Kahn is the title for some rulers. There was an actual historical figure nammed Shao Kahn.

The Black Dragon, and White Lotus Society were actual organizations.
The WLS mission was to defend China(?) from outside influences/threats. In MK, they defend Earthrealm(?) from outside influences/threats.

The Lin Kuei are real. The name means Forest Demons, most likely intended to instil fear in their enemies.

Shirai Ryu: Ryu is Japanese for Dragon, I'm not sure/forgot what Shirai means.

Tengu are Japanese mountain crow demon warriors.
Remember Bad Bird & the Ninja Crows from Samurai Pizza Cats?



Ka-Tra

From what I could find, "Shirai Ryu" is the name for a form of shurikenjutsu (in layman's terms, a fighting style of using shurikens.) The "Shirai" part comes from name of a Japanese swordsman, Toru Shirai, who presumably founded the style.
Which fits for Scorpion's clan pretty well since he's all about throwing his spear dart. His bio in Mythologies, the game where the name of the clan was first given, even said "Scorpion has mastered a technique known as shuriken- weapons thrown from the hand."

Shirai-Ryu is also the name of what was a Ninjutsu tradition that apparently existed many centuries ago. It was said to be one of the oldest Ninjutsu traditions along with Hakuun-Ryu, Negishi-Ryu, and some others. Both the Ninjutsu and Shurikenjutsu traditions would make sense for Scorpion's character.

Ryu also has meanings of "family", "tradition", and "flow", and that pertains more towards martial arts styles.

Hsu Hao, Im not sure the meaning, but the concept art calling him Kahn, and the Kahn Klap move come from the Mongol warlord Kublai Kahn.

In 1281, Kublai Kahn's fleet was set to attack Japan, when they were completely defcimated by a typhoon. That's why his Kahn Klap move had a wind gust effect.



Ka-Tra

Actually, it's "Khan". To be honest, it would have made more sense to have Shao Kahn be named "Shao Khan" due to the whole Gengis Khan thing. Like I said before, "Kahn" is a surname used by German Ashkenazi Jews and is a variation of the surname Cohen, referring to a Levite priest.

Daegon is also a philistean god of the sea or fish Baraka, also berakhah, in Judaism, a blessing usually recited during a ceremonyalso barakah, in Arabic Islam and Arabic-influenced languages such as Swahili, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, a blessing from God in the form of spiritual wisdom or divine presence. Also a spiritual power believed to be possessed by certain persons, objects, tombs.

By now I believe you have had your time to edit the post as you saw fit, RE701. Denying my thoughts in that manner was not beneficial however.


You referred to the etymology video - nonetheless - telling this as an official piece of information is not right at all. I brought the etymology information there because it was the furthermost understanding of "Cyrax" in the etymology topic of Midway Boards and I had earlier indicated that these grains of information come from there for the most part. Be it right or wrong, it's good to have something that may be correct than nothing.

"You cannot argue against this." ... "You are insane." ... "Your information is invalid." ... "You keep getting this wrong."
Telling that bullshit all the time doesn't prove your point. It's redundant. I think we cleared the "oh-nee" thing ages ago but you keep bringing that up. Should I bring some old archives up? Just be relevant.
Do you remember the idiom of a golden retriever you told – not too long time ago – where someone asks another about the dog’s gender, to which they answer “It’s a golden retriever!”? It applies here.
I may keep getting this "wrong" because I don't plant your thoughts the way you want into my thoughts. Your thoughts are lacking in this situation I tell.
I asked you to define what you mean by "certain" in letters sized a cat and I asked it before. You plain ignored it twice. Now, you seem to have no idea about what traits make something "certain" and what do not, do you?
Previously, you brought up The Number 23. I have actually watched it, for the sake of being a Jim Carrey movie, and frankly: it was one of his worst. The idea was original at least. Herein, I suggest to watch another movie by him called The Truman Show. There'll be an extreme change in the "truth".
Trial and (expletive) error.
This is about getting the best alternatives for the Mortal Kombat name etymologies because sometimes the best alternatives are correct. We are seeking for the ones that may have been in the developers' heads at the time but we really aren't going to have all the name backgrounds confirmed. There we're trying to come up with the best alternatives.
It feels petty to have to explain every single tidbit I bring here, so detailedly, because I won't be able to bring as many suggestions then. I'd rather just bring the ingredients here that you, as a group, can later on bake as you see fit, so that we can make further conclusions. Nice buns coming up.


Admittedly, I haven't been writing as accurately as before lately, because I have had drastically less time to spend in MKO (true story) leading to more tasks or threads to join in less time yet to more efficiency, and naturally more flaws. That's something I'm actually sorry about because the level has been slightly higher in other times. Otherwise I'm happy with the decision to cut my home Internet access because c. 80% of the time spent online is often "unessential", at least it was, and surely is with many.
Nevertheless, you need to realize that the developers aren't going to tell the whole truth about the Mortal Kombat etymologies and write down all their thoughts regarding them - and that is where the fans come in.
It was unnecessary of you to mention Finland here but as you value education, you may want to watch this. It's merely to enlighten you and made by Americans so it should not be and is not biased. Don't get me wrong though, I can represent the country as a whole by no means.
Bo' Rai Cho was named after "borracho" but I implied earlier that the name may have affected in their choice of a weapon for him. Well great if I'm an instigator because this was almost a ghost town before I came in. Practically, you can end this argument just as I can and "All I'm doing is responding." is pretty blunt because that's what we all are doing here. Lol.
You believe that you're some ambassador of truth, when there is no such thing here or in fact anywhere. You don't even have to leave this thread to notice that you have had numerous inaccuracies in your posts anyway.
"YOUR INFORMATION IS INVALID."
Playing with words, anyone? I could say the same thing about your posts. Some of my information (the long-talked "oh-nee") may be invalid but certainly not all, or even closely the majority, of my information is invalid. Isn't it funny how you "brought up" the doubts on my etymology proposals after Sub-Zero_7th brought them up, yet you stick to them so crazily?
I didn't run the etymology thread for pride but passion. Yours truly was the biggest contributor to it, but: I didn't come up with the unstoppable thing.
From sounds to things:
"Cyrax" has been suggested to mean "unstoppable" in Arabic or Nigerian in multiple sources like MK Wikia, trmk.org and others. Hereby, I didn't want to rule those possibilities out and did a little research. I asked a friend of mine, who knows fluent Arabic, whether or not "unstoppable" and "Cyrax" have a connection in Arabic. They did not - but when I showed him the word "Cyrax" written, he immediately connected it to a word pronounced something like "shcirash" that means a "cry for help".
It is questionable to say that "Cyrax" here comes from Arabic, but there seems to be a little proof to support this intel. Cyrax was stuck in the quicksand in UMK3 for quite a while as one of his earliest actions game-wise and he probably cried for help. If your next thing here is to deny this simple theory I brought up: fuck it. I just brought it here to think about.
The mythbusting continued - I asked a Nigerian friend of mine, who knows fluent Nigerian, whether or not "Cyrax" has a meaning in that language. It does not, he told, but suggested that it might be either an abbreviation or coming from "Syracuse". Unlikely, but it is an interesting talking point.
The implication of Sub-Zero_7th and others about the robotic sound surely was the focal point in Cyrax's naming process. Of course, "Saibot" was a factor as shown in the video and the "Cy" in "Cyrax" must come from "cyborg" as in other media (Cytown). There are also those Cybots.
I fixed the early post about Cyrax to this day. There you have it. The explanations should be justified but they will remain uncertain until the developers' official statement. No one knows, for granted, except NeRdS.

Personally, I don't think that the etymology video in the page one tells the whole truth of anyone's etymology; it was merely Ed Boon showing that "Hey, we did spend some time with the names!". No one stated that "Cyrax" means this or that because the name was still under process.
Again, I only brought some nuts to crack and ingredients to bake, two cents to consider. Here are some other name backgrounds to examine:
Kochal comes from "koin challenge".
The choice to use Daegon might come from the fact that it is close to "dragon", and Daegon founded the Red Dragon Clan. Disambiguations of "dragon" have been seen in the media in the past too, such as Eragon. Other than that, "Daegon" also includes the N letter in the end that's been common to the most of the god-like characters in Mortal Kombat.
Noob Saibot's weapon from MK:A, Troll Hammer, is a reference to his first name, Noob, that's similar to the Internet slang word "n00b" or "newbie 00" which is a negative word just as "troll" is in the online world.

You answered to that for me; we just don't know for granted yet, which is a reason I see if there is anything other important with Cyrax's (and some others') name. You may be right however; everything potentially essential concerning Cyrax's name backgrounds should now be addressed.

I think there is a strong connection with Shinnok's trademark hat and the headpiece of a Nok member, intentional or not. It seems rather logical:
Shin (god status) + Nok (looks) = Shinnok
That'd be in the same syllable sense as with Zaterra (terra) and Ermac. Shinnok's name was also hidden in "KONNIH5" seen in the Tekunin ship in MK:A but that doesn't probably have anything to do with the etymology. Reverse text is possible in theory – yet rare – in order to decrypt a name.

It must be a disambiguation similar to Cage–Kage, confusing us etymology hunters. Disambiguations often give originality (see: Skarlet).
..........................................................................
Thanks for your respects towards my voluntary efforts. As told, I cherish "the truth", whatever it is, am human exposing to mistakes as anyone else yet am exceptionally strict with not being misleading nevertheless overall. This paragraph had sarcasm in the first sentence, to avoid misleading.
What I hope for: 1) focal point on new options because they are what this thread screams for right now, 2) criticism without name calling and 3) simply activity, in good manners, from everybody. If we are to proceed.
Sincerely Yours,
Mr. Wordsmith ♞

Really? You just HAD to come back, after saying nothing in the thread for almost a whole month? You couldn't just let it go? As far as I'm concerned, the argument is already over.

If you want to continue believing incorrect information, that's not my problem. It only became a problem to me when you shared, and then argued that your theories were right on several occasions that I had concrete proof otherwise. That you eventually did concede on some of those is irrelevant. It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did, which adds to your lack of credibility as a source of information. (The fact that you apparently need me to define the word "certain" for you, and don't seem to know what does and does not constitute a concrete truth doesn't help either...)
But hopefully by now I've established more than enough evidence for other people who read this thread to know to be skeptical about the validity of your posts.

That's all I wanted, to make sure no one would be misinformed upon entering this thread. Since at this point, I'm pretty sure I no longer need to be worried all that much about anyone taking your word at face value, there's nothing further to argue about here. It's over.

OFFICIAL ONI PRONOUNCIATION THREAD!

That's lofty! "The argument's over." First of all, I didn't come here earlier because I didn't have the time for this by then and secondly, I wanted to ask about the Arabic and Nigerian things beforehand. Moreover, I did some research. Some legitimate research. Something you have not done here. The only thing you have proven here is that you are a lofty person who attacks anyone whose proposal/message may be somewhat incorrect. You're right in one thing; the argument is almost over. B-CAUSE: You didn't have anything to answer to the majority of my message.
You have no idea how to define the truth to start with, it appears. Not too long time ago, there was this American red-wine research where red-wine was told to be good for your heart and other false things. It proved to be false. Well, would have you believed in it? I bet you would have. Now, what truth would have that been? You take things way too seriously in this topic: you do not have to accuse of every single proposal. Good results appear.
If that's the case, I can collect a bunch of misleading posts here from you. To prove those stupid things you do. Yes, I can. Sure, RE701, you can talk the talk (sort of). But the real question goes: Can you walk the walk?

You repeatedly presented theories that directly contradicted the word of the actual developers themselves. In response, I was able to consistently bring up evidence of the devs giving the actual name-origins. (Although credit where it's due, in the case of Cyrax it was Ninja-Mime who provided the video.)

When something like that happens, the guy with no proof does not get to question the guy with the proof's definition of the word "truth". To take that stance requires facts and credibility to actually be on your side, to cast doubt on the other guy's reliability. You simply can't do that here, there's nothing to back you up.

It's over, man. Let it go already.

They did not contradict the developers' words that much. There's nothing to back me up? Are you blind? Now, I brought the truth talk after the post way back when you got skulled. Do your homeworks. Don't exaggerate.
Nevertheless, trying to apply to me some false messenger stamp is just ludicrous and shoddy: the fact that you did not question the majority of the post just means that it was OK in your eyes. Which proves against your accusation. You fell to this argument from your behalf, although you told it ended–making you a "false informant" yourself. You are not convincing.
There's an old saying.
Now, where were we? Oh, in the etymologies. It's been a few posts again since the last proposals or actual "research". Let's talk about the spin-off character Inari in Mortal Kombat. There is a place of the same name located in Inari, Finland, that is one of the northernmost places in the world. Less known place names with a low density of habitants are sometimes used in the media. The Xbox 360 successor, for instance, has now been dubbed as "Durango", which is the name of a state in Mexico.
For any possible further messages, my private message inbox is open. Let's keep the trash talk away from this thread, to keep it clean, shall we?

I'm sorry, what made-up weirdness are you inventing now? There is no such character.

It's a tough call on Cage/Kage. Granted Kage means shadow in Japanese, but it's pronounced Kah-Gay, not Kayj.

Kano is a city in Australia.

Rain, it's well known that Boon is a Prince fan(Purple Rain), and has weather themed powers. I should also point out that, like Reiko & Hotaru, Rain is also commonly a female name, with spelling variants Raine/Rayne. Also, because he's a potential ruler, his name rhymes with Reign.



Ka-Tra

Clarification: Time between the posts is not an argument no matter how much you wish for that. It's outright stupid that some users put so much energy in finding something wrong about others' theories while the others actually bring forth something worthwhile. But this is MKO I guess, lmao.

There isn't? Curse the Midway Boards then! LOL. During the few year old life of the thread I proposed that people would bring all the names from the side series like DotR and Conquest–seemingly someone either fooled around or disarrayed it with something else then. I'm not familiar with those series but "Inari" was under some publicity for quite a while, which makes one bewildered. Inari and Mortal Kombat are also mentioned here in an MKO thread made last year, apparently.

As to the MK team's tendency to really delve into the pronunciation of all etymologies and would they sometimes only focus in the written text solely–it's uncertain. I don't know that much about the Japanese way of spelling but would this be explained by the possibility that "Cage" would also be spelled "Kah-Gay" in Japanese (just as Kage)? People have also proposed that "Kano" would derive from Cain–the first son of Adam and Eve–who was the first person to kill (his brother) in the Holy Bible. I can see some similar aspects in Kano's behavior, especially in the early past.
What about these two grannies:
Sindel: Derives from the Greek word, Sindelia, meaning the apocalypse. Two different Greek sources (people) have told this at least. As with "Shinnok", the word "sin" lies either or not intentionally in "Sindel".
Delia: The opening post tells that it means "Lady of Fire". There is no further information in it–like the possible language–however. Like Sindel, Delia is connected to the Armageddon in Mortal Kombat and they might share the etymology (see: above) too. "Delia" is close to "delicatus".

Cage's phoenetic equal would be keiji, which is 3 different things in my Japanese dictionary:
-a written notice announcement
-a police detective
-revelation, enlightenment, inspiration

As for the barred holding contraption
A large cage is an ori (or "E")
A birdcage is torikago (Toe re- kah go)
"tori" means bird, "kago" means basket/birdcage.


Kano is a city in Australia, Kano is Australian, mate.
You can't just reach for every slight syllable or phoenetic similarity.

By your logic, "Sub-Zero" means No Sandwiches...

But wait, he doesn't have any sandwiches, so it must be true...

Perhapsss he hass icecream sandwiches! Shut up Reptile!

Moving on...
From Deception's Konquest, a Tarkatan in Outworld says:
"The ninja, Karasu, does not frequent this realm."

"Karasu" is Japanese for Crow/Raven. (Kah Rah Sue)
Karasu is a cyberninja in The Grid, another game the MK team worked on.



Ka-Tra

Kano wasn't made Australian until the movie. Originally, he was an American abandoned and raised in Japan.

"Kano" happens to be a normal Japanese name. (It's more common as a surname but can be either.) For example, like the first post already mentions, the founder of Judo was named Jigoro Kano. Apparently, the name means "masculine power or capability", which I will of course point out may not be relevant at all, Kano might just straight-up be named after the Judo guy. But it does fit for a strong, rough dude like him.

Incidentally, "Goro" is also a normal Japanese name. Although, in Tobias's early concept art, he was gonna be named "Gongoro" and it was eventually shortened.

As for "Inari", as far as I know there weren't any characters with that name in DotR or Conquest either. I think you just stumbled onto someone's fanfic creation with that one.

I wouldn't rule the Kage thing completely out though, even if it isn't bulletproof. Well, at least "Kage" and "Cage" are pronounced in the same manner in English, if that helps anything. Kage is also a character in another fighting series, I recall. I appreciate that you have obtained the magnificent base of my logic here–"No Sandwiches". I doubt that the Australian-ness would've been in the MK team's mind while making Kano. It could have been in the movie developers' minds however. "Kano" could be a disambiguation of "Cain" and that doesn't contradict with the possible connection to Jigoro Kano. All factors could've been noticed at some point.
Just kidding with the sandwich part. I rely on the pastry logic.

"Goro" is also close to his father's name "Gorbak" but I believe that "Goro" is part of Gorbak's etymology and not vice versa. "Oro" is Italian for "gold" which kind of fits for this ex-Mortal Kombat heavyweight champion and the English words "gore" and "gory" are close to it (possibly coincidental). Midway Boards wasn't that fruitless, but Inari must be out of question here.

In other news, it's important to point out that "Kobra" isn't only a variant of "cobra" but that Kobra has also a likely connection to the Cobra Kai dojo from the Karate Kid film. Kobra is sort of like a mixture of John Kreese from Karate Kid and Ken from the Street Fighter game series with gore.

Yeah, the devs confirmed that Kobra's inspired by Johnny from Karate Kid. People tend to never notice that though because they're so focused on calling him a ripoff of Ken from Street Fighter. (To be fair, both are a bit true. During development, Kobra's early name was "Ben".)

If they bring him back, he needs a special move like Rain's roundhouse where he sweeps the leg.

Kung Lao 功老 (according to SNES Japanese MKII manual, apparently that's the hanzi): Gong = power; it's his surname; lao=old ("old man" kind of old). A weird thing to name your kid, but NRS has proven that even with the power of WB, they STILL don't know how Chinese names work, and since this was MKII . . . well, we can pretend that it's "ancient" instead of "ol'", so then it looks like "Ancient Power" which is cool and relevant.

Liu Kang: 刘钢 (also from SNES Japanese MK manual or so says the wikia): Liu is a common family name; Gang means "steel." Now THAT'S a cool name.

Kuai Liang and Bi-Han have no known hanzi, but it's worth noting that since Kuai Liang's name doesn't have a hyphen, it's possible that Kuai is their surname (that is, Bi-Han's full name is Kuai Bi-Han).

If someone in China nowadays has a one-syllable given name, you try to find a way to make it two syllables, so it wouldn't be unheard of to refer to Kuai Liang by his full name while only calling his brother Bi-Han.

Tomas Vrbada: Well Tomas is you know, Thomas, but Czechier. Vrbata is a family name that means "lives near the (willow) trees." You can find Smoke in the living forest!

ok now I really do have to work.

Great Kung Lao was created first, for the backstory of MK1. MK2's Kung Lao is named after him. So "Old Man" or "Powerful Old Man", would fit.



Since MK always gives the asian names backwards (Scorpion is named after Hattori Hanzo, but his name is Hanzo Hasashi instead of Hasashi Hanzo, Liu Kang's parents and brother were named Kang, not Liu, etc.), Liang would probably be the surname, not Kuai.

I think that the surname-switch was, at least originally, due to a lack of information rather than intentional. I guess I can't back that claim, other than that 刘钢 is a perfectly acceptable Chinese name where as 钢刘 is absolutely bizarre. 钢 and 老 aren't surnames. 刘 and 功 are surnames. Of course this doesn't really matter because it's all about meanings, but since 刘 has no epic meaning, I don't see why it would be his given name when 钢 has a cool meaning. Kung Lao's name, you're right - it's more about the meaning than anything else.

Liang would make sort of more sense as their surname, I guess, because it might be 凉, which means "chilled."

They did a pretty good job with the Chinese in the Cyber-Sub HUD, though, so I wonder what characters they intended for the names.
寒 (Han) means "cold" as in the feeling of cold and shivering. "避寒" - Bihan - the first thing you get when you use MS pinyin simplified Chinese - means, according to Google Translate (I'm still a learner of Chinese) "refuge from the cold." Sounds pretty epic to me.
Also, some people think that "Kuai Liang" is referring to Liu Biao's advisor from the Three Kingdoms Period of China (~200CE). Since that's my favorite period of history, I can say with confidence that he's not. Kuai Liang is not really noteworthy. In fact, his younger brother Kuai Yue was more famous . . . and even then . . .

From what I've seen of MK, Tao Feng, and his comments in interviews and on twitter, John Tobias is reasonably knowledgeable about Asian stuff, at least about their mythology and kung fu movies. You don't name a character in tribute to Hattori Hanzo without knowing his name is "Hattori Hanzo", not "Hanzo Hattori". So why would he put the Hanzo first in Scorpion's name unless it was intentional?

I figure when he named characters in MK1 and Mythologies, he knew they do names in reverse in China and Japan but intentionally put the surnames last because the game was made for an American audience and that's how we do it in America.
'Course, he didn't name Bi-Han and Kuai Liang, so we don't really know what the intention was. But since Liang as the surname fits the pattern Tobias already started, and I just plain think "Bi-Han Liang" sounds better than, say, "Kuai Bi-Han" or "Bi-Han" all by itself, that's what I'd prefer to believe for now.

Could you provide the source for this?
Smoke's name, Vrbada, might be a combination of pravda and Vrbata. "Pravda vítězí" is the Czech motto meaning "Truth prevails" and "pravda" means "truth" in Czech, Bulgarian and Russian. The "truth" etymology would tell that he does what he feels right rather than what others wish.
Tomas derives from Thomas the Apostle, the man who doubted Jesus' resurrection (later aka Thomas the Believer), connecting also "Tomas" to the truth and skepticism. This time Smoke was resurrected in lieu of being just an observer. He was also a Doubting Thomas in the cyber initiative.
Smoke has always been more or less a question mark (→ the truth).

Baraka- deity in an Arabic religion
Raiden- Japanese deity
Sheeva- obvious Shiva
Shujinko- means protagonist
Meat- look at him
Drahmin- is the name of a demon creature
Bo'rai'cho= boracho which means drunk in español