#if that's not a great parallel to acht's union situation AND relationship to sechs AND her last stand

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

When someone joins the Ten Sages, they leave behind their name and take on a numbered title. For the vast majority of these characters, we never learn their original names.

In BlazBlue, we're given the names of One, Relius Clover, and Nine, Konoe Ayatsuki Mercury.

In XBlaze, we know the full name of Zwei, Marceline F. Mercury, and we can safely assume we know the family name of Sechs, Stroheim, but we don't know his given name.

The chances of us learning the names of any of the others are incredibly slim. But... it's kind of fun to think about, isn't it?

I've been thinking about names for the other Ten Sage characters we've gotten to know. Acht in particular is a character I find it easy to come up with ideas for.

Under the cut, I'll share some of the thought process to why these names in particular stand out to me.

We know from Phase Shift that Ishana is a nation outside of the geopolitical world we know, untied to any modern country. The named Ishanans we know seem to be from different nationalities; Shuichiro is Japanese, the Stroheims seem to be of German ancestry, Elise's full name also suggests German heritage, Trinity and Celica's names are Western in General but could arguably be traced back to Latin origins, Marceline and the Mercury family name in general have a similar relationship with the general West and Roman origins, etc.

This makes me imagine Ishana as having a predominantly European culture, but one that has perhaps attracted people with magical potential from all the world's nations for generations.

With that in mind, I often find myself drawn to names from medieval European courtly romances, for that same kind of Western feel with a magicy twist. For Acht in particular, I really like the idea of giving her a name with ties to the fairy tales she seems so fixated on, in the way she talks about herself, Hinata, Touya, etc.

I'm also interested in giving her the name of some kind of tragic ballet heroine. Her role in the narrative can feel like that of a tragic heroine destined for despair, and the naming theme of her moveset in her only playable appearance (BBDW) centers around ballet and ballet terminology.

The same reasoning (the BBDW naming theme) draws me to French names, as all of her moves are in French.