Official Name[]
It's nice to see the proper official translations actually acknowledged around here now, but "alternatively translated as" implies being an alternative to something... yet "Scheta" is merely a fan-made translation. This applies to a considerable number of characters at this point... BleedingUranium (talk) 03:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that there is no "proper official translation". Yen Press is a licensed translation, sure, but it doesn't count as THE official translation, when it never bothers to consult the author about the naming. Heck, they can't even be consistent with their own translations, as there are several instances where we've got three different translations for a single name... and all three of them come from Yen Press. We do take Yen Press spellings and translations into consideration, but we don't always abide by them. I, for one, don't see how "Sheyta" makes sense, when there's no "i" or "y" sound in that name. That's why we consider it an interpretation, not the official name. Gsimenas (talk) 15:20, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I've never really seen how that reasoning isn't arbitrary and fan-made though; "official" anything, people employed in the SAO production process, inherently holds more weight than anything fan-made, which holds none at all. As for not having a "y" sound, I don't follow, as to an English-speaker, "Shey" (one syllable) would be pronounced the same as (Japanese phonetics) "She"; are you trying to pronounce "Sheyta" as three syllables, like "Sheh-ii-tah"? Because that's definitely not what it reads like. The "Sch" part is incredibly arbitrary as well, as that itself is, in reverse, not a common way to spell a "Sh" sound in English. "Scheta" is just as fan-made and arbitrary as "Shetah" or "Shehta" or any number of other spellings. But ultimately only spelling is sourceable and official, and appears in content that 99% of the fanbase will see, that being "Sheyta". I can see validity in a pure phonetic spelling (Sheeta) or the official spelling (Sheyta) but anything past that is trying to claim fan-made content takes priority over official content; it is "the" official translation even if you personally dislike their writers' choices. All translations exist on a case-by-case basis; one example of a difference from a "higher" canon source (i.e. Vector vs Vecta) has no bearing on cases where there is no clash of translations. But I feel the root issue here is, what authority do fans have to decree that certain official content isn't valid, and to use fan-made content instead? It's always struck me as a very sharp contrast and inconsistency to this wiki's insistence on proper sourcing, strict writing style, and so on. BleedingUranium (talk) 22:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)