About Asherah, she is the mother goddess in the Ugaritic/Phoenician-Canaanite religion, the wife of 'El Elyon and the mother of Ba`al Hadad. About Moloch, he's not a Philistine deity but an Ammonite deity, coming from the greater Phoenician-Canaanite pantheon.



I thought that Oni was pronounced "oh-nee" since it's a Japanese term for "demon".



How is Cyrax an Arabic word/name when "x" is a Greek innovation?

I like how someone just posted literal video footage of the Midway staff trying to name the cyborgs back in the 90's, and instead of watching it, you assume they deliberately intended for the word "Cyrax" to have a meaning. At least you went with a language they might actually use this time instead of assuming people outside of Finland care about Finnish again.
And yes, "Oni" is Japanese and it's pronounced "Oh-nee".
While I'm correcting things, I should've brought it up months ago: Chrome is...well he's not wrong about ONE meaning for the word "cabal", but he went with an old and archaic one. The modern/common meaning of "cabal" is "a secret group" like a cult or gathering of conspirators.
Also might want to throw this in there: Tobias recently revealed that the reason Kitana's name is spelled with an I is because she was originally going to be called "Kitsune", which is Japanese for "fox". So her name is "kitsune" mixed with "katana".

Yes, I know of cabal as a small wandering encampment/group.

Also, iirc Baraka means gift in arabic, explaining his MKII Friendship.

After seeing Jade's MK9 win pose, I'm reminded that a Jade is Victorian era slang for a prostitute.

Someone mentioned long ago that Cyrax, and Sektor were terms referring to hard drive parts. Someone else postulated Cyrax had arachnid origins, because of his net & exploding teleport (spiders can detach limbs).

Everyone looks to Japanese first for name meanings, or some do anyways.
They assume Kira is Japanese for killer, but I`ve heard the name in other languages.

Quan Chi means bad energy (life force, ki, etc), Shinnok was Irish Celtic in origin.



Ka-Tra

I know one or two people who would be offended if you said a pole-dancer and a hooker are the same thing around them, lol.



To be fair, Kira is a common girl's name in America, there might not have been any intended meaning after all. It also happens to fit the naming scheme that every Black Dragon member in the games except Jarek (and Special Forces doesn't count) happens to have a name that starts with K.

The meaning of Mileena's name is favored which makes complete sense for her.

Verily, I make no such distinction. Whores be whorin'.
Harem dancers pole danced since ancient times as part of the suggestive/sexual arts.
Jade's name refers to her color, like Reptile/Skarlett.

Yes Kira is quite common.
Kira is also spelled different ways, like Kyra (looks like it should be pronounced: kai rah) Kira being Killer also seems like too many people watch Death Note.

Kai is a common name. In Japanese it means new/upgrade or something like that.


Personally, I thonk Motaro's name was just to keep in line with the past sub-boss theme of having a mane ending in -ro
Go-ro, Kinta-ro, Mota-ro.

Goro is a common Asian name. I'm not sure the meaning.

Kintaro is from the Japanese(?) legend of the golden child.

Motaro, I think someone mentioned the Japanese hero Momotaro? Oh, since MK3 featured technology, maybe he was a play on Motarola?

We know Ermac means Error Macro, but I think someone mentioned before that it was a female middle eastern name.

Scorpions are connected with vengance, and his spear move could be seen as the scorpion's stinger.

Kurtis Stryker: Yes, Curtis with a an MK-esque K.
Don't forget his last name, Stryker. Seems the S.W.A.T. team would be a striker force...
Also, Kurtis Stryker was originally going to be an African American kickboxer in MK1, wearing a yellow gi & metal gloves that would "klang" when he punched. He became Jax for MKII, adding the metal arms back for 3. The MK1 design was tweaked for Human Cyrax in MK 2011.

Special Forces: Tremor, cause he has earth element powers. No Face had his face burned off. Tasia sounds like it could be a play on/fancy spelling of Tasha.



Ka-Tra

That's interesting about QC's name.

Shinnok does sound like "sionnach" (which means fox), though it seems weird they'd be using Irish words for names. I doubt that's the origin.
However, in the MK:DA krypt, we learned of the unused character Siobhan, an Irish name, so it's possible.

Weird, though.

That would explain the white skin and redhead.

Sorry folks, couldn't miss this one. *ba-dum-tss*

I was talking about English there and yes, I knew its "demon" meaning. Has the MK team confirmed you that? Otherwise it's not 100% certain. Otherwise it's not 100% certain. Point is, let's be open to potential etymologies. The "one-eye" pronunciation sounds viable to me at least. I must recede the Arabic connection then, but it's possible that the "X" derived from "KS", seeing languages often have alternative ways in writing words. The always untrustworthy MK Wikia suggests that Cyrax means unstoppable too but in a different language. (I didn't come up with that.)

What makes you think that I didn't watch it? I did watch it, and I had watched it years ago earlier as well. It's a glimpse of the MK team coming up with etymologies of the cyborgs who were originally named Mustard and Ketchup, funnily. I don't want to go to the talk about the Finnish language again because I think we cleared up that case, that would bring just a bad mood and it serves no purpose here. If you want though, we can talk about it, but my time in MKO is limited at present and there are more important things than repeating stuff from another topic again, I'd say.
Creativity + Criticism = Answers
I'm definitely not denying criticism, but a malicious and overly scrupulous way of criticism isn't fruitful in this voluntary etymology challenge that's free for all. I'm just saying (out loud at my computer). I must disclose; you had corrected a total of zero things by the time you wrote "While I'm correcting things" in the post. *Talk the talk...* Last but not least, I found it rude to mention Chrome's name in correcting his etymology while it does bring a bit more specific information. This isn't a competition. Not that Chrome would be offended this time. My post probably had an annoying feeling to it but that should be nothing anomalous here. Moving on to etymologies.
What comes to Kabal, we had the "secret group" thing too and I also noticed the mutual K letter. Another thing I had noticed was the N letter in the end of the most god-like characters' names. The other information of Cyrax I brought should be valid, I'll see what I can do with the unstoppable problem. I do believe Kira is meant to mean Killer though NeRdS haven't confirmed anything regarding that subject. As for the Shinnok issue, if my memory serves me right, shin is a Chinese word for god and Nok is a Nigerian culture and the inspiration for Shinnok's trademark headpiece. Kudos for the "kitsune" mention, RE701. No cross-purposes detected, TeeVee, all seems right. I'll have some additions to bring to the table.

Oh my god.
You are insane.

Very, very insane.

This might even be the MOST insane thing I've ever read on this site.

I also felt the need to mention that links to cracked.com are outright offensive to me as a person who likes actual humor...but that's really quite unimportant now that you've made it clear how bloody unable you are to live in reality and recognize what it looks like.

LOL! That's worth of some skulls, man. 'Twas a nice try to insult me while I'm gone but luckily I hadn't gone yet. You degraded to insulting for what? The lack of proper arguments. Funny, because I didn't even insult you but questioned a couple of things and I even praised the find of "kitsune". (For which I'd like to see the source though.) You don't have to believe in it if you don't want to, but you don't have to insult others' thoughts for the 50th time. I wrote the "100% certainty" thing only to emphasise that you shouldn't rule things out that easily. I don't intend that "95%" or so wouldn't count. While here in MKO seems to be a different approach to the name backgrounds, I've met a lot sillier explanations to the etymologies in various places. At least there was some logic as to why they'd be specifically one-eyed. I do see the even *probable* chance that it's not "one-eye"; that doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth mentioning. All mention about minor things here. Gosh.
Anyway, your diagnosis is amiss because I have no mental sickness whatsoever, in all honesty. I'm not a Cracked.com reader any more than you are. Besides, what's wrong with the site? Is it inferior to yourself, intended for chumps or something? Is it not about the taste after all? I'm dumbstruck that you feel offended here, by a harmless link. What a shame... You are the only one with a problem here. Look at the mirror.
And never call me with that damn word again. Stick to the T-O-P-I-C.

There is no "probable". Here in the real world, we DO have 100% certainty that Oni is pronounced "Oh-nee". That you would question this is just one piece in a long line of evidence that there is something seriously abnormal about the way you think and behave around here.

John Tobias posted early sketches/bios on his Twitter.
Kitsune

I'm sorry, but the "one-eye" pronunciation is simply incorrect. We're talking about a Japanese word, and the pronunciations of transliterations of Japanese words are actually pretty straight forward, a lot more so than English words. You claimed that Oni is pronounced "one-eye" yet you have no proof whatsoever. I don't need to have the MK team confirm the pronunciation of Oni for me. It's pronounced "oh-nee", even in Drahmin's MKDA ending. If you don't want to believe that the actual pronunciation of Oni is "oh-nee", that's on you.



Although "ks" can be used for the "x" sound (in the case of the Arabic language, one would use Kaf-Sin), Cyrax is clearly NOT an Arabic word. The letter c is a Latin innovation. Along with g, they came from the Greek letter Gamma which came from the Phoenician-Canaanite letter Gaml. X is a Greek innovation and it either came from Xi (pronounced "ksee") or Chi (pronounced "Khee", with the "ch" being the hard "ch" like in German "bach" or Scottish "loch"). The letter "c" has no usage in Arabic, because for the soft "c" sound, Arabic has Sin. For a hard "c" sound, Arabic has Kaf. Also, with the "y" in Cyrax's name being pronounced as "ai", it doesn't fit with Arabic phonology.

With Sektor and Cyrax, it's pretty obvious that the intention behind their names was to have them sound robotic, that's all. I wouldn't be too sure on Kabal's name either. It would be best to ask someone like John Tobias. The same goes for Shinnok's name.

This long line of evidence; tell me about it. I'm excited. Tell about it.

It's funny how you mocked about the "one-eye" suggestion a good while after I posted it. After you got nothing else to bring here. What is 100% certainty? What do you mean by "certain"? I have not stated that "Oni" would not be pronounced "oh-nee" in Japanese, dear doctor.
Your last post was completely flaming/trolling and had little-to-nothing to do with the actual subject. I wouldn't have expected that from you, earlier.

Thanks for your input. Well, talking about the MK developers who are about to create a new race to a rather popular series, you'd think that they'd think the name 360 degrees and through. While I don't intend that "Oni" would be called "one-eye" in the game, because I haven't heard it pronounced that way, I merely suggested that it's fairly possible that while contemplating about the names they noticed that too. Actually, I didn't remember that Moloch had a cluster of eyes instead of one eye in the middle, pardon for that, so the "cyclops" thing doesn't apply the same way as suggested earlier then. I guess that stole RE701's thunder now, because his diagnosis is officially bullshit ridiculous. Take care, lol.
The thing is that we may not be able to get a confirmation on all the names and we'll have to assume some of those. Was there sarcasm at the end? Anyway, for now, I'd like to think that Shinnok's name backgrounds come from those until else is brought up. It could, indeed, be just the name of John Tobias's cat for instance. But what would you like to offer instead?
I reproached the Arabic reference as told, but nice info anyway. Mortal Kombat Wikia suggested, in the contrary, that Cyrax is unstoppable in Nigerian. What about that? The Wikia page has been edited since I read it but when you write "cyrax nigerian" in Google, you'll obtain dozens of results connecting those words. Is Cyrax that unstoppable after all?

Nice heads up, buddy. That Gongoro information was interesting as well.

I really hoped I wasn't going to have to resort to evidence, that I could make you realize how ridiculously in denial and unable to admit a simple mistake you were being without it, because this is like someone pointing at the sky and going "Blue? That's not blue! Looks green to me!" Having to prove things that are self-evident makes ME feel stupid...or, like an accomplice to stupidity at least, like I'm a bad parent coddling a spoiled child...and I really hate that feeling.

But it was stupid of me to think that. That's what I get for hoping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExLjoIhKXXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvEANbmmYY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfx15qWV0Uw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtOEvjZVMQk
Say it with me now...

"Oh-Nee."

OH.

NEE.
P.S. I couldn't find video of it, but NPCs in MKD Konquest say it out loud a lot too, particularly ones found in the Netherealm. I think Raiden or Kung Lao might say "Oni" in the first level of Shaolin Monks too, when you fight them.

When you said that Oni is pronounced "one-eye", it sounded to me as if you were stating it as a fact. It just seems to me that you're not as familiar with the series, because I'm a little surprised you haven't heard the pronunciation. Although you don't like Razor's responses, I can understand his frustration.



When it comes to Shinnok's name, I don't know what his name could mean. However, if I were to guess, it would make sense that it would be derived from a name of a deity or have a meaning connected to divinity or lordship.



From what I saw, it doesn't really look like anything concrete. You have to understand that it wasn't until MKG where we learn that Cyrax is of Black African descent. According to John Tobias, the ideas behind the cyborgs started out as characters who wore a kind of mystical armor. Sektor and Cyrax had those Ketchup and Mustard monikers in reference to their color schemes, and the formation of the names Sektor and Cyrax came about as a means of sounding robotic. In other words, there is no real meaning to the name Cyrax.

I'm not as familiar with the Mortal Kombat series i.e. the comics, story and merchandise as RazorsEdge701 is (I don't desire i.e. collecting the magazines) - it was a nice analysis. Insulting like that isn't acceptable.

So do you not take for example the Nok culture into account?

Although Nigerian people are black, the connection to the Nigerian language didn't have to define the skin color of the character. Nothing regarding the unstoppable subject shall be written in any stone before the meaning of the Nigerian word has been confirmed. The Cy prefix sounds viable to me. Nothing is certain yet. Should you not find about it yourself?

But didn't I just write this?

The sources weren't necessary even though the bio kards were nice to watch anyway. After remembering that the MK Oni doesn't have a common trait of a cyclops, I changed my opinion on the subject. I don't think it possibly comes from "one-eye" anymore. While it was only an idiom, I must make myself clear that I have never been a spoiled child.
That alone doesn't justify calling one insane. I'm not going to write an idiom here but I hope that you understand that. This topic is almost freaking five-years-old yet we just recently went to page two. It may hint that the etymology subject isn't as developed in MKO thus far. Ideas brought to desolate threads like this couldn't harm anyone. Trying to label me as lunatic was a little uncalled for - was it not? I'm not even depressed.
As people wiser beyond any of us here have already suggested, creativity and criticism lead to answers. Regardless, excessive criticism is often the killer of creativity. Someone has got to come up with these things, right?
More of my "insane" name background offerings of Mortal Kombat:

Mortal Kombat Gold has a name connection to Killer Instinct Gold

"Mavado" comes from "malvado", Spanish, meaning evil or villainous

The only reason you said this was because you realized you'd said something stupid and needed an excuse after-the-fact to not have to admit you were wrong. You and I both know that you ACTUALLY THOUGHT it could be pronounced that way because you couldn't remember them saying it anywhere in the game and because you're so obsessed with double-meanings that you just couldn't accept that the characters who are Japanese-themed demons were named the Japanese word for demon.

It's not your "ideas" that make you seem like a lunatic. It's the way you cling to things that are incorrect even when how false they are is proven or so obvious a blind man can see it, until you're ganged up on by too many people or too much proof to maintain the "my point of view is still valid" act, at which point you find labyrinthine ways to escape accepting blame. See, the more and more you do this, you create the image that you might not even realize you're wrong or understand why, indicating a possible genuine detatchment from reality.



See, this is not helping you. That phrase is much more convenient for you than saying "I was wrong", isn't it? But it's also cheap and dishonest.
Incidentally, you're right about the meaning of Mavado but the developers outright told us that one way back in 2002. Some of his original concept art even spelled his name with the L still in it.

This all is from this thread alone, about your posts:

1. To Cyrax's meaning: "It doesn't mean anything"
2. Implied: No one outside Finland cares about Finnish
3. "You are insane. Very, very insane." -To me
4. Stated that I didn't watch the video
5. Indicated that you were actually correcting things
6. Suggesting that I'm lunatic if I don't agree
Talking about wrong, you have been wronger here than anyone else. What comes to labyrinthine, why won't you tell us about this "long line of evidence" you have? There is nothing wrong with writing diversely. How is this labyrinthine or cheap: "I changed my opinion on the subject."? I think it's completely normal and common (even with you). More importantly:
This topic is about Mortal Kombat etymologies. This is not about you or me. Do you realize?
The focal point in your posts has seemed to be me in this thread. I can state that I was wrong with "one-eye", instead. Is it a rule in MKO to post such in all occasions? How come you have yet to post those in this topic? Nonetheless, I wrote it that way because a) I prefer diverse tongue and b) I think I rephrased it wrongly because I didn't believe that it is "one-eye" but I believed in its chances. I was wrong with that however. Ah, the relevance.

Do you really think this is about being right or wrong? For the third time, if you're that damn critical towards every suggestion brought here, we might actually get nothing. Is that what you're aiming to? Because that's what this has been in the past years here. I might just as well keep even the more relevant information by myself. Do you have a period or something?
You are also trying to justify calling someone insane. Still trying that. Avoiding questions. For your information; you can't specifically know the actual thoughts of another person over the Internet. Yeah, I'm from the Internets. To be precise, you can't realistically even define whether someone's dumb or intelligent by a script written television show.
Please, let us focus in what we are supposed to focus here. You already got one skull for flaming. What's your goal? If you come up with a new idea, there is a fair chance that it is wrong. The best ideas often come after some funny thinking. If each idea is to be bashed, insights never come. The Jax information seems viable to you at least. Should I be afraid of being wrong when sharing these fan contemplated etymologies? Excuse me, but I don't want to waste time too much with off-topic subjects, frankly.

This reminds me of my old social studies teacher. We were learning about the Jimu era, and the institution of pika, she kept saying pie-kah, instead of pee-kah.

Razor's original "insane" comment was at your misinterperetation of "oni".
It is pronounced "oh-knee". Another type of Japanese demon is a "yokai", pronounced "yolk-eye".

I've had a Japanese/English dictionary since I was 16. I bought it because I used to be into anime.

These are the vowel sounds for Japanese:

a - ah like bah, ra

e - 'ey like hey, jay

i - "E" like key, bee

o - oh like so

u - ooh like who, cool



Ka-Tra

YES! That's exactly what I think! The purpose of this thread is information, not baseless speculation and certainly not misinformation! When you first said all that crap about "one-eye" and Cyrax's name and whatnot, you did NOT present any of it as theory, you worded your posts as though those were facts. And when you were caught, you didn't show humility or apologize, you wormed your way out of having to take responsibility for making mistakes. "I changed my opinion" is NOT an acceptable substitute.



The line of evidence is that this is only one of AT LEAST THREE different currently active threads on MKO where you are or recently were caught being wrong about something and not admitting it. And not just by me either, but by other users. This is ANOTHER thing I shouldn't HAVE to have spelled out. I know you're not really blind to the obvious, you're just pretending so you don't have to admit it when people catch the fact that something you said was stupid.



Well whose fault is that? I was helping the thread by making sure readers know not to believe the incorrect stuff you were posting, and that evolved into this stupid tangent because you couldn't let the fact that you were wrong go, you kept changing your point of view from "it's definitely this" to "Well I still think my interpretation is valid" to "Well maybe it could be" to finally "I changed my opinion" and it's all just bullshit. If you had admitted right away "okay, so I had a bad idea, sorry" then this never would've gone off-topic. You're the one who keeps the argument going indefinitely. All I require is for you to admit you're wrong whenever you're incorrect or caught in a lie. That's IT. One little thing and you just can't swallow your pride and fess up. It's not like I'm the only one pointing out your errors anymore either.

Back to this: I mentioned it then to get this topic back to the rail as soon as it could. Yet still, you complained of it after things were said and done. Yes, it was for my good but I think it was for everyone's good. Really, it was.

Apparently yes, seeing how you have to mention everyone's name (Chrome) in trying to correct things. As if this was about pride or something. That might eventually be the reason why so few have attended to give ideas out. It's funny that you had to even input "...but the developers outright told us that one way back in 2002." about Mavado, as if etymologies proven by the developers would not be listed here.
This is about getting the best alternatives for etymologies, not about the people who do this.
You are no better in things listed. That is a bit humorous. Besides, when have you apologized the last time? You don't show much maturity with the constant insults and curse words either, let alone in giving apologies.
I threw out an idea to think about. I rephrased it in a too certain way, I've already stated that. You have rephrased things about Cyrax too certainly by the way. By the time I joined this topic you had thrown a total of zero ideas during your activity and the four-year-old age of this topic. Think about that.
If your insult of being "the most insane thing" is justified alone by the "one-eye" case, that is utterly inadequate. As for other possible topics, there are immediately other cases I could bring here about you. If you want to go there, I'd suggest going to private messages rather. This thread derails.
Open your (one) eyes. Be more open-minded to new possibilities. The thing is, the idea about this petty "one-eye" did not insult anyone. Calling someone insane does. Don't try to turn it on me. You need to apologize more than anyone. Seriously. Who else is pointing out "my errors" here? Tell me. Tetra_Vega revealed more about the Japanese-English differences, but I had already freaking dropped the case. Yeah, now that I know all the factors of that pronunciation, I don't consider it possibly correct anymore. As if it was that important, lol. Don't make anyone assume that the most of my information would be somehow invalid. It's easy mock about others' ideas anyway when you don't have the guts for them. So, where's your "acceptable substitute" with your "insane" blurts?
RE701: Define what you mean by "certain".

"Rephrased"? No, no I have not.

What I said was the developers named Cyrax a nonsense-word derived from "Cyborg" and the clichéd use of the letter X. I said it in a "this is a fact" matter, not a "this is my theory" matter because that IS how Midway came up with the name, it's known. We have interviews from them about the naming process, this thread has a video of them naming the cyborgs, proof that the names were the product of random word-jumbling. And I have never deviated from this statement because one does not deviate from facts.



No it's not. You keep getting this wrong.

This thread is about where the meanings of MK characters' names come from.

There is no place here for "alternatives", there is no point in providing theories for any name that Midway's already explained the source of because the thread is NOT ACTUALLY ABOUT what insert-name-here means in other languages, it's about what THE DEVELOPERS IN SPECIFIC were thinking when they picked the name.

If Midway said "We got Bo' Rai Cho from the Spanish word for Drunk" then you have NO PLACE going "Well what if they named him Bo because he uses a staff?" because they didn't. If they outright say "Drahmin is an Oh-nee, a Japanese kind of demon" then you have NO PLACE going "Well what if it's pronounced One-Eye because Moloch almost looks like a cyclops?", because it's not.

This is not going to change. You cannot argue against this. Accept it and move on.



Well here's something I'm sorry for:

I apologize that the thread went and continues to be off-topic.

But what good is my apology when I didn't start and I'm not the one who can end this argument? All I'm doing is responding. You're the instigator. Therefore, it stops when you stop.



YOUR INFORMATION IS INVALID. No assuming necessary. My god man, that's what this entire argument is about! The fact that you repeatedly provide false information and that the only way to get you to admit it when it's wrong is to have long, off-topic arguments like this!

To Zmoke: There's no point in reading so much into the meaning of Cyrax's name, because the idea behind the name was to give him a robotic-sounding name.

About the Nok culture being tied into the meaning of Shinnok's name, I don't take it into account, but it doesn't make any sense for the character. Even if there was a connection, it doesn't explain the actual meaning of the name. It's kind of like how it's been said that Moloch comes from the Philistines when it actually comes from the Ammonites, but the actual meaning would be "king" or "ruler", because it has cognates in Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.

When it comes to some of these names, we just don't know unless someone like John Tobias gives us insights.