Dr Brief's daughter

[LiamKav]

Just to avoid derailing another thread, I just wanted an answer to something that's been confusing me for a while.

I understand "Bulma". It's written on her clothes, and it's sort of what they actually say in the original, allowing for letters that don't exist in Japanese and whatnot.

I understand "Bloomers". The rest of her families names aren't words that sound like English words for underwear... they ARE English words for underwear. Her son isn't "Tunkle", her dad isn't "Dr Bulief". It's not a "Vegeta=vegetable" thing, it's literally "Trunks=trunks". So, if you have Trunks, Bra, Brief, then calling her Bloomers and chalking the word on her clothes up to Toriyama not understanding English makes sense.

I don't get "Blooma". It's neither what is written on her clothes, nor is it an actual English word. It's a bit closer to capturing the pun, but why? What's the thinking behind "I don't think he's written that correctly, but I don't think he wanted to match the example of the rest of the family"? It just seems an unsatisfying half-way house to me.

[Gaffer Tape]

For the same reason that it's "Freeza" instead of "Freezer." But Bloomer would be acceptable too, as both spellings are used to refer to the clothing. Neither do I think "Bulma" as wrong (provided it's not pronounced the way the dub is), as it's really just reversing one vowel sound for the one on the other side, or just straight "Buruma" if you want to be really straight romanizing about it. As I say in the video, there often is more than one right answer.

[penguintruth]

For the same reason that it's "Freeza" instead of "Freezer."

Wow, I've never seen that series of videos before. Pretty awesome.

[LiamKav]

Hmm. I dunno. If anything, I'm more inclined to start calling him "Freezer" now, since his dad is the literal English word "Cold", so again it seems like we are avoiding cute word play and just going for English words.

I've never seen the clothing spelt "Blooma", however. And google searches don't give me anything either.

[Bussani]

But that's how Freeza's name is written in Japanese.

フリーザー (freezer)
フリーザ (freeza)

If anything, we should spell Cold's name differently, since the way his name is written in Japanese isn't the Japanese version of the English word "cold".

コールド (cold)
コルド (???)

I saw someone suggest "Kold" rather recently. I forget who that was.

For the record, I think "Bloomers" makes sense.

[Gaffer Tape]

For the same reason that it's "Freeza" instead of "Freezer."

Wow, I've never seen that series of videos before. Pretty awesome.

Why, thank you. It's still a work in progress (I've only done the first two arcs and an introductory video), but I'm glad you're enjoying it. (Also, forum discussion thread is in my sig )

Hmm. I dunno. If anything, I'm more inclined to start calling him "Freezer" now, since his dad is the literal English word "Cold", so again it seems like we are avoiding cute word play and just going for English words.

I've never seen the clothing spelt "Blooma", however. And google searches don't give me anything either.

Wait... what? I'm sorry, but all I have to say to that is, "Who's changing things carte blanche now?"

And where was it ever said that the spelling "Blooma" was ever used on her clothing?

[LiamKav]

Hmm. I dunno. If anything, I'm more inclined to start calling him "Freezer" now, since his dad is the literal English word "Cold", so again it seems like we are avoiding cute word play and just going for English words.

I've never seen the clothing spelt "Blooma", however. And google searches don't give me anything either.

Wait... what? I'm sorry, but all I have to say to that is, "Who's changing things carte blanche now?"

And where was it ever said that the spelling "Blooma" was ever used on her clothing?

Okay, my lack of Japanese is probably hurting me here, so I'll ask. For Trunks, Freeza, Cold, Dr Brief etc, are their names written as you would translate the regular English word (assuming "freezer", obviously), or are they spelt differently?

And for the final point, I thought when you said..

But Bloomer would be acceptable too, as both spellings are used to refer to the clothing

... you meant that both "Bloomers" and "Bloomas" are used to refer to the clothing, and I was saying that I've never seen the clothing spelt "bloomas"

[LiamKav]

Sorry, I've just seen Bussani answer some of those. I'm just trying to get a handle on which words are "sounds like" and which are "exact translations".

"Kold" would give us some nice alliteration with King Kold. I'm guessing you'd want to avoid a seemingly random alternative spelling, or you end up with Frieza...

[penguintruth]

What bothers me is Funimation using "Cooler" instead of "Coola".

I mean, they call his brother "Freeza" (oh sorry, "Frieza"), they should be consistent. Either it's "Freeza" and "Coola" or "Freezer" and "Cooler", but mixing and matching is dumb.

[Gaffer Tape]

And for the final point, I thought when you said..

But Bloomer would be acceptable too, as both spellings are used to refer to the clothing

... you meant that both "Bloomers" and "Bloomas" are used to refer to the clothing, and I was saying that I've never seen the clothing spelt "bloomas"

Ah, okay, okay. I see. What I meant was, my logic for "Blooma" is that the clothing is generally spelled bu-ru-ma-a, while the name is spelled "bu-ru-ma." But there have also been sources that spell the clothing "bu-ru-ma," which means that you could also assume that her name is the actual word, not a truncated version of it.

[Bussani]

Okay, my lack of Japanese is probably hurting me here, so I'll ask. For Trunks, Freeza, Cold, Dr Brief etc, are their names written as you would translate the regular English word (assuming "freezer", obviously), or are they spelt differently?

Brief and Trunks are spelled exactly as you'd approximate the English words in katakana. Freeza, Coola, and Cold (Kold? I-unno) are spelled differently. "Buruma" is an odd one, since normally you'd need a long vowel at the end (like "burumaa") to get the "er" sound; however, "buruma" is an accepted alternate spelling for the article of clothing, and that, combined with the fact that everyone else in her family has their name as the exact English word, makes me think that Bloomer or Bloomers makes sense.

And for the final point, I thought when you said..

But Bloomer would be acceptable too, as both spellings are used to refer to the clothing[/i]... you meant that both "Bloomers" and "Bloomas" are used to refer to the clothing, and I was saying that I've never seen the clothing spelt "bloomas"

"Blooma" isn't used in English, no. What he meant was that both ブルマー (burmaa) and ブルマ (buruma) are acceptable Japanese spellings referring to the clothing article.

"Kold" would give us some nice alliteration with King Kold. I'm guessing you'd want to avoid a seemingly random alternative spelling, or you end up with Frieza...

Hm, yeah. It's a tricky one because it lacks the long "o" sound. That is, it's "korudo" instead of "kourudo" (aka, cold, the temperature), but how do you capture that in English?

[LiamKav]

Gotcha. I wonder, was Toriyama aware that "bloomers" is not a word most people use to describe underwear? Should we be thankful that she wasn't called "Pulanties"? Or "Knickures?"

I mean, they call his brother "Freeza" (oh sorry, "Frieza"), they should be consistent. Either it's "Freeza" and "Coola" or "Freezer" and "Cooler", but mixing and matching is dumb.

Being charitable, I wonder if they realise they made a mistake with Frieza, but since they've already copywrited it and used it for years that they were stuck with it. Otherwise we should be thankful we didn't end up with "Kewla" or something.

[Bussani]

I wonder, was Toriyama aware that "bloomers" is not a word most people use to describe underwear?

Maybe. I think he probably was. Bloomers are a type of underwear, just like briefs and trunks are. However, when she was initially introduced, I'd bet that a lot of Japanese readers thought her name was a pun on the girls' gym shorts of the times, which were also called bloomers. Maybe he picked it because this made it a more obviously funny name for Goku to laugh at than something else might have been?

Should we be thankful that she wasn't called "Pulanties"? Or "Knickures?"

I'm thankful for that, personally.

[TripleRach]

I can conveniently quote my site on this:

I started using the "Blooma" spelling based on the idea that it wasn't the same as the original word. Years later, I learned that ブルマ can also refer to bloomers, so one day I may even switch to using "Bloomer." We'll see.

But that still presents a slight disconnect with the pronunciation, because her name doesn't have the long aa/er sound.

Hm, yeah. It's a tricky one because it lacks the long "o" sound. That is, it's "korudo" instead of "kourudo" (aka, cold, the temperature), but how do you capture that in English?

I usually just go with "Kold," but I guess "Colld" is also a possibility, since double consonants are often used with short vowels in English. Then again, I don't know if that works with "oll" in particular, since words like "roll" and "toll" have long O vowels.

English spelling sucks.

[Shoryuken]

Hm, yeah. It's a tricky one because it lacks the long "o" sound. That is, it's "korudo" instead of "kourudo" (aka, cold, the temperature), but how do you capture that in English?

I usually just go with "Kold," but I guess "Colld" is also a possibility, since double consonants are often used with short vowels in English. Then again, I don't know if that works with "oll" in particular, since words like "roll" and "toll" have long O vowels.

English spelling sucks.

It's not phonetically impossible to convey Korudo in English, i.e. Kuld/Keld (representing the shortened "o" sound).

[LiamKav]

"Freeza returned with his father, King Kuld"

Hmm.

I wonder how much you should include author intention in this. He almost certainly won't remember, but I wonder if Toriyama had any sort of logic behind when he made names from English words, and when he made them from sound-alikes?

Of course, in some ways a lot of this is redundent. English words are often spelt very differently to how they are pronounced. I'm sure there are words in English that end in -a, and some that end -er, that have the same pronounciation. The fact that I can't think of any off the top of my head shoud in NO WAY invalidate this argument.

(I would tend to argue that for the words that are based on English words, a native English speaker should be able to guess the pun with minimal clues. "Freeza" by itself could just be a funky name, but combine it with "Coola" and "Kold" and it's obvious what the puns are.)

[Adamant]

I saw someone suggest "Kold" rather recently. I forget who that was.

Probably me on IRC, I did mention that was my preferred spelling there not too long ago.

[VegettoEX]

Some of the names we do have Toriyama comments on, or at least hints toward what he was thinking (such as when he renamed all of Bardock's crew, and would elongate just one vowel sound compared to what Nakatsuru had, just to make the name different from the actual word... but we know it's not like he did that with every name).

I don't know that we have much on Cold, though. All FOREVER gives us (as per Herms's "Name Pun Round-up" thread), is "From the image of a refrigerator, I came up with ‘cold’."

"Kold" was actually a pretty common spelling for his name when I was getting into the fandom.

[sonikku956]

For the same reason that it's "Freeza" instead of "Freezer." But Bloomer would be acceptable too, as both spellings are used to refer to the clothing. Neither do I think "Bulma" as wrong (provided it's not pronounced the way the dub is), as it's really just reversing one vowel sound for the one on the other side, or just straight "Buruma" if you want to be really straight romanizing about it. As I say in the video, there often is more than one right answer.

Why isn't she wearing a bra?

Sorry for the random question XD

[Gaffer Tape]

Erm... you'll have to ask good old Toriyama about that one, but she definitely is showing a bit through her top in that picture.