How should we translate proper nouns jargons, made up words etc.

[chou-chou's peon]

Let's just talk about this little by little so it won't become a tl;dr thread.

 

I really don't understand how localization companies handle  proper nouns, jargons, made up words, etc.

 

For games with a larger audience, they change the culture of the game entirely to make it easier for westerners to understand. But for smaller audiences, I see that fan translators tend to be different with the translations by adding honorifics, interjections, etc on their translations.

 

Is there a reason to why localizers don't add honorifics to their characters?

 

Edit: When I'm talking about big game localizations changing the culture entirely, I'm talking about how the setting is changed, or how the characters act. Won't give any examples because I don't want to advertise their awefulness.

[Eclipsed]

Let's just talk about this little by little so it won't become a tl;dr thread.

 

I really don't understand how localization companies handle  proper nouns, jargons, made up words, etc.

 

For games with a larger audience, they change the culture of the game entirely to make it easier for westerners to understand. But for smaller audiences, I see that fan translators tend to be different with the translations by adding honorifics, interjections, etc on their translations.

 

Is there a reason to why localizers don't add honorifics to their characters?

[Chuee]

Let's just talk about this little by little so it won't become a tl;dr thread.

 

I really don't understand how localization companies handle  proper nouns, jargons, made up words, etc.

 

For games with a larger audience, they change the culture of the game entirely to make it easier for westerners to understand. But for smaller audiences, I see that fan translators tend to be different with the translations by adding honorifics, interjections, etc on their translations.

 

Is there a reason to why localizers don't add honorifics to their characters?

[chou-chou's peon]

You answered your question, except change 'make it easier for westerners to understand' to 'fit western culture'

Haha, that was guess, if the changes are minimal and to make westerners understand it, than that's fine.

 

Some localization companies (MG recently, CR too) are trying to remove honorifics and most Japanese words to appeal to a wider audience. Since most VN/anime fans know what most honrifics mean, what sensei means and onii-chan/onee-chan, most fan stuff tend to leave them in since those words there don't exactly have a direct English translation that fits. So if a company thinks that they'll have people playing/watching their stuff that won't know what those words mean, they'll leave them out (MG with Eden* on steam, and CR with their more popular shows). 

 

Oh wow, never knew that MangaGamer started doing that recently, seems like they're becoming more known now.

 

I'm was an old-school Visual Novel player, I remember about a decade ago when I used to follow this small blog (that's probably gone now) called "Akiba Channel" to get news about Visual Novels and popular stuff in Japan, now we can find them in many different places and have long conversations about it.

 

_______

 

Next question:

 

Sometimes the appeal of the characters can only portrayed in Japanese, that's pretty hard to portray in English. How do we cope with that?

[Chuee]

Oh wow, never new that MangaGamer started doing that recently, seems like they're becoming more known now.

 

 

They didn't use honorifics for Eden* (most likely because they put it on steam). I don't know about any of their other games since I haven't played them. 

[Kelebek1]

Is there a reason to why localizers don't add honorifics to their characters?

 

Because they're not English? Because they have no place in English? Because they're not needed at all in English? Because people reading them don't know what they are?

 

Are you really going to try and say our own English culture is lacking or somehow "incomplete" because we don't have Japanese suffixes? I hope not, because that's just stupid. And so, in English, they are not needed, we don't need them to understand characters' feelings towards each other. If you somehow think they're "needed," then you're just wrong, or the translated work is terrible.

 

This whole thing is an argument from ignorance really. There's thousands and thousands of things in Japanese which we don't have in English, a lot more subtle than honourifics. Things that people who know barely any Japanese don't even know they're missing. Honourifics are no exception to these other thousands of directly-untranslatable things; words, pieces of grammar, sentence composition etc.

 

Just let it go brah, let it go.

[Pizza55]

Some localization companies (MG recently, CR too) are trying to remove honorifics and most Japanese words to appeal to a wider audience. Since most VN/anime fans know what most honrifics mean, what sensei means and onii-chan/onee-chan, most fan stuff tend to leave them in since those words there don't exactly have a direct English translation that fits. So if a company thinks that they'll have people playing/watching their stuff that won't know what those words mean, they'll leave them out (MG with Eden* on steam, and CR with their more popular shows). 

 

 

Isn't it the other way for CR? I haven't seen honorifics in any of their older releases but I have been seeing them in some of their newer ones. I can't name them off of the top of my head but I'm sure some others know what I'm talking about.

[chou-chou's peon]

Because they're not English? Because they have no place in English? Because they're not needed at all in English? Because people reading them don't know what they are?

 

This whole thing is an argument from ignorance really. There's thousands and thousands of things in Japanese which we don't have in English, a lot more subtle than honourifics. Things that people who know barely any Japanese don't even know they're missing. Honourifics are no exception to these other thousands of directly-untranslatable things; words, pieces of grammar, sentence composition etc.

 

Just let it go brah, let it go.

Well, I really hate honorifics just to let you know and I agree that they have no place in the English language. When I was talking about changing the culture in mainstream stuff, I was talking about stuff like how the Persona series takes place in the USA instead of Japan, and how they made a character that was gay in the Japanese version, not gay.

It was just a legitimate question I have and I'm trying to seek help on how to make excellent translations. When I translate stuff, I don't add suffixes or anything, you can see in what I've attempted to translate last month.

 

Aren't you forgetting, something important… 『……大切な何か、忘れていませんか？』

It was exististing peacefully at the street corner. それは街の片隅にひっそりと存在していた。

The "Koho-nya" Used Book Store. 古本屋「こほにゃ」

A building with the fragrance of the Shouwa Era. 昭和の香りのする建物。

Long ago, somewhere in city there was a used book store. ひと昔前までは何処の街にもあった、そんな古本屋。

Here "Koho-nya" matches with this Era of Heisei, it was a used book store that still intensively gives out that retrospective atmosphere. ここ「こほにゃ」はこの平成の世の中にあって、いまだそのレトロな雰囲気を強烈に放っている古本屋だった。

The outside appearance looks kind of small but on the contrary the store interior is kind of spacious. 外見の小ささとは裏腹に、店内はかなりの広さである。

The mountain of magazines, all packed and piled up maintains exquisite balance. 堆く詰まれ、絶妙なバランスを保っている雑誌の山。

At a glace it seems like they were arrange casually but in fact, it really is a book shelf of casually arranged novels. 一見無造作に並べられているようでその実、本当に無造作に小説が並べられている本棚。

carelessly, placed at my foot complete set of comics. 紐で結わわれたまま、何気なしに足元に置かれている全巻揃いのコミック。

Nowadays, libraries are nothing but visual encyclopedias that we happened to not notice. 今時、図書館ぐらいでしか見かけなくなった百科図鑑。

All of them were used books. 全てが古本であった。

However, it is not possible to be seen being covered in that much dust. しかし、そのいずれも埃を被っている様子は見られない。

There is complete evidence that every corner is cleaned. 隅々まで掃除が行き届いている証拠である。

If we were to do things carefully, I think we would first do something about the the books that were arranged casually beforehand... ……そこまで丁寧にやるのならば、まずは無造作に積まれた本をどうにかするのが先だと思うのだが。

Let's leave that as it is. それはともかく。

Just like the usual, today there are cuckoos chirping at the ”Koho-nya" counter. いつもの如く、今日も閑古鳥の鳴いている「こほにゃ」のカウンターに、

This is also usual but there was a girl sitting down resting her chin with her hand. これまたいつもの如くひとりの少女が頬杖を突いて座っていた。

She wears a necktie on her chest on her white shirt and a long black skirt. 胸にネクタイを装った白いシャツに、黒のロングスカート。

She was a girl a who wore a monochrome distribution of color overall, there is only one part that seemed unnatural. 全体的にモノトーンの気配を纏った少女だったが、一箇所だけ不自然な部分がある。

Her glamorous, long, black hair. 艶やかな長い黒髪。

But that part's okay. それはいい。

About that, there are large black ribbons attached to her hair. その、髪に黒い大きなリボンが付けられていた。

Oops, those are ears that look like ribbons. 否、それはよく見るとリボンではなく耳、

They totally look like the cat ears off of comics which are also known as "neko-mimi". ――まるで漫画のような猫の耳、いわゆる『ネコミミ』――であった。

The murmuring cat eared girl seems bored. つまらなさそうにつぶやくネコミミ少女。

She takes a look around the shop interior. 店内をぐるりと見回す。

It always doesn't change, it's always the same, putting the clutter back in order, but there's no way to escape from this routine. いつもと変わらない、いつもと同じ、乱雑に並べられた、しかし、こうでなくてはならない配置。

To put things tastefully to make sure it's heard well, it can be said that there is an "it can't be fixed syndrome" anyhow. 味があると言えば聞こえは良いが、どうにも「片付けられない症候群」ともいえる気もするが。

The girl purposely acted as if she didn't heard at what I was whispering and came to throw harsh phrases. 私の呟きを聞き逃す事無く、冷え切った台詞を投げかけてくる彼女。

Geez, it's more like ears from hell! 全く、地獄耳もいいところだ。

I witnessed that those large cat are suitable for gathering sounds. Above all, this is becoming an inconvenience for me as becoming heard worsens after all. あの大きなネコミミは相当の集音性があると見た。そのうえ、自分に都合が悪い事となると途端に聞こえが悪くなる。

It can mean there are various conviences for having ears like that girl. 都合の良い、色々な意味で彼女らしい耳だな。

Crap, her voice implies that she's thirsting for blood. ぬ、声に殺気が篭った。

Athough, when I'm stumbling, she has never put out her hand I think. ……とはいえ、どう転んでも彼女が私に手を出す事は無いのだがな。

*Startling ぎくり。

Eh? え。

Oh no, isn't that unreasonably harsh… いや、それは非常に辛いのだが……

Ah, hello, are you the "Acting Manager"? あー、もしもし、店長代理？

Just like that. ――その通り。

"I" am arranging (the clutter), one book at a time at this "Koho-nya" Used Book Store... 「私」はこの古本屋「こほにゃ」に（乱雑に）並べられている本のうちの一冊。

and this "girl" is "Koho-nya's" manager (substitute). そして「彼女」は「こほにゃ」の店長（代理）。

We… this mysterious cat eared girl can hear the voices of "books". 私達、「本」の声を聞くことの出来る不思議なネコミミ少女。

This is the "Koho-nya Used Book Store". ここは『古本屋こほにゃ』。

The space is a bit mysterious. ちょっと不思議な空間。

It's nowhere that can be found anywhere. [it's like no other place.] どこにでもあるしどこにもない。

That's if you are… もしあなたが……

That said, there she's is, unexpectedly standing up. そう言って不意に立ち上がる。

Oh? お？

What, what? なんだなんだ？

That seemed kind of suspicious now that you think about it. そう怪訝に思ってみていると――

She is standing in front of the full length mirror, retieing and wrapping the necktie on her chest around it 1 time. 店内にある姿見の前に立ち、胸のネクタイを締めなおすとく

Outside there is a smell of rain. The rain is weak. 外は雨の匂いがする。雨はニガテだ。

I will do it. This is bad. そうする。悪いな。

She was bit lonely so she returned me back to the counter, then went out of the shop all by herself. ちょっと寂しげに私をカウンターに戻すと、彼女は一人で店を後にした。

Be careful. きをつけてな。

I am left with a countless number of books at the "shop". 『店』に残ったのは無数の本と、私。

Well, where should I begin my story? さて、何から話したものか。

This is the "Koho-nya Used Book Store". ここは『古本屋こほにゃ』。

Of course, this is not only a used book store… もちろんただの古本屋ではないのだが……

Well, apart from that, I'm telling the story little by little. まあ、それはおいおい話していくとして。

First of all, まずは、

First of all, how about telling the story form here? まずはこの話から語っていこうか。

The important thing… know if it's in the immediate vicinity? 『……大切なものは、すぐ近くにあるって知ってた？』

[Conjueror]

Ironically, you can miss the point even further by leaving honorifics in; stuff like "kun" and "san" have like a million different nuances in Japan, and even the biggest weeaboos are usually familiar only with a handful of them.

You might be interested in this post here: https://missdream.org/editorials/professional-translation-and-the-american-manga-industry/

[chou-chou's peon]

Nice post Conjueror, I'm translating this project for only one person unless I can get someone who knows Japanese to proof read my translations and make it public.

 

Makes me seem like a beast since that blogger has the same mindset I do about English translations and they gave some good tips on how to cope with this and make quality translations.

[Chuee]

Ironically, you can miss the point even further by leaving honorifics in; stuff like "kun" and "san" have like a million different nuances in Japan, and even the biggest weeaboos are usually familiar only with a handful of them.

You might be interested in this post here: https://missdream.org/editorials/professional-translation-and-the-american-manga-industry/

 

This kinda misses the point. Sure you can adequately arrange sentences to convey the same meaning as the honorifics provide, but there's situations in which you can't provide an accurate translation without changing scenes and heavily shifting meaning. Take for example if a student calls their teacher sensei but we the audience don't know the teachers real name. Most of the time when translating -sensei without using the word, you'd translate it as Miss __ or use Dr if they're a doctor (most translations translate sensei as doctor when it's used as such). In this situation you're essentially forced to just use teacher despite the fact that English speakers rarely address their teacher as teacher. You can't use Miss since you don't know their name. The same also goes to Onii-chan and Onee-chan. Translating them as big brother or big sister sounds horribly awkward since almost no one calls their siblings that way, though it's acceptable to use their name as a translation. Not to mention scenario's in which a character may go from calling someone A-san to A-kun as an example. There's literally no way to translate this. The only way to get around this would be to rewrite the dialogue around the entire scene. Unfortunately things like anime/manga/VNs don't have the luxury of being able to heavily rewrite dialogue. The author of that also seems to forget that professional translation will likely have a different audience. Those people have to appeal to an audience that doesn't know any Japanese. Leaving in honorifics and other words would only force them to add sections in explaining to people what those words meant, which isn't ideal. Translating for people who already know what those words mean allow you to leave them in. 

[Kelebek1]

This kinda misses the point. Sure you can adequately arrange sentences to convey the same meaning as the honorifics provide, but there's situations in which you can't provide a translation without changing text. Take for example if a student calls their teacher sensei but we the audience don't know the teachers real name. Most of the time when translating -sensei without using the word, you'd translate it as Miss __ or use Dr if they're a doctor (most translations translate sensei as doctor when it's used as such). In this situation you're essentially forced to just use teacher despite the fact that English speakers rarely address their teacher as teacher. You can't use Miss since you don't know their name. The same also goes to Onii-chan and Onee-chan. Translating them as big brother or big sister sounds horribly awkward since almost no one calls their siblings that way, but it's acceptable to use their name as a translation. Not to mention scenario's in which a character may go from calling someone A-san to A-kun as an example. There's literally no way to translate this. The only way to get around this would be to rewrite the dialogue around the entire scene. Unfortunately things like anime/manga/VNs don't have the luxury of being able to heavily rewrite dialogue. The author of that also seems to forget that professional translation will likely have a different audience. Those people have to appeal to an audience that doesn't know any Japanese. Leaving in honorifics and other words would only force them to add sections in explaining to people what those words meant, which isn't ideal. Translating for people who already know what those words mean allow you to leave them in. 

 

Yeah you can. I don't know where you were brought up, but in England, use used "Miss" and "Sir" all the time to refer to our teachers, that was the standard. We rarely ever included their name, and I actually can't think of a single actual example from my past where I did or heard it. Unless we had to talk about a specific teacher to a third party or something like that, where "my teacher" or "our teacher" doesn't work, i.e other teachers.

 

"Translating for people who already know what those words mean" - And how do they know what they mean? From anime, from the time spent watching anime, and they had to go through the period of not knowing what they mean, until they experienced it enough times that they got an idea of how they're used. New people don't know what they mean, they have to experience a load of anime or manga or whatever, to get that idea as well.

 

And so if you want that logic, why not just put in Japanese subtitles? They'll have to learn what the words mean eventually then right, just the same as honourifics? If they can learn all the honourifics, then they can learn nouns, verbs, adjectives and conjugations as well, like kids do. So why translate anything at all?

 

You are right about the limiting factors though. In anime the lines can't be too long or removed or really added, because it's all in real-time and you can't edit the video or audio. Manga has things like speech bubble limitations you need to stick to etc. VNs have a bunch more freedom, as if you can edit the scripts themselves to add new lines, remove lines, although the only problem there is matching it with audio. You can generally do some stuff like reduce text size a lot though and fit way more into a single box as well etc. So VNs have more freedom than other mediums, but there's definitely still imitations there too (UI is pretty harsh too).

 

All that said though, it's not an excuse not to try.

[Conjueror]

Hey, I wasn't saying that honorifics are strictly evil, or whatever, but I'm of the opinion that, even in a fan-tl, they should be only left in if the content absolutely requires it. We have instances of "sensei' left in  professional translations, too (like that of the novel "Kokoro").

It's just that you can get into a mess if you start leaving all of the honorifics that you can write around, especially those of "san" or "kun". Take an example of two characters who are classmates, and both belong to the same club of which one of them is the president. Now, it depends on the context, of course, but there is a high possibility that the president guy will address his classmate as "kun" to express the superiority of his position. Meanwhile, the regular member guy might address the president with the 'familiar' "kun" to express the fact that they are classmates.

Both "kuns" mean completely different things, but, I bet, 90% of English readers, even those familiar with anime and stuff, would misinterpret them as meaning the same thing.

[Chuee]

Yeah you can. I don't know where you were brought up, but in England, use used "Miss" and "Sir" all the time to refer to our teachers, that was the standard. We rarely ever included their name, and I actually can't think of a single actual example from my past where I did or heard it. Unless we had to talk about a specific teacher to a third party or something like that, where "my teacher" or "our teacher" doesn't work, i.e other teachers.

 

"Translating for people who already know what those words mean" - And how do they know what they mean? From anime, from the time spent watching anime, and they had to go through the period of not knowing what they mean, until they experienced it enough times that they got an idea of how they're used. New people don't know what they mean, they have to experience a load of anime or manga or whatever, to get that idea as well.

 

And so if you want that logic, why not just put in Japanese subtitles? They'll have to learn what the words mean eventually then right, just the same as honourifics? If they can learn all the honourifics, then they can learn nouns, verbs, adjectives and conjugations as well, like kids do. So why translate anything at all?

 

 

That must be an England thing. From my experience you always call teachers by Mr/Mrs (or Ms depending on whether or not they're married) and their last name. I wouldn't really picture students calling their teacher Miss or Mister ever, or at least not in the same context that Japanese use sensei by itself. 

Why not put in Japanese subtitles? Because Japanese is translatable to English for the most part. Most words left in are specifically words that don't translate. Onii-chan and Onee-chan don't translate into English because we don't address our siblings that way almost ever. An English speaker calling their siblings Big Brother or Big Sister is about as rare as it is for Japanese to call their younger siblings Otouto-san or Imouto-san. Sensei translates into doctor fairly easily but not into teacher for the same reasons Onii-chan/Onee-chan don't translate. Aside from those examples there's just honorifics which obviously don't translate. 

 

Hey, I wasn't saying that honorifics are strictly evil, or whatever, but I'm of the opinion that, even in a fan-tl, they should be only left in if the content absolutely requires it. We have instances of "sensei' left in  professional translations, too (like that of the novel "Kokoro").

It's just that you can get into a mess if you start leaving all of the honorifics that you can write around, especially those of "san" or "kun". Take an example of two characters who are classmates, and both belong to the same club of which one of them is the president. Now, it depends on the context, of course, but there is a high possibility that the president guy will address his classmate as "kun" to express the superiority of his position. Meanwhile, the regular member guy might address the president as "kun", too, to express the fact that they are classmates.

Both "kuns" mean completely different things, but, I bet, 90% of English readers, even those familiar with anime and stuff, would misinterpret them as meaning the same thing.

 

I mean yeah, I don't have a problem when they're left out (except when Onii-chan/Onee-chan are translated as Big Brother/Big Sister), but if your audience understands them then there's not really a reason to leave them out. Even though you could technically leave them out, there's a lot of interesting things to learn about character relationships by the way they call each other. 

[Conjueror]

Even though you could technically leave them out, there's a lot of interesting things to learn about character relationships by the way they call each other.

 

Though if you are really good, you might find a way to incorporate most of that information into your English writing in a subtler way. The trickiest words are definitely onii-chan, onee-chan and senpai, and I agree that most of the time it's a good idea not to mess with them too much. In most cases you can get around with using "you" or "he" instead, but, yeah, when it's a single word addressing a character then you have no choice but to leave them in, or rewrite the whole thing.

 

I think you could get away with using the words sis and bro for 姉貴 and 兄貴, and maybe even for onee-chan in a few special cases, but you're fucked with onii-chan for the most part. xD

[Nosebleed]

The problem is that if you're too selective with what to leave and whatnot you're sometimes called inconsistent.

 

And if you're broad you either

1) leave everything in, sounding like a weeaboo

2) remove everything, getting complaints you're not respecting the culture.

 

So basically, you always lose.

 

I always feel a duty to leave honorifics.

But for example, with nicknames, I leave Onii-chan (The day someone makes me write big bro is the day i abandon the internet) but I wouldn't leave Okaa-san, even though Okaa-san is also a "nickname" over the more formal (and almost never used outside of nobility and stuff) "haha". I'd always write mom/mother in these cases.

So in a sense, I know i'm doing something wrong, but i'm picky, so I don't really care.

 

And this is not to mention the amount of repitition and interjections the Japanese make which in English just sound weird.

Stuff like "eh?" which is used all the time. The "moo" which is almost always translated as "geez" but when overused just sounds weird in English. The "nee" which is often translated as "hey", but then you have "nee nee" which is a tiny bit different in nuance but is still often just translated as "hey" because English discourages repitition.

And there's many many others.

 

Most people within this niche also don't care much since they're used to the terms, but companies don't want to stay niche. Preferably they want to broaden their audiences, and thus choices like removing honorifics are made.

 

Just think of it this way, there's really no 100% correct flawless way of translating Japanese jargon because of people's different views. Companies just try to reach as much of an audience as possible and I can't really blame them. Most of the times I just re-translate what they're saying in my head so it doesn't affect me much either.

[chou-chou's peon]

Thanks everyone for all these responses, I was hoping there was going to be a common ground with everyone but it's a lot more complicated than I thought but translations are just for a matter of taste. We still don't translate anime as "animation" even though that's what anime means in Japanese, or Manga as cartoon/ comic.

 

Now this time I'm talking about the changing the culture of the game part, not last time. Holidays and traditions can sometimes make it difficult for the person to understand the story. Let's say there's special clothing worn for New Years and it has a funny meaning in English, I'm not sure if we should just romanize it or use the awkward English translation it gives.

 

Words like ツンデレ,　抜きゲー, etc, usually aren't translated in English even though these are even more obscure slang in Japanese. It should be okay to be use Tsundere, Nukige, etc in fan translations right? I actually never heard of Nukige until I came here.

 

Other concerns for me would be nicknames or puns. Should we just romanize クソ太郎, try to translate it, or use "another" English word that's not the literal translation but convey the same meaning?

[Chuee]

Thanks everyone for all these responses, I was hoping there was going to be a common ground with everyone but it's a lot more complicated than I thought but translations are just for a matter of taste. We still don't translate anime as "animation" even though that's what anime means in Japanese, or Manga as cartoon/ comic.

 

Now this time I'm talking about the changing the culture of the game part, not last time. Holidays and traditions can sometimes make it difficult for the person to understand the story. Let's say there's special clothing worn for New Years and it has a funny meaning in English, I'm not sure if we should just romanize it or use the awkward English translation it gives.

 

Words like ツンデレ,　抜きゲー, etc, usually aren't translated in English even though these are even more obscure slang in Japanese. It should be okay to be use Tsundere, Nukige, etc in fan translations right? I actually never heard of Nukige until I came here.

 

Other concerns for me would be nicknames or puns. Should we just romanize クソ太郎, try to translate it, or use "another" English word that's not the literal translation but convey the same meaning?

 

Usually types of clothing specific to Japan are left untranslated with the exception of the miko outfit since miko translates to a shrine maiden. Slang like tsun and dere are also left in because trying to translate them over would be a mess because you can only really give a description as to what the word means. All types of -ge can be left in too assuming you're doing a VN, since nearly everyone uses those terms in VN communities. If you're not then you can use appropriate substitutions (dating sims, porn games, etc). Nicknames usually aren't for the reason that they're mostly just shortenings of the characters name with some versions of honorifics here and there. If the nickname is a word instead then you'd translate it, like in Saekano how the MC is called Rinri-kun by one of the characters and the translations use Mr Ethical. Puns most of the time require translation notes pointing it out because there's a slim chance in hell you're going to find a way to translate a pun into a different language. 

[chou-chou's peon]

Usually types of clothing specific to Japan are left untranslated with the exception of the miko outfit since miko translates to a shrine maiden. Slang like tsun and dere are also left in because trying to translate them over would be a mess because you can only really give a description as to what the word means. All types of -ge can be left in too assuming you're doing a VN, since nearly everyone uses those terms in VN communities. If you're not then you can use appropriate substitutions (dating sims, porn games, etc). Nicknames usually aren't for the reason that they're mostly just shortenings of the characters name with some versions of honorifics here and there. If the nickname is a word instead then you'd translate it, like in Saekano how the MC is called Rinri-kun by one of the characters and the translations use Mr Ethical. Puns most of the time require translation notes pointing it out because there's a slim chance in hell you're going to find a way to translate a pun into a different language.

[Nosebleed]

Heh names are a pain.

It really doesn't matter which order you pick because they're both valid internationally.

Putting your last name first is simply referred to as eastern order.

It's part of eastern culture to put more emphasis and importance on the family name. Also more often than not people refer to each other by their last name in Japan when they're not familiar with one another or in a professional setting.

In terms of VNs, if you really want to adapt it to a western audience, you can reverse the order.

But using eastern order really doesn't make a difference the way i see it, and it bothers me less since that's how they speak it (i hate reading the reverse of what i hear).

[Chuee]

 

Next concern:

The most simple and important thing that I get confused with so much would be the order of first and last names. I know Japanese put their last name first when they use their full names but everyone switches it around in the English version, is that now a standard?

 

Basically it's the same as honorifics. If you want to appeal to non-weabs you do first then last, but a lot leave it as last then first since that's the order they actually use.