How did they come up with the character names in Final Fantasy 7?
Cloud began a tradition of Nomura naming his leading males after weather phenomenon. Cloud from 7, Squall from 8, Tidus (how to pronounce the English word “tides” in Japanese) from 10. Aeris was actually Aerith (and was improperly converted to Romanized characters when Sony did the original translation). It was a rather lame Japanese play on words for the English name “Earth”. Red XIII’s real name of Nanaki is an anagram of Anakin, a Star Wars reference (along with Biggs and Wedge, names which appeared in every FF from 6 through 10). Cid is a tradition for Final Fantasy. Every FF except the first one has had a Cid (and Cid was added into the first one starting in the GameBoy Advance version). Sephiroth is a Kabbala reference.
