s set in Sanctuary. Polish pronunciation can’t be used as a guide for Julek because there is no such thing as Poland. Yonca can’t mean “clover” because there is no Turkish language.
My guess is that pronunciation rules for names come from the language that the game is being played in. Have you checked how those names are pronounced in the Polish or Turkish localizations of the game?
Holy shit those names are fantastic.
Dwigt Rortugal must be my favorite. Mike Truk
Do people not know where that original image is from?
Its a cost thing. Why pay someone to learn the correct pronunciation when 90% won’t care?
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Lol I had to read all the way through your post to understand that the screenshot above was not a connection of names from Diablo IV formatted in a retro font for some reason.
I assumed the intent is not to actually be Polish or Celtic etc. but give areas influence. I’m still not sure I like it though.
I would rather have seen it done more like Middle-Earth where names can be different depending on language, but the common “English” tongue is normally used. So you have a river called Brandywine and another place Rivendell for locations in regions for two different races. Both just being English-sounding words unless asking their native races.
It kind of takes me out of it when suddenly stepping into Druid country and I start thinking of Scots and single malt whisky. I mean there’s no lore reason behind this at all because this is not even planet Earth. It just… is. :-/
It’s a little strange that there are such drastic changes in culture and climate in such a small area of land, but I still like that they did it. It’s of course completely a fantasy world so they can do whatever they want, and it’s got ‘video game scale.’ But I think the cultural differentiation helps to make the world feel larger and the different areas feel more distinct.
