Any Reason For The Name Erinn?

Dumah

Hello, everyone. As many of you may know, Mabinogi's world and story are all heavily influenced by old Celtic legends and myths. I find this stuff fascinating, but one thing I'm having trouble finding is any info on the name of the world the game takes place in: Erinn. Does anyone know if there is any sort of Irish parallel to Erinn, or where the name came from? With how inspired so much of this game's world is, I just can't imagine that the world itself was named on a whim.

Fragarach

Germany: Deutschland, Italy: Italia, Spain: España...
...Ireland: Éireann. "Erinn" is how its pronounced, and its spelt that way by those who aren't familiar with Gaeilge(Irish). The older name for ireland was Éire (don't know why we elongated it later), and thats actually where the english name (é)ire-land comes from. It's also the reason why its pronounced "are/our"-land, as opposed to the english word "ire"-land, an extremely common mistake by anglo speakers.

So yeah, we're playing in the magical world of Ireland, on the continent of Uladh , which is Irish for Ulster(the north of Ireland, which includes but doesn't entirely consist of Northern Ireland). It's pretty funny really. Also, the characters and locations are based off of Irish mythology as well, at least they were until they started doing all that shakespeare stuff, then it kind of just went off the rails. Since then they've been using the occasional Welsh name here and there, and there's also been some Scottish.

Anyway, there you go.

Helsa

Fragarach wrote: »

Germany: Deutschland, Italy: Italia, Spain: España...
...Ireland: Éireann. "Erinn" is how its pronounced, and its spelt that way by those who aren't familiar with Gaeilge(Irish). The older name for ireland was Éire (don't know why we elongated it later), and thats actually where the english name (é)ire-land comes from. It's also the reason why its pronounced "are/our"-land, as opposed to the english word "ire"-land, an extremely common mistake by anglo speakers.

So yeah, we're playing in the magical world of Ireland, on the continent of Uladh , which is Irish for Ulster(the north of Ireland, which includes but doesn't entirely consist of Northern Ireland). It's pretty funny really. Also, the characters and locations are based off of Irish mythology as well, at least they were until they started doing all that shakespeare stuff, then it kind of just went off the rails. Since then they've been using the occasional Welsh name here and there, and there's also been some Scottish.

Anyway, there you go.

What's Iria?

Fragarach

My initial response was going to be: No idea. It's definitely not an Irish word, and has nothing to do with either Irish or Celtic mythology, unless its a horrible butchering of the name Ériu, who was kind of a mother goddess of Ireland, and where Ireland's old name Éire actually originates from. It's stated in game that Iria was named after the goddess that made it, so maybe that is what they based it off of.

Then again, they intended Iria to be this exotic foreign land so maybe its just a made up name, since its a mixture of a whole bunch of different cultures. I mean we've got names like Krug and Taunes in Vales, Castanea and Hagel in Filia, not to mention Kushina and Waboka in Cor. Thats a load of different cultural influences right there.

While googling it I did find one thing thats mildly interesting, though I doubt this is where the name came from. Iria is the name of one of the deites in ancient Albanian/Illyrian mythology. There's a slim chance that the game devs researching celtic mythology back then, accidently mistook Albanian myths (myths from Albania) with Alban myths (Scottish myths) or even Albion myths (ancient british myths). In fact, I instantly presumed when I first read that Iria was "Albanian" that they meant "of Alban", so I could easily understand how someone outside of Europe researching the legends of a bunch of strange ancient indo-european groups(both the celts and illyrians fall into this category) might make that mistake. Especially when the names are being translated across into another language.

Thats all thats coming to mind for now, though I might form another theory, or perhaps get some eureka moment later on lol.

Helsa

Fragarach wrote: »

My initial response was going to be: No idea. It's definitely not an Irish word, and has nothing to do with either Irish or Celtic mythology, unless its a horrible butchering of the name Ériu, who was kind of a mother goddess of Ireland, and where Ireland's old name Éire actually originates from. It's stated in game that Iria was named after the goddess that made it, so maybe that is what they based it off of.

Then again, they intended Iria to be this exotic foreign land so maybe its just a made up name, since its a mixture of a whole bunch of different cultures. I mean we've got names like Krug and Taunes in Vales, Castanea and Hagel in Filia, not to mention Kushina and Waboka in Cor. Thats a load of different cultural influences right there.

While googling it I did find one thing thats mildly interesting, though I doubt this is where the name came from. Iria is the name of one of the deites in ancient Albanian/Illyrian mythology. There's a slim chance that the game devs researching celtic mythology back then, accidently mistook Albanian myths (myths from Albania) with Alban myths (Scottish myths) or even Albion myths (ancient british myths). In fact, I instantly presumed when I first read that Iria was "Albanian" that they meant "of Alban", so I could easily understand how someone outside of Europe researching the legends of a bunch of strange ancient indo-european groups(both the celts and illyrians fall into this category) might make that mistake. Especially when the names are being translated across into another language.

Thats all thats coming to mind for now, though I might form another theory, or perhaps get some eureka moment later on lol.

Honestly, your Albania theory sounds pretty plausible to me!

Balthis

Erinn is "Irish". (Éireánn)
Google search wasn't that sophisticated, back in the days, and from the perspective of koreans, it was probably celtic enough.
I imagine a korean tourist on a round trip around the country. Getting off a plane, getting a cab, the first signs of not-english-thing would be advertisements of local companies, and the first of those would be colossal "Bus Éireánn" signs all over Dublin airport.

Don't expect that deep thought or research behind naming conventions, being historically accurate was probably never a priority.
I mean, there's Belvast. Which is/was Velvast in certain other region releases. Cobh is still Cobh, since it's relatively hard to misspell name. Irish names are famously unreasonably spelled, my utmost respect for getting Ruairi right