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.
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?
I can’t get too worked up over this.
For one thing, there are countless languages and dialects in the world today where similar words get pronounced differently. Take a name like José. Spanish speakers tend to make the J sound closer to an English H, while Portuguese speakers will use a more English-like J.
Moreover, pronunciations evolve over time. A lot. My own surname centuries ago sounded nothing like how I pronounce it today.
Diablo is it’s own world which may or may not be connected to ours. Usually, fantasy narratives are loosely based on the past, though I was reading some Terry Brooks and discovered his fantasy realm is actually post-apocalyptic Earth. Kind of clever how he tied that in. Anyway, all I’m saying is that both distance and time can distort language quite a bit.
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
Do people not know where that original image is from?
Holy shit those names are fantastic.
Dwigt Rortugal must be my favorite. Mike Truk
Maybe intentionally so, to avoid any chance of an accidental lawsuit?
Normal games just use any actual name they like and put a disclaimer that any similarities to existing people are unintentional
I found the names of the towns/regions to be pretty confusing and they felt out of place in the Diablo universe compared to how places were named in the previous games.
Its a cost thing. Why pay someone to learn the correct pronunciation when 90% won’t care?
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I wasn’t surprised that the J letter is pronounced wrong, it’s not readily apparent unless you have some knowledge of the languges, and I dont blame the (mostly)American devs for going with pronunciation that feels natural to them.
I just wish developers stopped lumping all slavs with Russians when using slavic-inspired elements. Especially when it comes to architecture. Though it was nice seeing some Czech and Polish inspired names in game.
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.
They generally didn’t put a whole lot of effort in the voice acting, not even for the player characters, which I find way worse.
Sobbing NPC: “Please, everything is terrible, all my family is dead, you must help me!”
Female rogue in a chirpy tone: “Oooookeeee!”
