There are a lot of planets and stars in the Phantasy Star games, and chances are you've wondered "What the heck kind of name is that?" or "Why does this sound familiar?" Some of them are probably made up, like Copto, Palma or Dezolis. But there are actually a number of them that have their origins in actual names or words, or even anagrams of each other.
ALGOL:
Spoiler!
The most obvious one is Algol, of course. Algol, or Beta Persei is a real star. Well, three of them to be specific. It's an eclipsing binary star system made of 3 different stars (A, B, and C), and because they overlap it appears to twinkle different colors in the sky. Because of its striking appearance, the early Arab astronomers coined it ra's al ghul, meaning head of the ghoul (demon), which later became contracted into Alghul, and then Algol. It was also associated with this in other mythologies: In Hebrew it was known as "Satan's head," in Latin "the spectre's head," and in Greece it was associated with the Gorgon. It is considered the "unluckiest star."
The real Algol.
As a star with a lot of mysterious and dark associations, it seems a perfect fit for the adventures of the original series. The phantasy of Phantasy star is the same as phantasm or phantom, after all. The one featured in the series doesn't seem to be a binary star, so it's always possible that it could be different from the one in real life.
PHANTASY STAR ONLINE:
Spoiler!
Phantasy Star Online takes place on a different planet: Ragol. According to one of the art books, Ragol is an anagram of Argol. (I can't seem to find any English sites with this information, but there are a ton of Japanese ones with it. Go figure.) There is no "R" or "L" sound in Japanese, only a sort of cross between the two that we write in English as "R." Because of this, it can be difficult for Japanese people to tell which is which in foreign words. So when deciding the name Ragol, they used the incorrect "Argol."
To be more basic: they rearranged "arugoru" into "raguoru."
The other planet featured in the PSO and PS0 mythos is Coral, homeland of the human/newman/android races. Unlike the above, here's no official word on this, so the following is speculation.
In Japanese, characters that when written phonetically start with the letters k, h, s, t, and u can be changed by adding accent marks of sorts. Example: ク (ku) グ (gu). So if you remove this "tenten" mark from Argol, you would get Arcol. (Or Alcor, which is actually another real star). You could then scramble the letters to make "coral." Of course, there's always the chance that they just named it after, well... coral.
PHANTASY STAR UNIVERSE:
Spoiler!
Gurhal isn't a real star. It may still be an anagram of sorts, however. Gurhal is pronounced "gura-ru" in Japanese, and would probably be best transliterated as "Graal." So why the weird spelling? There are a few possibilities.
The Gurhal system is a parallel/reboot of the Algol system, so it would follow that its name is somehow based on it. But the two aren't anagrams like with Ragol. But if you rearange the letters, you can get the name "Arghul." So, just like Argol is a corruption of Algol, Arghul could be a corruption of Algol's earlier name, Al Ghul.
Gurhal apparently means hibiscus in Hindi but I don't know if that's related.
Another possibility that I found posted on a Japanese message board is that it could be "GLAOR," (or Graol, more accurately.) Graol would probably be "guraoru" in Japanese, but PSU's "guraaru" does sound similar.
Or... arugoru->raguoru->graouru? Maybe?
PSO2:
Spoiler!
PSO2 also has names with clear origins. The planets in the game are all named after actual names of things. Similar to Algol's association with demons, Naberius and Amduscia are named after individual demons.
The Lesser Key of Solomon is a 17th century book (or grimoire) that contains a list of demons and spirits that King Solomon allegedly captured and controlled, along with how to summon them. In the section called the Ars Goetia, 72 demons are listed. These demons are commonly referenced in fiction and demonology, so they may be familiar to some of you. The Diablo and Shin Megami Tensei series, for instance, feature many of them. The planets Naberius and Amduscia are named after two such demons.
Naberius is the name of the 34th demon of the Goetia. It is a marquis of hell, and is also known by the names Nebiros, Naberus or Cerberus. If you couldn't tell from that, he is often depicted as the 3 headed dog, Cerberus, from Greek mythology.
Naberius's sigil. You know, in case you ever feel like summoning him.
Amduscia is named after Amdusias, who is also known as Amduscias or Amdukias. Amduscias is the 67th demon of the Goetia and a king of hell. He has absolutely nothing to do with dragons, so I'm not sure why they picked the name.
AMDUSCIAS: For all your musical unicorn needs.
Upon further research (I.E. Google image search), it turns out that there are also metal bands named Naberius and Amduscia.
Maybe someone at Sega is a black metal fan?
PSO2's other major planet, Lillipa, contrarily has a name entirely unrelated to demons. Lillipa sounds like it comes from the name Lilliput. Lilliput was a fictional kingdom of tiny people from the story of Gulliver's Travels. The English word lilliputian comes from that. Lillipa is home to the Lillipa tribe, tiny Jawa/Ewok-type creatures with a rudimentary civilization, hence the name.
The fleet that acts as the home of the ARKS is called ORACLE. Once again, it could be an anagram. it could be another Ragol/Argol type anagram but with the "g" changed once again to a "c," or it could be an anagram of Coral. ORACL[E]. As the human/newman/CAST home base it would make sense.
SPOILERS FOR THE NEXT PLANET:
Spoiler!
The new, watery planet that was shown in the CODE:Episode 2 trailer was found by Kion to be called "ウォプル." Wopuru is how you'd pronounce it. Wopal or Wopar are ways you could transliterate it, but what does it mean?
I did some searching and it turns out that there is a possible connection to the Goetia again. ウエパル (weparu) is the Japanese pronunciation of another demon from the Ars Goetia: Vepar. For some reason words with "v"s in them sometimes become "w"s when pronounced in Japanese. An example would be the Japanese word for virus: uirusu. So basically, it could be Vopar, but there's no way to know for sure yet.
The demon Vepar is depicted as a merman or mermaid, so it could be a reference to the planet's watery surface.
Hopefully you found this interesting! Are there any names you can pinpoint an origin or meaning to?
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