Tears of Themis: A comparison between the male leads’ Chinese and English names
While you may know him as Marius, the Chinese market has a completely different name for him!
Tears of Themis, Mihoyo’s latest foray into mobile games, has been available to play for almost a month. If, like me and the wider expanse of the international audience, you’ve been playing the game with its dialogue text set to English, you’ll notice that despite being a Shanghai-based company, Mihoyo has given our male leads surprisingly Western names that sound mostly European.
Well, it turns out that their names have actually been localised for the international market. Each of our four male leads have their own Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English names! Here, I’ll take you on a comparison of their English and original Chinese names, and discuss meanings, allusions, and other trivia that you might not have known if you played the game only in English.
- Luke Pearce | 夏彦 (Xià Yàn)
Luke, your childhood friend, has the name 夏彦, pronounced Xià Yàn in the Chinese game. The first character, 夏 is his surname and is the character for the season of summer. His first name, 彦, directly translates to elegant, but in a more literary context refers to a man of virtue and ability.
There’s a little secret here, though. Luke, a detective by trade, shares the character 夏 in his last name with one of the translated varients for the Chinese name of Sherlock Holmes: 夏洛克·福爾摩斯. As he takes pride in his detective work, loves the works of Sherlock Holmes and frequently refers to you as his ‘Watson’, this is a little tidbit that has unfortuntately been left out of the English translation.
Pearce, on the other hand, could be a variant spelling of the names Peter and Pierce, but is generally taken to mean ‘rock’ in Greek and of ancient Biblical origin, where Jesus gave the name Peter to Simon, symbolizing his steadfastness in faith. Similarly, Luke is a name best known for its use in the New Testament and in the Gospel of Luke. The English form of the Latin names Lucas and Lucius, it means ‘the bright one’ or ‘the one born at dawn’.
2. Artem Wing | 左然 (Zuǒ Rán)
Artem Wing, your stoic, extremely talented yet kind-hearted law partner, has the Chinese name 左然. The first character is his surname, directly translating to ‘left’, as in the ‘left side’, and is a relatively common Chinese surname. 然 on the other hand is an adjective that usually means something is correct. Given his 99% trial win rate, we can be sure that our lovely Artem isn’t losing any time soon!
Artem is a gender-neutral name of Slavic origin derived from the name of Artemis, the Greek goddess of moonlight and the hunt. Wing isn’t a common Western surname, but you can take this to refer to the wings of a bird, to pair it with the meaning of Artem, or as a habitational name given to those who resided in areas of the United Kingdom, which were named Wing.
3. Vyn Richter | 莫弈 (Mò Yì)
莫 is a surname that can mean nothing and no one, signifying the absence or lack of something. 弈 is the ancient word for go, a Chinese strategic board game similar to chess. This is very interesting in the context of our mysterious Doctor Richter, who seems to constantly be playing mind games on the people around him, and who had a puzzling introduction during the prologue!
Vyn is not a common name at all, and I would even venture to say that Mihoyo might have made it up or it is short for something else, as I cannot find any information on the origin or meaning of the name Vyn. Richter, on the other hand, is a surname of German origin meaning ‘judge’. This is quite interesting too as it is Vyn who judges and determines your suitability for NXX, and is constantly weighing you up to his expectations.
4. Marius von Hagen | 陆景和 (Lù Jǐng Hé)
陆 is his surname, referring to land above water. Could this be referring to the fact that the PAX group seems to own all the important companies on Stellis (let’s just close one eye to antitrust laws). 景和 consists of two characters. The first, 景, refers to view, for example ‘the view is beautiful’ and scenery. 和 on the other hand refers to peace and harmony.
Marius is thought to be a Roman name deriving from Mars, the god of War. It has also been used as the male version of Maria in Christian contexts. It could also be from the latin root ‘mas’, meaning ‘male’. The von of von Hagen, is typical of German language surnames as a means to signal nobility or as a way to mean ‘of’ or ‘from’. Given Marius’ background, the nobility option seems extremely viable. Following the German background of von, Hagen can therefore be a topographical name that means protected place or enclosed pasture. If you play through some of his card stories, Marius constantly talks about wishing to be able to protect you!
And there you have it! Aside from the mysteriousness of the name Vyn (which honestly, is incredibly in-character), the names of our male leads have been laid out for you here. Do you prefer the original Chinese names or does the localization help you to remember them better?
(Unfortunately, Medium isn’t very good at hosting the pinyin of Chinese characters. If you’re confused, check out the Tears of Themis wiki for the correct positioning of the tonal indicators!)
