“Their first/last names are all 'Kou'” Rebuttal

     This section features a rebuttal to the “Their first/last names are all 'Kou'” part of the Rumors page of l i g h t s . eien no starlight Web site.  Those who want to know more about the names of the Three Lights should look in the appropriate section of my Names, Puns, and Fallacies article.

This does tend to swing both ways. There's good arguments coming from both sides.

     All of the arguments for the surname side, that I know of, are not good.  They can be easily refuted.  Besides, even if there were good arguments coming from both sides (there are not), we would pick the simplest explanation.

For Kou being first name, they introduce themselves as Seiya Kou, Taiki Kou, etc, and in Japan first names do come last.

     When the Japanese write their full names in the Japanese script, the surnames appear before the personal names.  Seiya, Yaten, and Taiki always write the K kanji last in their names.  So K appears to be their personal name.

But it seems a little odd that all their first names are the same. It easily explains whey everyone refers to them by their last names, but is still a bit odd.

     This is an opinion, not an argument for either side.  Besides, would it not also seem strange if all three characters had the same surname if they were not related?  We know that the Three Lights are not related to each other.

Because they're posing as foreign pop-stars, they could very well introduce themselves with Yaten/Taiki/Seiya as their first names. I've seen that happen many times and is very logical.

     They could be from the planet Neptune for all we care, but they have Japanese names.  When those Japanese names are written in the Japanese script, they will follow the usual rules.  According to those rules, the K is their personal name.  Their names are not going to be read differently in the Japanese script simply because they are supposed to be foreign pop stars.

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