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So I just started reading the manga after finishing the anime and I’m confused why they write his name as Zolo everytime? Because obviously every person knows him as zoro not Zolo. I saw in the sbs a real pirate inspired him to name him Zolo but I am confused when this adaptation to Zoro happened. Any help would be appreciated.
Its just the translation, maybe where you are reading they wanna keep the names in original Japanese (I don't know much about Japanese alphabet but I think is this) ..
Dont worry
(edited by Monkey.Dree)
L and R sounds can be mostly interchangeable in Japanese making it usually very difficult to determine which to use in translations, Zoro's name is one that often comes up.
The SBS about his name coming from a real pirate refers to his surname Roronoa not his first name, it's based off François l'Ollonais but that again brings up the issue of L's and R's. Because apparently Roronoa is how l'Ollonais is pronounced in Japanese.
Whichever translation your reading has chosen to translate it as Zolo.
The spelling of Zoro comes from Oda himself, whenever he has drawn wanted posters the names are always in English and he always spells it Zoro which indicates that's how he wants it to be spelt.
Different languages also have different official spellings, for example the official German translations of One Piece spell Luffy's name as Ruffy.
If you look on the misc section on Zoro's page on the wiki there's a large section on spellings/translations of his name.
A lot of the time "Zolo" is used in English to avoid the copyright on "Zorro" due to both being swordsman.
Luffy has been called "Ruffy" in the anime by mistake a few times, one event is the Sea Train Zoro I believe causes it. However, it doesn't really matter because the sound for spoken Japanese can be either.
Japanese does not have an "r" kanji so it is typically pronounced with with a rolling L