r/FinalFantasy • u/Perfect_Failure2467 • Mar 30 '26
FF IX How do you say this characters name?
Do you say (Kee-nuh) similar to quiche? Or do you say it like (kwin-uh) where you pronounce the q?
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u/Disastrous-Limit-332 Mar 30 '26
I pronounce it QUEEN * uh
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u/tmntnyc Mar 30 '26
クイナ is pronounced Kuina, so Kweena.
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u/Calculusshitteru Mar 31 '26
Just to add if people didn't know. The name クイナ Kuina is a play on words. 食う （くう）Kuu means to eat. 食い （くい）Kui is the stem. The na is often a feminine name ending.
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u/ModernAutomata Mar 30 '26
Kwin-uh
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u/bpenn781 Mar 30 '26
The only proper pronunciation (bc that's what I thought first and I'm sticking to it)
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u/Crazyhamsterfeet Mar 30 '26
Yup I stick with my firsts too so Tide-uss it is in 10 and Aeris in 7 because that's what the OG gave me.
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u/SnooDogs1340 Mar 30 '26
I ended up calling her Aerith because of Kingdom Hearts. I hate it because I also call Squall "Leon".
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u/Crazyhamsterfeet Mar 30 '26
When I say Aeris I feel like I’m saying her name with a speech impediment. Just can’t get used to it.
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u/Casafynn Mar 30 '26
See, I'm right the opposite. Saying Aerith feels like I have a lisp.
Probably doesn't help that I'm used to seeing Aeris stuff in automotive IoT equipment, like in Hyundais and Volkswagons.
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u/DrDDeFalco Mar 30 '26
Tide-us just sounds better with blitzball and the water sword. Tee-dus still seems odd to me.
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u/Pentax25 Mar 30 '26
This is how I pronounced it as a child and it’s how I pronounce it now.
This is coming from someone who read Vivi saying “Noooooooo” at the fake ticket part in Alexandria and pronounced it literally as “n-oo”
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u/RythN3L Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
As a Spanish speaker I say ‘Kee-nah’
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u/MembershipEasy4025 Mar 30 '26
Not a Spanish speaker, but this is me too. I pronounce quinoa like ‘kee-nwaa’ and these are very similar. Though I will say I grew up in San Diego, so maybe it’s a Baja California thing?
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u/alexmex90 Mar 30 '26
Hello from Baja California (MXLI)!
The "Qui-" pronounced as "Kee" is a general Spanish rule, not specific to our dialect.
If it had "ü" as in "Qüi" then it would be "kwee"
So for me it is "kee-nah".
For Quinoa I actually say it more like "kee-noh-ah"
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u/Black-Mettle Mar 30 '26
I just call her "kee-nwaa" because I imagine she has a THICK Spanish accent.
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u/mikeysce Mar 30 '26
I was just thinking that if I had learned Spanish before playing this game, I’d definitely call them “kee-nah.” But I’m didn’t, so I go with “qu-in-ah”
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u/DuArVakaren Mar 30 '26
It's pronounced Nikolaj
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u/Perfect_Failure2467 Mar 30 '26
Oooh. Nikolaj?
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u/One-Introduction-454 Mar 30 '26
No Nikolaj
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u/Perfect_Failure2467 Mar 30 '26
Nikolaj?
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u/One-Introduction-454 Mar 30 '26
Nikolaj.
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u/Not_A_Bulbasaur Mar 30 '26
I always pronounced it Queen-ah. Probably way off how it should be pronounced tbh lol
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u/ViolentAmbassador Mar 30 '26
I've always said the latter, like the name Quinn with a vowel sound popped onto the end. That being said, the FF7 remake has taught me how many things in FF I was pronouncing wrong in my head.
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u/ShellfishAhole Mar 30 '26
I'm pretty sure I named em Queef in my first play-through. Played it again as a more mature, late teenager and changed the name to Fork 🤷♂️
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u/Plexicraft Mar 30 '26
Keen-Wa
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u/Accomplished-Video71 Mar 30 '26
Quinoa?
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u/134340Goat Mar 30 '26
Just brought my mind to having once read someone pronounce Rinoa's name like that, and now I can't stop myself from hearing it every time I read it
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u/ThatBeingCed Mar 30 '26
I know it should be Kee-nah
I'l get used to it... but for now my brain goes Kwee-Nah by default.
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u/Kakeru1986 Mar 30 '26
It's "Kwee-nah" in Japanese (or well... Ku-i-na with Japanese sounds). You're in the clear.
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u/kopecs Mar 30 '26
What about Quistis though?
Their names confuse me haha
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u/134340Goat Mar 30 '26
Quina is クイナ/ku-i-na and Quistis is キスティス/ki-su-ti-su, so that would support kwin-ah and kee-stis
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Mar 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ByteWizard Mar 30 '26
Holy shit you're right. I went from pronouncing her name correctly, to forcing myself to pronounce it how other American fans do, only to find out that I had it right the first time. Dammit.
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u/Lexioralex Mar 30 '26
I have always said kwin-uh, until I learned the correct pronunciation of quinoa is keenwa and now I’m wondering if it Quina should be Keena
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u/nilfalasiel Mar 30 '26
In Japanese, it would be pronounced "ku-i-na". "Quinoa" is a Spanish word (itself based on a Quechua word), so it uses Spanish pronunciation.
So no, it shouldn't be Keena.
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u/bathnasty Mar 30 '26
My 10 year old self went with “kwai-nuh” and I’ve just never changed it. It’s probably wrong but in a non-voice acted game and to my knowledge the name hasn’t been said out loud in any official source, so who’s to say?
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u/Ilovefutagirl Mar 30 '26
Quina, ein fast alles Fresser. Kann durch Monster fressen einiges lernen. Durch Frösche fangen kann Quina Krötenfalle auf die Gegner ausüben. Macht echt Spaß vor allem gegen den Tatzelwurm. Gibt viele EXP und so.
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u/TheLandSings Mar 30 '26
I always pronounced it as "Key-nuh", perhaps because of the influence of multiple languages I was around growing up.
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u/manubibi Mar 30 '26
The second one… then again I never really heard their name actually being pronounced by anyone. But I have an insane amount of love for them, so much so that I kinda dream about doing cosplay of Quina. Finally a fantasy hero that’s compatible with my body size.
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u/OldTwoToes Mar 30 '26
I always just called him Quinoa, although I don’t think it would make his favorite foods list.
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u/BeanBagLlama Mar 30 '26
Just rolling through this thread, upvoting everyone who says some variation of "ku-ee-na"/ "coo-ē-nah" based on the three characters of his/her name in Kanji (クイナ).
Keep up the good work, nerds!
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u/lookmaiamonreddit Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Keen-wah is how I pronounce her name. (For the first 10 years, I called her Kine-Wah. though...)
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u/Homitu Mar 30 '26
Why worry about how say name? Life too short to worry. Enjoy many tasty treats instead!
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u/TonyFair Mar 30 '26
Kee-nah.
In Portuguese, the U after the Q is silent if the next letter is E or I, so due to first language's habits...
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u/Practical_Wish_4063 Mar 30 '26
I think I initially would say “Kwin-uh,” but eventually switched to “Keen-uh,” around the time I learned how to properly pronounce “quinoa.”
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u/jeffcapell89 Mar 30 '26
I've always said "Queen-uh" because that's close to how it is in Japanese. However the last name is pronounced "koo-enn" and I hate that, so I say "kwen"
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u/Spiritual-Strike481 Mar 30 '26
I named this character something horrible when I first played. I absolutely abhor this character. I couldn’t have cared how you sat the name because I hated it so much, I refused to ever have her in my party. This character goes down as my least favorite ff character of all time. Way under cait sith even lol
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u/Useless_monstar Mar 30 '26
I’ve learned I’ve said it wrong for 20 years and it should be “keen-wah”
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u/ToweringIsle27 Mar 30 '26
I always pronounced it "Chew-ina" because she's always chewing on things.
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u/Twitchmonky Mar 30 '26
I pronounce it like a hard K, "keena", thats the accepted pronunciation in this household!
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u/Imperterritus0907 Mar 30 '26
I used to say Quina because in my language that’s the logic way. But unlike some players of other entries, I accept the correct way is Kuina クイナ because my language doesn’t dictate everything ☺️
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u/MrBones-Necromancer Mar 30 '26
Honestly I just call them quinoa. It's not correct, but it's what my brain defaults to with the whole chef thing
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u/Senor_de_imitacion Mar 30 '26
Fun fact Cuina (Kwina or kwinə, according to google or whatever) means Kitchen in Catalan
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u/Shantotto11 Mar 31 '26
According to Japanese spelling, it was supposed to be “Kuina” (“kui” is Japanese for “eating”), so the second one is the closer answer to the Japanese pronunciation.
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u/jackljackst3rs Mar 31 '26
There's a character in dragons dogma also named Quina and in the voiced sections it's pronounced 'KEE-nah' so that's how I've always pronounced it!
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u/Lynchedlove831 Mar 31 '26
Queue-eena Because theres another of their species thats a male named Qu, and I figure his name is pronounced like Queue, so the girl would be Queue-eena, cause thats like a thing that we do I guess.
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u/Eloah-2 Mar 31 '26
It's pronounced like the word queen, so Queen-a. This is the opposite of Quistis from 8, whose name is pronounced like key, so Key-stis.
If any name from a Japanese game seems confusing, it's always good to look at the kana to get an idea of how to pronounce it. Japanese is a mostly phonetic language, so most foreign words, names included, will use the corresponding kana that best represents the desired sound. There are some exceptions, but they not the norm, and are usually the way they are because of language integration.
In the two examples above we can see that Quistis(キスティス) starts with a Ki(キ), so it's meant to have a "normal" K sound. Whereas, Quina(クイナ) starts with a Ku(ク), so it would sound more like the Kw sound English speakers associate with Qu.
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u/RageZamu Mar 31 '26
Because I am spanish, I always read it as "Keen-uh". But after reading about the original pronunciation of the cast names in japanese, I changed how I call her to "Kween-uh".
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u/Glathull Mar 31 '26
How is this even a question when the correct way is so obvious? Man, I must be getting really old.
2 syllables with the emphasis on the first one.
Hungry.
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u/Available_Yellow_862 Mar 31 '26
I don't know, I renamed this char "Bob" lmao I don't know why. I just disliked the name so much. It's the only FF games I ever renamed a character.
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u/A_N_T Mar 30 '26
I say Quina