Talk:Lithuania

I have always seen his name as Toris...should it not be the most common name for the character regardless of how "correct" it is?

~adele <3

Adele, there are several variations for each of the characters' names. Toris is the most commonly used name for Lithuania, but some people don't know what his true official name is. So it could be either Toris or Tolys, or a completely different name. Izzybizzy-aru 23:39, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no "correct" way to transliterate anything from kanji to Western languages due to certain missing dipthongs in Japanese. Personally, I think that we should keep Tolys, but also alter the last name to the more proper and correct "Laurinaitis", which, of course, is an actual Lithuanian name (viz. pro wrestler John "Animal" Laurinaitis and his son James of the St. Louis Rams). I also think we should change Hungary's first name to its proper Hungarian form while we're at it. And if the Western fandom's popularity index was the decider, we'd have to change Prussia's last name, because the fantards are still using "Weillschimdt" despite being told that it's clearly wrong. The Spie 00:40, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Well I mean, Tolys is a listed Lithuanian name http://www.thelithuanians.com/names/name22t.html

Also agreeing on 'Laurinaitis'. And with Toris apparently being a popular name for dogs in Lithuania, I suppose I can sort of confirm that after searching both spellings and coming up with a page for 'Toris' the dog from Lithuania on... uniteddogs or something (don't know if it's THAT popular, but hey, a dog named Toris from Lithuania). Tolys Laurinaitis looks better anyway, but it's going to either take a very long time to spread or just get shut down completely by the 'fandom'. Elegentmess 09:22, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

I have a feeling that Tolys is going to be shot down anyway. Pipe changed all the references about three days ago. Within 24 hours, someone changed them back to Toris. Ceras then changed them back to Tolys, and, again, within 24 hours, some Florida-anon went in and changed them to Toris again, a situation I corrected. Honestly, we might as well go whole hog, change the name to Tolys Laurinaitis, then lock the page. The Spie 16:08, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

The tricky part is this: "Toris" and "Tolys" are basically the same in katakana, which is "Toris" either way by Japanese spelling. There are Lithuanian fans that believe Himaruya intended the latter (or something like "Tauras", which is apparently another name, but I think the kana spelling would be a little different on it). But either way, it comes out "Toris" in Japanese.

Maybe we could keep "Tolys" but put in another note about the alternative spelling (or vice versa, like an "Also spelled: ___ Laurinaitis" at the top of page or in profile), I'm not sure. I'd heard about Toris apparently being a dog sort of name but hadn't found any results for it, but that could also be some other sort of inspiration (if I wanted to reach, Lithuania="Russia's dog"? Of course who knows what might have been in the thougt process). It's probably a blessing that a bunch of the other characters haven't gotten human names, otherwise we'd probably reach levels of Sailor Moon-fantardedness about spelling debates. Ceras SanMarina 19:37, March 21, 2010 (UTC)