Symphogear attack names
@mimeparadox alerted me to the fact that Kirika's attack names are crimes against linguistics, so I started looking at all of the Gear users' attacks. Much thanks to the wiki, which helpfully compiles not only the attacks, but their title cards, the romanization, and the original text!
I'm only looking at anime attacks. From "least cringe" to "Kirika":
Miku: Two-character Chinese phrases. Short, sweet, dignified.
Hibiki: Cheating because she doesn't get attack name cards at all. See post-ranking paragraphs.
Mid-tier: Maria/Tsubasa/Kanade tie. These girls are chuuni, but are relatively self-aware enough to have some restraint. However, Tsubasa might actually be one tier up by a sliver. She's getting away with some shit by doing hers in foreign language calligraphy, but see the post-ranking paragraphs.
Chris: Name that rock band! Golden spot of delightful indulgence. I dare anyone to not smile whenever MEGADETH PARTY shows up like an old friend. Chris has one (1) genre on her music player, and she doesn't give a fuck.
Shirabe: [greek alphabet letter]-style: {[spinning reference] AND/OR [cutting thing/action reference] wrapper addition/s to make it chuuni}
Kirika: Aforementioned CRIMES AGAINST LINGUISTICS. Build a desired phrase. May or may not include kana-ized English referencing a western fictional character. Add chuuni Japanese as necessary. Find phonetic syllables in Japanese that can be represented by tortured kanji readings that fit desired meaning. Substitute other kana with English alphabet letters. Featuring such great hits as:
災輪・TぃN渦ぁBェル
愚焔・PぇtttE炉
断殺・邪刃ウォttKKK (did you know that you spell Jabberwock with "t"s? that's how Kirika rolls, death)
兇脚・Gぁ厘ィBアa
So, like, there are indications that these aren't relic-defined names, but things that the girls themselves came up with. The strongest evidence for this is Gungnir, which has three users across the length of the show. Not only does the show make it explicit that Hibiki is coming up with the attack names herself, as they are called "Hibiki Style", but even the two who are using Gungnir as intended, Kanade and Maria, have their attacks names tailored to them. Kanade's all involve the "∞" sign, which don't show up in Hibiki or Maria's attacks.
Maria and Chris also both present even stronger evidence, as the rare users who have performed attacks across two different relics, and their tailored quirks are present in both. With Gungnir and Airgetlam, Maria's attacks feature the "†" sign splitting capitalized English. With both Nehushtan and Ichaival, Chris features rock band references in Old English font.
And this isn't even getting into the NONSENSE when combo attacks enter the fray, as each girl's naming quirks get thrown into a blender. Not only do we have Shirabe and Kirika throwing their Greek-letter-tortured-kanji-random-romanized-letters shit together into the likes of "禁合β式・Zあ破刃惨無uうNN", but then you add Maria's cross-capitalized-English-chuuni, and get "禁結終Ω式・爍機†TRINITY".
Another canon case of an attack evidently being named by a person is S2CA, which is short for "Superb Song Combination Arts", despite the fact that it makes zero sense in Japanese, where "Superb Song" is "Zessho". Forced acronyms transcend the curse of Balal!
(Tsubasa sidebar: so if we're assuming that attacks are named by their users, then the likelihood that Tsubasa's attacks are actually more chuuni in the original Japanese goes way up. Tsubasa doesn't know what normal is! Her baseline standard is the Kazanari family, and her ninja idol manager! Not to mention that her main transformation song is already borderline self parody in S2. Japanese imagery, sword, sword, blade, sword, blade, blade, I am sword, sword is me, etc. Maria and Kanade's attack names are constrained by being only 1-2 English words. Tsubasa out here throwing out flowery whole scroll calligraphy. Every added character brings her closer to Shirabe and Kirika's level.)
You may notice that this ranking suspiciously seems to follow the level of lack of blood family and divorce from civilian life. Chris, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika are all orphans who were coerced into exploitation. However, Maria still had Serena, who overtly shares her surname, which suggests blood ties (they still don't share Anastassia's surname).
One step further on this, though, is that Chris was yet still closer to Kanade's situation in that she did know who her civilian parents were before she lost them. The Yukine surname was never in question, which is not necessarily the case for the Receptor Children. It's possible that some of these kids may have chosen their surnames for themselves after being freed from captivity.
Which would explain why you can get a Gundam-ass name like "Maria Cadenzavna Eve", which makes little to no sense in terms of ethnic name origin. Maria is Greek+Latin via Hebrew, Eve is English via Latinized Hebrew, and then Cadenzavna is a nonsense mishmash of Italian and Eastern European.
"Kusanagi Motoko" from Ghost in the Shell is a pseudonym (admitted canonically in 2nd gig), which is something like "(plain) Jane Excalibur". It seems obvious to me that "Akatsuki Kirika" and "Tsukuyomi Shirabe" are similar. The music/sound-based given names apply across most all of the Gear users, but I can easily see these two goobers picking the edgiest surnames (with shared moon connotations!) for themselves. Which, per the first half of this post, is reinforced by how chuuni their self-defined attack names are. (Meanwhile, Maria loses her little sister called Serena, and then replaces her with two girls with moon-associated surnames, eh. Maria, the Eastern European who would have been more likely to watch a dub of an anime than the sub, and wore that odango hairstyle as a child...)
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