undercutsquad:

eveil:

rivaillecorporallance:

wtf is this guys name because so far I’ve seen

• erwin
• erwen
• irwin
• irwen
• ivan
• irvan

like seriously whats his name

His name is Commander Handsome

/waggles fingers excitedly

*ahem*

Commander Erwin Smith (エルヴィン・スミス団長 Eruvin Sumisu Danchō) [x]

The name “Erwin” is German, with a couple famous examples being Erwin “Desert Fox” Rommel [x] and Erwin Schrödinger [x]. Knowing Isayama’s penchant for history and historical references (“Mikasa” is a famous Japanese WWII era battleship), it’s likely he was named after Rommel – who, despite being a high-ranking Nazi, was both a)rebellious enough against Hitler that he refused to execute any Jews and actually was forced by Hitler to commit suicide and b)was the son of a Professor EEEYYYY ROMMEL/SMITH PARALLELS YEAAH.

Back on point, In German, “w” is pronounced like “v”. This pronunciation for Erwin’s name is backed up by both:

A) the Japanese spelling of his name: エルヴィン – E-ru-vi-n

Now, Japanese technically doesn’t have a “vee” sound in their language, but the ヴィ  symbols are the closest they have AND is the same ヴ as in リヴァイ/Rivai/Levi. ヴィ = “vee”, ヴァイ = “vai”. [x]

B) Google translate. If you type in “Erwin”, set the language to German, and press the little speaker button [here’s a link to make it less complicated sorry ;;], it says something kinda like “ehr-VEEN”.

So there’s that! I’m sure there are native German speakers out there who could probably explain it better than I ever could and a hell of a lot more accurately because I don’t actually speak German myself BUT HEY YES this is what I know so I’m just offering up my input.

Erwin = Ehrveen. Ish. I think.

/over-excited name-nerd awaaaaaaayyyyyy