NOTE: There are MAJOR spoilers in this.
As you may, or may not know, there are many things in Tales of Symphonia that are taken from various mythologies and other historical references. So here I'm going to talk about what these names that are used, and what they mean. NOTE: Most of these are from Norse mythology, so if I do not specify, then it is from Norse.
Also, I didn’t put in all characters’ names, since many of them had no background that I could find, or were obvious.
PEOPLE:
Yggdasil (Mithos): First of all, there's Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil (also know as "The Terrible One's Horse" and "The World Tree") is the giant cosmic ash tree that links all nine worlds. Beneath the three roots, are the worlds of Asgard, Jotunheim, and Niflheim. This makes sense, in that Mithos is basically the controller of the worlds.
Dirk Irving (Lloyd’s adoptive father): A dirk is referenced to several things. It is always a type of sword or dagger though. Its origins seem to be of Scotland, where it was a dagger. Usually it's a dagger, sometimes without a hilt, like a pointed needle. Basically, it's a smaller bladed weapon.
Genis Sage (Main Character): Genis is probably just a derivation of the word Genuis. Sage is self-explanatory.
Kratos Aurion (Main character): Yes, the name all the fangirls have been waiting for. Kratos is derived from the Greek God "Cratos", which literally means "strength". Cratos was basically the physical form of strength and power. I'm sure you fangirls love him even more now! Lol. As for Aurion, well I’ve got a very unlikely, yet plausible idea about it. It is possible that it could be from greek mythology, it being Orion. Just think about it. For one thing, the word Orion, pronounced like it was a Japanese word would be more like Or-e-on. Phonetically, they sound the same. The other reason is the mythology behind Orion. A basic idea of what happened to him was this: he loved a woman, but the king (Oenopion) didn’t like it, and stopped a marriage from happening. Orion grew impatient and raped Merope (the woman). The king decided to take revenge, and got Orion really drunk, then took out his eyes. Orion was then blind (of course), and wandered until he met Hephaestus, who, taking pity on Orion, gave him a boy to be his guide. It just kind of made me think of Lloyd, kind of being Kratos’ guide back to becoming a good person. I know that it must be wrong, I just found it interesting.
Regal Bryant (main character): Regal basically means royalty.
Zelos Wilder (Main character): Zelos could be derived from the Greek God Zelus, which, like Cratos, is a personification, in this case, of zeal. Zeal is great interest, and eagerness, or dedication, and can also mean ignorant. The interesting thing is that Zelus and Cratos were brothers. Wilder probably just refers to his “wild” nature.
Presea Combatir (Main Character): Combatir probably just refers to her “combat”er nature.
Undine (Summon Spirit): probably originally comes from “unda” which is Latin for water. In Teutonic folklore, Undines were female water-sprites. Also can be found in Paracelsus’ occult philosophy, as he refers Undine to a water element.
Efreet (Summon Spirit): comes from Arabic mythology and the spirits know as “Ifrits”.
Corrine (Sheena’s special Summon Spirit): a Corrine is a type of gazelle.
Sylph (Summon Spirit): In the occult philosophy of Paracelsus, a Sylph is a being of the element of air. Can also be a slim, graceful woman or girl.
Maxwell (Summon Spirit): a cgs unit of magnetic flux equal to the flux perpendicular to an area of 1 square centimeter in a magnetic field of 1 gauss (that’s a mouthful!). This was discovered by a British physicist (James Maxwell) that created an electromagnetic theory. I put this in here because when Sheena summons Maxwell, she talks about matter, and this does seem to be quite close.
Gnome (Summon Spirit): The name given to the idea of small-misshapen dwarf-like creatures that dwelled in the Earth as spirits. The name was first given by Paracelcus.
Luna (Summon Spirit): Luna is the Roman Goddess of the Moon, and the equivalent to the Greek’s Selene.
Fenrir (Celsius’ Partner in Battle): A gigantic Wolf in Norse mythology, the son of Loki. He was immensely strong, and the other Gods saw him as a threat, so they tied tricked him into being tied up with a magical rope called Gleipnir. On the day of Ragnarok, Fenrir will break his chains, and devour Odin, and then be killed by Odin’s son, Vidar.
Vidarr (The first guy you fight before going into the temple at the start) – most likely taken from Vidar, who was Odin’s son. He is the god of silence and revenge, second strongest of the Gods.
Remiel (The first angel you meet): Remiel is one of the archangels of the Judaic and Islamic religions. In Hebrew, his name means “Mercy of God”. Remiel is the angel of hope, and is responsible for divine visions as well as guiding the souls of the faithful into heaven.
Seraphim (The hierarchy of the angels): this comes from the Old Testament, and probably came from the Hebrew word “saraph”, which, as a verb, means, “to burn”, and as a noun, means “fiery flying serpent”. The seraphim are described as being very tall, have six wings, and four heads.
Yuan (Leader of the Renegades): Yuan was an imperial dynasty of China from 1279 to 1368, It is also the basic currency of China.
Kvar (One of the Ranch Leaders in Sylvarant): Could be taken from the Norse God Kvasir, who was the wisest of the Vanir. The Vanir were a race of Gods that were at war with the Aesir, another race of Gods. Kvasir was killed by two dwarves, who used his blood to create the mead of poetry and knowledge.
Research Sites Used:
http://www.pantheon.org/http://www.pantheon.org/
http://www.wikipedia.org/http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.dictionary.com/http://www.dictionary.com/
