Sergio Nova wrote:Erica (female form of Eric) is the standard name even in German, as far as I know. Erika does exist (the same way Phillip, Philip and even Filip and Fillip exist), but it is non-standard.
I was under the impression it was the other way around, in Germany, actually...
The kana spelling is no reference to western names, as it would even write Kristian, once C does not exist in that syllabary.
I was actually referring to the long "e" sound, which seems to confirm it's meant to be a German name.
MrFaber wrote:Is Gally supposed to be Japanese? (At last ethnically speaking). I always assumed so and Yoko is, indeed, a japanese name, but, with manga faces, in the end, who can tell?
"Yōko" (actually spelled "陽子") indeed is a Japanese name.
Does that mean Gally is supposed to be of Japanese descent? Well, I'd say that's another matter...
Food for thought:
* Gally's character finds its origins in a "Tuned" female cop character from one of Kishiro's unpublished short stories. While that character was also called "Gally" (a reference to Gully Foyle, the main character of Alfred Bester's
The Stars My Destination), that was just a nickname, and her full name was "Karii Yōko" ("狩井陽子"), i.e. a Japanese name there again. And since the story was set in near-future Japan, I think it's fair to assume that previous incarnation of the character was meant to be Japanese.
* The original series had its share of Japanese (or, at the very least,
conspicuously Japanese-sounding) names, the most obvious being "Ido Daisuke" (he even wrote his own name in katakana!).
Was Ido, for instance, really meant to be of Japanese descent though? Who's to say? He certainly isn't
obviously Japanese, but then again, you probably shouldn't expect Japanese authors to portray their
own ethnicity like Western artists would...
Still, one might also argue that the world of
Gunnm was still in its infancy at the time and certainly not as well defined as it is now, so maybe we shouldn't overanalyze those early details... or wonder why there's so much Japanese writing in future Kansas City, centuries after Japan was vaporized.
* While the original series didn't reveal much about Gally's actual origins (and thus clues regarding her ethnicity), we
did learn quite a few things from
Gunnm Martian Memory, the PlayStation game.
For starters, she was the genetic twin of the first queen of Mars. Which could tell us a lot... if we knew more about said queen. Problem is, we weren't even told her name. All we have is the name of a fairly distant descendant of hers, and for what
that's worth (not much!), "Remayla" ("リメイラ") doesn't sound Japanese at all.
But we also found out in that game that she got the name "Yōko" from a certain "Dr. Gotō" ("Dr.ゴトー"), and that's
yet another Japanese-sounding name (in fact, "Gotō" ("後藤") is a very common Japanese surname). So for all we know, maybe that's the
only reason she has a Japanese name: the man who took her in and named her had a Japanese name / was of Japanese descent.
Of course, there's absolutely no guarantee any of the above will still be true in Kishiro's new
Last Order /
Mars Chronicle continuity. I guess we'll have to wait and see...
Wouldn't the admin change the title of the Board to a more generic one? Because we are not only discussing LO here. 
