Aliasing maribel_han -> maribel_hearn.

Reason: The katakana is マエリベリー・ハーン, which is generally recognized as an attempt at an English-sounding name by someone who doesn't know that much about English-sounding names. With that in mind (and ignoring the fact that "Maribel" doesn't really reflect マエリベリー that well), "Hearn" makes more sense than "Han", and her Touhou Wiki page also puts forth a theory as to why "Hearn" is more plausible.

I'm wondering how マエリベリー (maeriberii) is supposed to be "Maribel"? Ending with an "l" doesn't seem right given the pronunciation of the katakana.

True. The wiki page gives "Mæriberie Harn" as an alternate romanization, but I can guarantee that nobody's ever used that spelling outside of the wiki, whereas most fans are familiar with the "Han"/"Hearn" dilemma. I suppose we could alias both maribel_han and maribel_hearn to maeriberii_haan or something, but that seems like overkill.

Well I guess the question there is if マエリベリー is supposed to be the legitimate equivalent of some known foreign name or is made up entirely. It's just interesting that "Maribel" came to be an accepted romanization (assuming the wiki is right and there's no official one) since it's not what it sounds like.

On her family name, though, it definitely makes more sense to transliterate it as "Hearn" and not "Han".

Hasn't ZUN ever spelled it out in latin letters? It's definitely not a Japanese name so we could take the official one here.

What about, uh, Mullberry? ベリー is usually "berry". Not that it makes much sense in a personal name, but we're talking about Japanese making up foreign names, and there's Patchouli too.

Putting "maeri" into WWWJDIC the only katakana names I get are マエリウス Maelius and マエリャ Maella. ベリー could be "berry" but when it comes to proper names, it seems like there's so many different ways that could be romanized

I think a more useful approach here is "could you conceivably spell Mullberry as マエリベリー if you were born Japanese". Looking for existing names ain't gonna do us much good when it's pulled out of ZUN's arse.

jxh2154 said:
Hasn't ZUN ever spelled it out in latin letters?

According to the wiki, no, which makes sense, considering that all the official romanizations come from either the games themselves or Bohemian Archive/Perfect Memento, neither of which feature Maribel or Renko.

葉月 said:
What about, uh, Mullberry? ベリー is usually "berry".

マエリ as "Mull" is a bit of a stretch, but that's probably the best variation that is a recognized English word or name. "Myraberry"/"Myrabelly" fits the sounds pretty well and could plausibly be a name, but not even in the deepest, darkest parts of the South could you actually find a child named that.

If it were supposed to be "Mulberry", it'd probably have been spelled マルベリー instead.

I think "Maryberry Hearn" sounds close enough.

edit: Another possibility has turned up. "Mae-reverie Hearn".

Unless someone grabs ZUN and ask him what he really intended, this is all going to be pure speculation. It's pretty clear that we don't have any authoritative way to reverse-engineer this terribly contorted katakana rendering into a sensible, plausible, definitive English equivalent.
I could, in principle, support maeriberii_haan as per howto:romanize, but honestly, it looks just plain absurd, and I'd much prefer leave this as an exception and maintain the status quo. My two cents.

Her name is a made-up Western name, given in Western naming order, though, so it doesn't fit under the usual phonetics.

Which is even worse, not only do we not have any authoritative sources, this leaves us with no applicable standard romanization scheme!

マエリ could also be "Mahery", for what it's worth.

First name aside, the last name clearly isn't "Han", given the elongated vowel, so I'll repeat my vote for maribel_han -> maribel_hearn.

Even if we do stick with maribel_han, I'd appreciate a maribel_hearn -> maribel_han alias, if only for the sake of myself and all the other taggers who have internalized "Hearn".

Also, I find "Mae-Reverie" aesthetically pleasing.

Given the lack of official romanzation, lack of obvious foreign name to choose, use of katakana, etc, this is a situation where just sticking with fan canon for lack of anything remotely authoritative doesn't bother me much.

As for han vs hearn, it's true the elongated vowel means han probably isn't perfect but hearn seems like at least as much of a stretch, doesn't it?

Khan is also suggested when I look it up, that's an amusing thought... (but no not a suggestion to use)

jxh2154 said:
As for han vs hearn, it's true the elongated vowel means han probably isn't perfect but hearn seems like at least as much of a stretch, doesn't it?

Khan is also suggested when I look it up, that's an amusing thought... (but no not a suggestion to use)

The "Hearn" suggestion is in reference to the author Lafcadio Hearn, and Japanese Wikipedia does render his name as ハーン
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E6%B3%89%E5%85%AB%E9%9B%B2

jxh2154 said:
As for han vs hearn, it's true the elongated vowel means han probably isn't perfect but hearn seems like at least as much of a stretch, doesn't it?

In this case, it has a lot to do with some subtle naming tricks and hinted links between characters.

edit: beaten.

jxh2154 said:
As for han vs hearn, it's true the elongated vowel means han probably isn't perfect but hearn seems like at least as much of a stretch, doesn't it?

No. That'd be the most probable romanisation and anyone's first guess if there wasn't pre-existing pollution in this regard.

The reference makes sense then. Done. Keeping Maribel, though, nothing else proposed seems convincing enough to go against the name everyone knows her by. I wouldn't mind replacing it with a real source though.

I went ahead and moved the wiki over, minus some possibly spoiler-ish content.