I'm going to present a couple examples.
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This lady here? Her name is Mykale, an enemy from FFV. A cute little witch sitting on a cartoony crescent moon.
But. If you know Roman epic poems or Grecco-Roman occultism, her name should sound familiar. Because she's a witch from
Metamorphoses, an epic poem by Ovid.
Mycale is one of several mythological Thessalian witches who were believed to be capable of literally bringing the moon down to Earth through their rituals.
So Nomura, in his first big gig at Squaresoft, designed a witch riding the moon on Planet R and named her
Mykale. Is this a coincidence or did he actually look up Grecco-Roman mysticism to get inspired for monster designs? Well, let's fast forward.
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This is Doomtrain from FFVIII. Pretty straightforward name for a demonic train with a spooky face, yeah?
Except that's
not his original name.
His original name is
Glasya Labolas. Named after one of the demons of the Ars Goetia from the 17th century Grimoire,
The Lesser Key of Solomon. This is why one of the items necessary to unlock and obtain this Guardian Force is called "Solomon's Ring."
Nomura apparently
loves mysticism and the occult. Most FF writers and character designers, simply love to play around with historic origins and inspirations. Yeah, they're "just names." But they're names clearly meant to inspire the source material to a degree. It's why they design around them. It's why
Sephiroth controls a bunch of poor people with
numbers tattooed on their flesh, and Supernova appears after the depiction of an elaborate mathematical equation sequence with a bunch of numeric formulas.
So, no. They clearly have
some sort of cultural awareness with the names they decide to pick and choose from. After all, Final Fantasy was designed with Dungeons & Dragons in mind, and D&D has
always combined research into art, history, anthropology and mysticism to create new fantastical elements for gaming purposes. Sometimes they subvert the origin and sometimes they play it straight.