Yesterday, we published a feature on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, in which we dug into how Capcom's 2005 Nintendo DS remake was localised for the West.
As part of this, we heard a lot of interesting stories about the creation of its English localization from those responsible for originally translating the game into English, with perhaps the most interesting to us being related to the naming of its lead protagonist.
That's because, according to the main translator Alexander O. Smith and Steve Anderson, one of the project director's at Bowne Global Solutions (the company tasked with localizing the title), it appears the name Phoenix Wright wasn't always the forerunner for the character, with the team suggesting a ton of different first names to Capcom, including Xavier and Pierce.
As you may or may not know, the central protagonist in the original Japanese version, Gyakuten Saiban (逆転裁判, literally "Turnabout Trial"), was named "Naruhodo" (なるほど), which was essentially a play on a Japanese term that literally translates to "I see", and is a joke poking fun at Wright's inexperience and his tendency throughout the game to make mistakes and get corrected. So, according to both Anderson and Smith, the idea was to try and adapt this bit of wordplay to English, with the localization team coming up with the surname "Wright" (as in "Right") early on, to lean into this.
Smith felt this wasn't enough though, so suggested pairing it with the first name Roger — a name which ended up being used for two thirds of the localization process, according to Anderson and would help hammer home the original pun.
"My favourite name was Roger Wright," Smith told me. "Because his name in Japanese, Naruhodo, means 'Oh, I get it'. There were jokes based his name being "Naruhodo" and if his first name was Roger, then people could say 'Oh Roger, right!' and he could be like 'What?' You could keep the joke pretty much the same. But I remember hearing the director or the writer of the first one didn't like Roger Wright, because in Japanese it sounded way too close to Roger Rabbit."
Online, this similarity between Rojā Rabitto (ロジャー・ラビット) and Rojā Raito (ロジャー・ライト) has often been credited as the reason Roger Wright became Phoenix Wright, but it seems it wasn't only factor that was considered, with the plainness of the name being another aspect that Capcom wasn't keen on either.
Anderson told us, "Capcom felt it was too plain (we weren’t aware they were considering using his name in the title at that point). But yeah, it probably didn’t help that it was close phonetically to Roger Rabbit when transliterated to Japanese. They wanted something unique and compelling to both English and Japanese audiences, because I believe they were planning to include the English localization as a bonus in the Japanese release."
Because of this, Anderson submitted a number of other options, which were slightly more unique, with Phoenix being on this list of new names.
Anderson recalled, "'Phoenix' was a name we’d previously considered but hadn’t proposed to Capcom in the first few rounds of candidates. I liked how the image of a phoenix rising from the ashes paired with the 'comeback' theme of the game, but we initially felt it was a little TOO “unique” and it didn’t have a natural nickname associated with it, which the dialog required. I threw it back into the mix after multiple rounds of other name ideas failed to gain any traction, and that’s the name that Capcom ultimately chose, cleverly suggesting 'Nick' as the nickname to pair with it."
Interestingly, in our conversation with Smith, he revealed he wasn't actually a fan of the name at first, but understands now why Capcom picked it, with Phoenix being a perfect encapsulation of the series's premise of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
He explained, "Capcom liked the whole kind of heroic aspect of it. Phoenix Wright was all about facing utter disaster and then pulling victory out of the ashes. I remember distinctly when they said, 'We want to do Phoenix Wright'. I was like, 'Really? That's not a name'. But now I can't see it any other way."
What do you think? Do you think the series would have landed in the same way in the West with a different name? Or is "Phoenix Wright" as irreplaceable to you as it is to us? Let us know in the comments!