Fortunately...

OT: Hebrew Help? by Tira on 2015-06-24 16:22:00 UTC Reply

So I'm trying to name characters for a game of Demon: the Descent. Part of the premise is that the characters were once servants of the God Machine, known as angels, who have rebelled and Fallen, becoming demons. They possess both a fake human identity to fit into the world and an angelic identity that is their true form. Most of them have "angelic" names in Hebrew that end in "-iel."

My character's human name is Reiko Kamino, which is Japanese for "zero child of God." (I know that usually Rei doesn't mean zero when it's used as a name, but Reiko specifically spells it that way.) She also has an NPC "brother" named Ichirou Kamino ("first son of God"), who is still an angel. I'd like their angelic names to have the same meaning as their human names. Unfortunately, I don't know any Hebrew, and none of the online translators give pronunciation guides for the Hebrew script. I.e., Google Translate says zero is "אפס" in Hebrew, but I don't know how to pronounce it.

Sorry if this is a strange request. I'd really appreciate it if someone could give me hand with this.

Fortunately... by Desdendelle on 2015-06-24 16:51:00 UTC Reply

You have two Hebrew speakers on Board! DawnFire and me, to be precise.
Anyway, on to your request: the 'x-iel' suffix actually means 'my x is god'; for example, 'malkiel' - 'malki' my king + el = my king is god (I won't bother you with the exact grammar here).
Onwards. אפס is pronounced 'EH-phes' and it indeed means 'zero'. So if you want to use that as a basis, you get Ephesiel, which roughly means 'my zero is god'. If you want the literal meaning, you get something very unlike an angel's name or, indeed, a name at all.
'Firstborn' is בכור bkhor, so that's a tad easier - בכורהאל Bkhor'ha'el is literally 'God's Firstborn'.

Hmm... by Tira on 2015-06-24 17:02:00 UTC Reply

Thanks for your help! Maybe I'll just use Ephes as her name? Demons sometimes drop the reference to God after they Fall... (In-game, I could probably get away with Ephesiel, but it bugs me that the meaning is a little off.)

Would Ephesa'el be "zero of God"? I'm okay dropping the "child" part.

Actually... by DawnFire on 2015-06-24 17:10:00 UTC Reply

Ephes'ha'el is what gives you, literally and kind of amusingly, 'the zero of God'. You need the 'h' sound there, even though it would probably get a bit slurred in speech, because otherwise all you've really done is... Well, made 'ephes' feminine, in a weird way that shouldn't apply to the word (as far as I know, it has no feminine form, because it doesn't generally need it. To that end, calling your character Ephes works fine).

Also, on another note, Ephesiel is just about the funniest thing I've seen today.

~DF
Not exactly. by Desdendelle on 2015-06-24 17:05:00 UTC Reply

Ephes'ha'el (notice the h-sound, it's important - it's the Hebrew equivalent of 'the') is 'Zero the God'. You probably want 'Aphsoshel'ha'el', roughly, 'the zero of God', though it's a bit of a mouthful.

Okay, thanks for your help! (nm) by Tira on 2015-06-24 17:06:00 UTC Reply

...on second thought, listen to the fellow who... by DawnFire on 2015-06-24 17:14:00 UTC Reply

...speaks the language every day, since, as you can see, I sometimes miss things like 'epheshael' meaning something more like 'God is zero'. Sorry about that.

~DF