Permalink Reply by Xuut on October 17, 2010 at 3:28pm
XD
-Guilty-
Tis a cycle that usually starts at, "OH MY GAWD WHAT KIND OF ANIME DID I WATCH AS A LITTLE KID?", "Oooh my favourite X," which the leads to, "What is this trope?" which leads to, "Oh hey, I've heard of this before," which then leads to, "OH MY GAWD WHAT KIND OF ANIME DID I WATCH AS A LITTLE KID?"
No. "Nachash" (where the 'ch' works as a guttural 'h' as in the correct pronunciation of Channukah) means snake in Hebrew. Whomever was doing the translating screwed up their consonants, and mistook a chet for a tet or tav (probably the latter, since the two look similar: ת&ח).
If we do use the closest transliteration, we have נטש (Without vowels, so I'm not sure of the exact pronunciation, but this is doubtlessly the root word) which translates to "Abandoned."
XP
Then again, when done with a tav you get נתש which is "serpent." Similar, but not the same.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never take these name-meaning websites seriously, and pick the name simply because it's convenient for your use.
>.> Is it kosher to use them because they have data on the frequency of names? I don't feel like combing through mountains of data to name one-off characters...
Name frequency is fine, but as you know, name frequency is more of a result of popularity than word definition (and it's very important in making your names contemporary to the setting; Betty works better in the 30s and 40s than in the 90s or Aughts). As I'm sure you also know for a sue-litmus test, name-meaning tends to be a bad sign.