AstroBoy Online Forums

Hello,

So, Ochanomizu became O'Shea (instead of the traditional Elefun), and now we find Roxanne, who had a European name all along, has turned into Brianna.

I wonder who was behind this leprechaunization effort was there major Irish-American money in the enterprise? Ireland itself was likely not involved as it never seems to have aired in Ireland.

It certainly is interesting why they'd bother to change an already English name. Your theory is as good as mine, which well, I'd assume they did it just 'cos they could. If they were actually going for an Irish theme, it would be interesting to find out why.

I'd also be curious to find other names and see if they changed them to something Irish, but I wouldn't know who's names to look for. I don't own the DVDs, so the Japanese Tezuka website's small blurb/summaries are all I've got to work with.

As for who's idea it was, could try looking at the English credits and see if it can be narrowed down to the most likely people. Maybe it is mentioned somewhere online who came up with the names for the cast?

As it was never written down, who knows what his name is, although the majority go by O'Shay. One of the bad things about the dub is the consistently changing names, for example Astor/Toby/Tobio, Boyntonn/Tenma, Uran/Sarah/Zoran.
Or maybe the writers were irish

In a fan fic I am writing, I went all the way and made him Paddy O'Shea!

(O'Shea is the correct spelling for the Irish surname, but it is pronounced O'Shay.)

Ah, that's a shame about the lack of name.

But with those names, there is also pronounciation differences too. I'm thinking mostly of Uran's name, pronounced in English like words "Uranium" or "Uranus", etc. In Japan it seemed to have a very Japanese sound, Oo-rahn, if I recall. If it was meant to be related to uranium, wouldn't it have started with the "yu" sound and not "u"? I don't know... Although I guess in Uran's case, the English pronounciation was more fitting anyway. Since I'm getting off topic a bit by talking about the 60s/80s version's names, I'll cut it short by saying they have weird names (in that some of the changes seemed unneeded to me).

About Uran's 2003 name, Zoran. What language is that? I can't seem to figure it out, I should look it up.

Irish writers is a good guess.

Oh boy, I got a bit wordy there.

Oh, what's the fanfic you're writing about? I'm curious. Although I should be asking that in another thread. Still getting used to how forums work...

The thread for this fanfic: http://www.astroboy-online.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6789

Only ch.1 is up (ch.2 nearly finished). But Paddy O'Shea is right there in ch.1.