I am trying to get clear on the different name variants used for the different playable characters from Before Crisis. This is my understanding so far.
1) Dark Angel's names (which were arbitrarily assigned by DA, but gained wide popularity back whilst the Shotgun Romance site was up.
Names: Rosalind, St. Andrew, Samantha, Rafe, Cyr, Durman, Tegwin, Adrian, Violet, Corin and Claude.
2) Weapon names (exception of Legend).
Names: Gun, Rod, Shotgun, Two Guns, Martial Arts (M), Martial Arts (F), Shuriken, Katana, Knife, Nunchaku, Legend.
For my own personal preference, I tend to call the male Martial Arts "Fistfighter", to distinguish from the female one. I don't think that's used anywhere, but not too late to start a trend I guess
.
3) Weapon names except Cissnei instead of Shuriken because that Cissnei was established to be that character in Crisis Core.
This is the naming convention I am most familiar and comfortable with. Is this most common these days? For my own personal preference, I call the
4) The canon names, which were established later from production sketches by Studio MadHouse, who produced Final Fantasy VII: Last Order
Names: Emma, Alvis, Freyra, Ruluf, Juget/Judet, Maur, Cissnei, Balto.
There is no canon name for knife or nunchaku, and I guess Legend is Legend.
I haven't come across these much.
So naming options vary on different sites, and can variously be as follows for each character (I added on the Japanese weapon names for completeness):
Player - Gender - Weapon - Dark Angel name - Preferred name - Canon name - Japanese weapon name
Player A - Female - Handgun - Rosalind - Gun - Emma - 短銃 Tanjuu
Player B - Male - EMR - St. Andrew - Rod - Alvis - ロッド Roddo
Player C - Female - Shotgun - Samantha - Shotgun - Freyra - 散弾銃 Sandanjū
Player D - Male - Handgun [x2] - Rafe - Two Guns - Ruluf - 短銃 Tanjū
Player E - F - Fistfighter - Cyr - Martial Arts - Juget/Judet - 格闘 Kakutō
Player F - Male - Fistfighter - Durman - Fistfighter - Maur - 格闘 Kakutō
Player G - Female - Shuriken - Tegwin - Cissnei / Shuriken - Cissnei - シスネ / 手裏剣 - Shisune / Shuriken
Player H - Male - Katana - Adrian - Katana - Balto - 刀 Katana
Player I - Female - Knife - Violet - Knife - [none] - ナイフ Naifu
Player J - Male - Nunchaku - Corin - Nunchaku - [none] - ヌンチャク Nunchaku
Legend Turk - Male - Bombs - Claude - Legend - [none] - レジェンド Rejendo
I wanted to format the above as a table, but cannot see how, so apologies that it's not easy on the eye.
Canon names summarised on turkleader's tumblr (also used on a couple of other sites):
https://turkleader.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121771179004
