Based on what we’ve seen of half-foots in the Eastern Continent (physical appearance, clothing, culture, food, names), their strongest influences seem to come from Celtic, Germanic and Jewish cultures.
The Celtic (specifically Irish) cultural influence appears to be something unique to the half-foots and primarily associated with them, and no other racial group, and it includes all aspects of Celtic culture, including physical appearance. I think we can assume this is the “native” or “original” half-foot culture of the Eastern Continent.
The Jewish cultural influence is a little bit more mysterious. All religious elements have been removed by Kui, leaving behind only cultural, linguistic and physical traits shared between the Jewish people and the Eastern half-foots.
Hebrew is the source of many half-foot names, but it is also the source of several Western elvish names. Why would both of these groups have Hebrew names, when the half-foots have so little power, and the elves control large parts of the world? I think the most likely explanation is that this is a linguistic influence from the Western elves (Hebrew) that became a part of half-foot culture during the long, ancient wars that raged between the dwarves and the elves on the western coast of the Eastern continent, where the majority of half-foots appear to live. They were most likely colonized repeatedly by the elves as control of the territory was transferred back and forth between the elves and the dwarves.
There does not appear to be any similarities between physical appearance, cultural practices or stereotypes of the Jewish people and the Western elves, except for one minor exception, which I’ll discuss in Chapter 14, Mithrun.
Only the Eastern half-foots appear to possess the physical traits and Jewish stereotypes tied to the Jewish people, so perhaps these traits are not directly connected to the Hebrew language in the Dungeon Meshi world, and they are simply traits of Eastern half-foot culture.
Finally, the source of Germanic cultural influence is obvious: half-foots admire dwarves, and dwarven culture in the Eastern hemisphere appears to be primarily Germanic, so it makes sense that the half-foots would emulate them extensively in this region where their races overlap, and the dwarves hold considerable power. It is the “host” culture that the half-foots live in.
We don’t have any real information about half-foot culture in other parts of the world, though one could theorize that while some key elements are the same, due to certain universal racial struggles that they face, whatever the local dominant culture is probably influences the culture of the half-foots that live there, in the same way that the local dominant culture influences tall-men in different parts of the world.
If there are Scandinavian, Japanese and Indian tall-men, there should be Scandinavian, Japanese and Indian half-foots as well, even if their population isn’t very large in some of those regions.
Half-foot is a term created by Kui to describe a type of “little person” race that exists in many fantasy stories. This type of race is usually derived from the Hobbits of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the existence of half-foots in Dungeon Meshi is one of the key elements Kui uses that can be traced directly to Tolkien.
Hobbits are a fictional race of humans in Tolkien’s work. They are about half the height of ordinary human beings, they have a somewhat childish appearance, such as the men being unable to grow beards. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles, and they are covered on top with curly hair, and because of this hobbits live barefoot. They traditionally dwell in homely underground houses built into the sides of hills, though some live in ordinary houses instead. They are known to have a keen sense of sight and hearing.
The only major differences between Tolkien’s Hobbits and Kui’s half-foots is that half-foots actually have feet that are proportional to their body size, don’t go around barefoot, and they have large ears. They are still smaller than ordinary humans, and they have a childish appearance, including difficulty growing facial or body hair. Kui’s half-foots also have funny and archaic-sounding complex names, a trait that is often associated with Hobbits in pop culture, even if it isn’t always true in the actual Tolkien canon.
Tolkien also sometimes calls them halflings, which is an ordinary word used in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Northern England for a child who is not yet fully grown; a youth, an adolescent, and sometimes a boy or young man employed in a junior role in domestic, agricultural, or industrial work.
The term Hobbit is a legal trademark of the Tolkien Estate, and because of this, the term halfling has been used by many other fantasy series to describe similar races, since it can’t be trademarked.
A comic in the World Guide tells us that half-foots were likely named by elven explorers/colonizers/missionaries who found tiny footprints that were “half the size” of tall-man (human) footprints, and so they called them “half-foots.” Chilchuck says that he doesn’t know if this is the true origin of his race’s name, and says that the history of the term is ambiguous.
This comic also tells us that the endonym that the half-foots call themselves sounds like a dirty or rude word in the common language, and so it cannot be spoken in front of others.
The punchline of this comic may be the sly suggestion that “hobbit” is the true name of the half-foots (since that is what they are based on), but because it is a trademarked term and cannot be used by Kui for legal reasons, it is a “dirty” or “bad” word for the characters in-universe, and so they can’t speak it out loud. They must instead be referred to only by euphemisms like “half-foot,” the same way that many other people have to call their Hobbit-inspired races euphemistically as “halflings” in the real world.
In Tolkien’s work, Big Folk and Big People were names for ordinary humans, given to them by the Hobbits, who they in turn called the Little Folk. This is similar to how half-foots in Dungeon Meshi were named in relation to tall-men.
Tolkien’s work states that the Hobbits and ordinary humans are related to one another, and therefore not a distinct race the way that Elves and Dwarves are. This is somewhat different in Dungeon Meshi, as all of the human races (tall-men, half-foots, elves, dwarves, gnomes and ogres) are related to each other, and descended from the same ancestors, not just the half-foots and tall-men.
When Chilchuck is discussing the half-foot race’s true name, he mentions several other fantasy races or creatures who may or may not exist in the Dungeon Meshi world, but whose names are used as euphemisms for half-foots: halflings, little people, lilliputtians, korpokkur, imps, goblins, and gr-, with the rest of the word obscured. This is probably meant to say “gremlin.”
In Dungeon Meshi, it seems that there is an expectation that any well-prepared dungeon exploration party will have a half-foot in it, and that due to their especially keen senses, their role is to scout ahead, plan routes, avoid traps and pick or bypass locks.
This association of a single race or ethnicity with a specialized job relating to exploration due to their physical characteristics, and the fact that this job is both very risky, and also one of the only opportunities for members of that ethnic group to succeed and make a lot of money, suggests a similarity between the half-foots and the sherpa guides of the Himalayan region.
The half-foots do not appear to have anything else in common with the Sherpa ethnic group culturally, as the Sherpa are primarily a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group from East Asia and the half-foots we see in Dungeon Meshi appear to be primarily Germanic and Jewish, but the conceptual similarity between half-foots and sherpas is very interesting.
Sherpas are highly regarded as elite mountaineers and experts in their local area. They were valuable to early explorers of the Himalayan region, serving as guides at the extreme altitudes of the peaks and passes in the region, particularly for expeditions to climb Mount Everest.
Today, the term “sherpa” is often used by foreigners to refer to any guide or climbing supporter hired for mountaineering expeditions in the Himalayas, regardless of their ethnicity or exact job function. Because of this, the term “sherpa” has become genericized, and is used for porters and mountain guides on any mountain, not just in the Himalayas. Sometimes the word “sherpa” is even used to refer to someone who is a guide or mentor in non-mountaineering contexts as well.
Ethnic Sherpas are renowned in the international climbing and mountaineering community for their hardiness, expertise, and experience at very high altitudes. It has been speculated that part of the Sherpas' climbing ability is the result of a genetic adaptation to living in high altitudes. Some of these adaptations include unique hemoglobin-binding capacity and doubled nitric oxide production. However not all people doing the job of a sherpa are ethnically sherpa anymore, but simply people from all over the Himalayan region. Only local people from high-altitude villages have a genetic advantage, so the majority of “sherpa” on expeditions are simply local porters who carry supplies.
A small, elite group who come from high altitude villages or are ethnically Sherpa are the ones who do the most dangerous and best-paying work, such as carrying supplies and guiding climbers once they pass the 7,000 meters altitude mark, at which point anyone without the high-altitude genetic advantage rapidly begin to weaken.
The sherpa mountaineering job is seen as very attractive to the local population, because despite the risks involved, it can guarantee a much higher rate of pay than any other form of work available to them. Many local people hope to work as a sherpa for only a few seasons and then use that money to start a business and retire from dangerous mountaineering work.
This is more or less identical to the way that ambitious half-foots that want to become wealthy leave their rural, small communities to live in Kahka Brud, due to its proximity to multiple dungeons. Chilchuck himself wants to retire from dungeon exploration and use his money to open a locksmith shop. Kahka Brud is like their Everest Base Camp.
Though sherpa guides have come to be highly regarded as mountaineers, they are also often treated with racist and xenophobic contempt because they are seen as rural people from an undeveloped country. The racial tension between foreign tourists and local guides has always been an element of the sherpa guide’s existence. Foreigners both rely on the specialized knowledge that their local guide has to stay alive, but also resent that a “lesser” person of a race they consider inferior is telling them what to do.
Something very similar to this dynamic is shown in the chapters where Senshi refuses to listen to Chilchuck’s instructions, until he realizes that Chilchuck has skills that he lacks, and that he should respect Chilchuck’s knowledge of the dungeon.
One third of the deaths that occur during attempts to climb the Himalayan mountains are sherpa guides, and the sherpa have, on occasion, organized strikes to prevent climbs from happening due to poor working conditions. This is similar to how Chilchuck formed his half-foot union, in an attempt to protect half-foots from exploitation in the dungeoneering community.
We are told a great deal about how the half-foots are at the mercy of the other races, such as being used as disposable bait for monsters, and treated like children even after they’ve reached adulthood. They are often taken advantage of because of their small size and lack of political and social power.
The World Guide says that because of this, most half-foots stay in their own territories, rather than mingling with the other races. Only those with a strong desire for social or economic advancement leave the areas where they are a majority.
Because of this, there is a stereotype among other races that all half-foots are greedy, cunning tricksters… Because the only half-foots who leave home are the ones who are ambitious and willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. Since those are most of the half-foots that other races meet, they assume all half-foots are like that.
I think it’s clear that Kui intends for the half-foots to remind us of a disadvantaged racial minority group, but are there any specific real-world connections or references?
The two real world cultures the Eastern half-foots have the most in common with are the Irish and the Jewish people. Many of their name components are potentially Irish or Hebrew, and Kui depicts them with many qualities (both positive and negative, real and imagined) common to these ethnic groups.
Anti-Irish discrimination dates back at least as far as the reign of Henry II of England (1154-1189 ACE), with multiple rulers and religious figures referring to the Irish as filthy, barbarous, lazy, and backwards. Although the Irish are not discriminated against as actively now as they were in the past, the impact of this hatred remains in the modern day, and many negative stereotypes still linger in the popular consciousness.
Stereotypes about the Irish that are reflected by the half-foots in Dungeon Meshi include:
Being poor. Working undesirable jobs in dangerous factories, coal mines, or on the railroad, often from a very young age. Being disposable workers who can be discarded without repercussion. Having large families from a young age.
Having red hair and/or freckles. Being alcoholics who are violent and like to get into fights. Swearing and cursing, and generally being low-class and coarse. Being union members, or else part of a criminal gang. Criminal activity such as lying, cheating, swindling and counterfeiting. Being stingy and cheap. Being overly religious and engaging in religious conflicts.
In Dungeon Meshi:
It is suggested that many half-foots live in poverty, forced to live in areas with poor quality land that the other, more powerful races don’t want. They are considered disposable by most of the other races, and are so frequently used, abused, and forced into deadly work that Chilchuck formed a union to try and prevent this behavior.
Chilchuck and his wife’s accidental childhood pregnancy, followed by marriage and two more children, is treated as unremarkable, which suggests it’s probably common for half-foots to have large families from a young age. Chilchuck also has red hair, and on Kui’s page of half-foot portraits, almost half of them are red or reddish-brown haired.
Chilchuck is an alcoholic and so was his father before him. Chilchuck avoids combat because of his small size, but he never loses a verbal fight, and frequently resorts to violence, kicking and hitting Laios to get his attention or express his displeasure with him. Chilchuck also talks in a coarse manner, and sometimes tells jokes that the rest of the party consider offensive and inappropriate.
Chilchuck is the founder and president of a union for half-foots, something which appears to be revolutionary and new in Dungeon Meshi, and is met with some skepticism. Half-foots are stereotyped as all being cheating swindlers: Namari warns Laios not to shop in stores with half-foot clerks because he’ll get scammed or cheated, both Mikbell and Puckpatti seem to involve themselves in criminal/scamming activity, and there is a half-foot that works in a bar in the dungeon frequented by disreputable criminals, and another half-foot that works as a lackey for the Shadow Governor of the island.
Chilchuck is known for being cheap, a good haggler and negotiator, and others perceive him as being greedy. One of his daughters, Fleurtom, wants to marry a dwarf because she thinks that half-foot men are all too untrustworthy and cheap to make good husbands. Though most of the characters in Dungeon Meshi do not appear overtly religious, when vaguely religious comments are made (seeing the afterlife, calling something heretical), they often come from Chilchuck.
The first clear example of anti-Jewish sentiment in history can be traced to the 3rd century BCE, to an Egyptian priest and historian of that era named Manetho. Since then, there have been too many instances of anti-Jewish hatred and discrimination to possibly count, ranging from mocking their physical appearace and religious practices, to government sanctioned killing and genocide.
Some stereotypes about Jews that are relevant to Dungeon Meshi’s half-foots are:
Having either red or black/brown hair, often curly. Being union members. The men are physically and mentally weak and emasculated, and the women are assertive, masculine and bossy. Jewish women wanting to marry non-Jewish men because they are perceived as wealthier, stronger, and more masculine.
Passive-aggressive interpersonal style. Nagging parents with impossibly high standards. Being melodramatic complainers. Being neurotic and/or sarcastic. Being greedy and miserly, and la belle juive ("the beautiful Jewess") archetype.
In Dungeon Meshi:
As I stated before, a lot of Kui’s half-foots seem to have red hair, and several also have curly black or brown hair, and Chilchuck is the founder and president of the half-foot union. Half-foot men are often treated like children, and not given the same respect that men from other races are, and Chilchuck is angry that he is perceived as weak and cowardly for being unwilling to take unreasonable risks. Two of Chilchuck’s daughters appear to be aggressive and predatory husband-hunters. It’s implied to be common for half-foot women to want to marry dwarven men for economic gain, and because they perceive dwarven men as more masculine and superior to men of their own race.
Chilchuck’s wife left him without saying a word to him, a very passive-aggressive act that Chilchuck has responded to with further passivity, both sides refusing to reach out to each other, implying that they both want the other to act first. This stalemate has been going on for four years.
Chilchuck seems proud of his daughter Meijack for following in his footsteps and carrying on with his profession, but he doesn’t overly praise her despite her clearly being the most successful child. He is critical of his other two daughters, one of them whose aspiration in life is “marry a rich dwarf” and the other who is scamming people by selling fake dragon dung.
Though he isn’t his literal father, Chilchuck nags Laios frequently for his poor abilities as a party leader, and when Marcille starts to teach Laios magic, Chilchuck complains that magic isn’t what Laios needs to learn. Even when Laios is taking steps to improve his skills, Chilchuck nags and says he should focus on different skills instead.
Chilchuck does his fair share of complaining about things, often in a humorous and melodramatic fashion. The World Guide describes him as sarcastic and neurotic. As I said previously, people perceive Chilchuck, and half-foots in general, as being greedy, miserly cheats. In one of the extra comics, Kui shows Chilchuck helping Marcille buy a leather pouch and haggling the price down for her.
Finally there is the 19th century literary stereotype of La belle juive (French for "the beautiful Jewess"). She was depicted as a temptress that incited lust and sinful behavior, with long, thick, dark and curly hair, large dark eyes, an olive skin tone, and a sleepy, languid expression.
This description is very similar to a beautiful and mysterious half-foot woman that Kui drew in the top right corner of her half-foot portrait page in The Daydream Hour book. Her hair is black and curly, and she has dark, sleepy-looking eyes that are upturned in the center. One of Chilchuck’s daughters has similar hair, and several other half-foots have similar upturned, sleepy-looking eyes.
Kui may have designed the half-foots and their culture with this in mind, but it also might not be intentional.
After studying the available information, I do not think that the half-foots have much in common with the real world Roma people.
The Roma are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who have historically been forced to live a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent.
Discrimination and hatred against the Roma people focuses on stereotypes about their physical appearance, culture, migratory lifestyle, and the idea that they are criminals who perform evil magic, steal children, and are incapable of integrating with mainstream society due to some kind of “inherent flaw” in their character.
Half-foots in Dungeon Meshi actually very rarely leave their home villages, they have an extremely low magic-casting ability, and those that try to learn are often snatched by elves, and so magic use is strongly discouraged. Half-foots of all ages are often stolen and enslaved by other races, possibly because they are mistaken for children, or because they are too small to defend themselves.
If anything, the culture of the Roma and the negative stereotypes that surround them sound much more like something that people in the Dungeon Meshi world would believe about a group of elves who have immigrated from the west to the east, such as the ones who are mistakenly called “dark elves.”
I’ll discuss this idea further in Chapter 13, the Elves Part 2.
The official English translation of the World Guide translates the caption below the map on the half-foot race page in a confusing way that adds an implication that doesn’t exist in the original Japanese text.
Original text:
東方大陸と南方大陸の内陸部、西方大陸の北西部を中心に分布。最大国のカーカブルードは、数多くの迷宮が存在する東方大陸の西部に位置する。野心家はカーカブルードを起点に迷宮へと挑むのだろう。Official translation:
Their largest populations are in the interior of the Eastern and Southern continents and in the northwest of the Western continent. Their biggest nation, Kahka Brud, is located in the western area of the Eastern continent, and has many dungeons. Ambitious individuals base themselves in Kahka Brud and head into the dungeons.Machine translation, confirmed by a human translator:
Distributed mainly in the inland areas of the Eastern and Southern continents, and the northwest of the Western continent. The largest country, Kahka Brud, is located in the western part of the Eastern continent, where many dungeons exist. Ambitious people will probably start their journey into the dungeon from Kahka Brud.
This caption is somewhat confusing no matter which version you use, though surprisingly, the machine translation seems to be more accurate.
The possessive phrasing used in the official translation, “their biggest nation” implies that not only does Kahka Brud belong to the half-foots, but that the half-foots control other nations as well. Both of these statements seem unlikely, because of the disadvantaged status of the half-foots as a race.
Though never explicitly stated, it seems like most territories, especially powerful and wealthy ones, are controlled by the long-lived races, and Kahka Brud appears to be a major, important city-state. If the half-foots had a kingdom, one would expect it to be located in a poor, remote region, not somewhere like Kahka Brud.
Kahka Brud’s soldiers all seem to be dwarves, and the Brud dungeon cluster is a dwarf-style dungeon. Namari, a dwarf, has the name “of Kahka Brud”, which implies that it is primarily a dwarven city.
At the end of the manga, when we see the world leaders speak to each other about the crisis in the dungeon, it is the Western elven queen, a group of dwarves, and a group of gnomes who are shown. There are no half-foots or tall-men present. Kahka Brud is the largest city near the dungeon crisis zone, and since we know the elves don’t control Kahka Brud, that means it must be the dwarves or the gnomes we see in this scene… And not half-foots, since they aren’t present at all.
(See Chapter 5, Tall-men of the Golden Kingdom, for more information about the Golden Kingdom’s existence as a tall-man nation, and the possibility that it is a buffer zone between the elves and dwarves.)
Since we’ve established that the possessive added in the English didn’t exist in the Japanese, that still leaves us with the bewilderingly vague statement “Kahka Brud is the largest country.” Is it the largest In the entire world? Largest in the Eastern continent? Largest country… popular with half-foots?
This last possibility seems the most logical, since the caption is on a page about half-foots, and we know that many half-foots in the region go to Kahka Brud specifically because of its proximity to several dungeons. It’s their best chance to strike it rich in a world where they have very few opportunities… Like rural people going to “the big city” to try and escape from rural poverty and make it big.
In other words, I think the original Japanese probably implies that Kahka Brud is the biggest country that half-foots commonly go to, and that it is a popular destination for them. It would be similar to saying “A lot of people in rural Japan move to Tokyo for better opportunities.”
Since I believe Kahka Brud is a dwarven city, I’ll discuss it further in Chapter 9, the Dwarves.
Original text:
名前と後名・父親の名前の前名＋スあるいはズで構成する。チルチャックを例に挙げると、前名 (チル)＋後名 (チャック)・父親の名前 (ティム)＋ズ。チルチャックの娘のファミリーネームは“チルズ” か “チルス”となる。なお、前名だけ呼ぶのは親しい間柄だけである。Official translation:
Names are composed of a first name, a last name, and their father’s first name plus “s” or “z.” For example, Chilchuck’s first name is “Chil,” his last name is “Chuck,” and his father’s name is “Tim”+s. Chilchuck’s daughters’ family names are either “Chilz” or “Chils.” Only people who are very close to an individual call them by their first name on its own.Machine translation, confirmed by a human translator:
It is composed of the first name, the second name, the first name of the father, and then either "su" or "zu". For example, Chilchuck's first name is "Chill" + "second name" (Chuck) + "father's name" (Tim) + "zu". The family name of Chilchuck's daughter is "Chilz" or "Chils". Only close friends call each other by their first name.
In Japanese, first/personal/given names are called mei (名, name) or shita no namae (下の名前, lower name). Family name/last name/surname can translate into three different Japanese words, myōji (苗字), uji (氏), and sei (姓).
The original Japanese text doesn’t use any of these standard words for first or last name at all, most likely to try and avoid exactly this confusion.
For Chilchuck, it uses 前名 (“before” + “name”) and 後名 (“back” + “name”), which are not normally used in Japanese to refer to a person’s personal name and family name, and when used together like this implies a two-part personal name (Chilchuck). So Yen Press incorrectly states that “Chuck” is Chilchuck’s last name when the Japanese says 後名 (back name), and then correctly translates that his daughters’ family name (ファミリーネーム, family name written phonetically in katakana) is Chilz/Chils.
Kui most likely purposefully used the katakana phrase “family name” to make sure people understood that when she called Chuck his 後名 (back name), she did not mean last name/surname/family name. So this caption should have been translated as something like “Half-foot names are composed of a personal name, which is made of a first part and a second part, followed by their last name, which is their father’s first name plus “s” or “z.” Something that would have made this much easier to translate would be if Kui had identified Tims and Chilz/Chils as patronymic last names.
A patronym is a name based on the personal name of one's father, grandfather, or an earlier male ancestor. Traditional patronymics like this change with every generation, though over time they sometimes get “stuck” and become simple hereditary names instead. Johnson originally meant that someone was the son of John, but the name became fixed and now every generation of the family is Johnson, no matter what their father’s personal name was.
For him, it’s Tims, the patronymic last name that he inherited from his father’s first name, which was Tim. It’s the name that connects him to his father and shows that they are related. For his daughters, their last name is Chilz/Chils, the name they inherited from Chilchuck, and that shows that they are related.
(Japanese pronunciation: Chiruchakku Timsu, Alt. translation: Chilchack)
As far as I can tell this isn’t a real name, which is why there’s been some disagreement about how to translate it. However, Kui’s chosen spelling is made up of real parts that have interesting meanings, especially since she tells us that half-foot names are meant to be broken into segments!
Chil is an alternate spelling for the Old French “cil/cel/chel” which comes from Vulgar Latin ecce ille. Means “this one/the one in question.” Ċild is also the Old English root of the word child. Chil could also be a reference to the English word chill, which comes from Middle English chele, chile, from Old English ċiele, ċele (“cold; coldness”), from Proto-West Germanic kali, from Proto-Germanic kaliz, from Proto-Indo-European gel- (“to be cold”).
Chill primarily means cold, a sudden coldness that causes the body to tremble, or an uncomfortable and numbing sense of fear, dread or anxiety… But can also mean a lack of warmth and cordiality, unfriendliness.
A nickname for Charles. Charles comes from Old French Charles, Carles, from Latin Carolus, from and also re-influenced by Old High German Karl, from Proto-Germanic karilaz, which means “free man.”
The word chuck has several different meanings in English, ranging from formal terminology to informal slang.
A chuck can be an object used as a wedge or filler, especially when placed behind a wheel to prevent it from rolling, or a device that holds an object firmly in place (such as on a drill or other tool). It can also mean meat from the shoulder of an animal, or be slang for food in general.
Chuck can also mean a gentle touch or tap, and informally, a casual, careless, inaccurate throw. The latter meaning has also led to using the word chuck to describe the act of vomiting, or throwing away or discarding something, such as rotten food. Chuck can also mean to give up, to quit, or to jilt or dump a romantic partner.
Finally, in Scotland chuck can also be slang for a small pebble, and chucks (plural) is obsolete slang for money.
Tims is a diminutive of the names Dietmar or Timotheus (Timothy).
Dietmar comes from Proto-Germanic Þeudōmēraz, equivalent to Old High German thiot (people) + mari (fame). So the name means famous person, or someone who is famous among his people.
Timothy, the Latinized version of the Greek Christian name Τιμόθεος (Timόtheos), means “one who honors God.” Tim (τιμή) isolated from the rest of the name means honor, price, or cost.
Tim is also a rare English surname originating as a patronymic, and also the anglicized version of the Irish surname Mac Tomaltaigh (“son of Tomaltach”) or Tumulty.
Finally, tim (plural tims) is derogatory Irish slang for a Catholic person.
So… Chilchuck is Kui’s main half-foot character, and at first glance, his name means something like This One is a Free Man, Famous Among his Race, or Child-like Free Man that is Famous Among his Race… Considering Chilchuck’s position as the very well-known leader of the half-foot union, either one of these makes a lot of sense!
However, looking at some of the secondary meanings also gives us some interesting and funny interpretations!
Chilchuck could very easily be described as cold, unfriendly or scared, someone who prevents forward momentum or change through his stubbornness, someone who uses his tools very carefully, and has a gentle touch that allows him to avoid setting off traps. He also loves to drink, which can result in vomiting, and he was abandoned (chucked) by his wife. He’s also small (like a pebble) and loves money.
Tims could be read to mean that he has honor, or that he has a high price. We know that Chilchuck refuses to work if the compensation is inadequate, and negotiates hard for what he considers fair pay, but others think he is asking for too much. Finally, the majority of Irish people (who Chilchuck has much in common with) are Catholics, so even though Catholicism doesn’t appear to exist in the Dungeon Meshi world, Tims being an insult for Irish Catholics is pretty funny.
You could read his name to mean “Unfriendly guy that carefully controls his tools and avoids setting off traps with his gentle touch,” or “Scared guy that stops himself from resolving his issues (with his wife and with his friends), and was abandoned by his wife because of it.” You could combine these ideas in many more interesting ways to accurately describe Chilchuck and his story!
Another thing fans have noticed is that his name may sound similar to the sound something makes when you unlock it.
As I mentioned previously, there is a half-foot woman shown in The Daydream Hour book, in the top right corner of the half-foot portrait page. This woman looks like two of Chilchuck’s daughters: she has Fleurtom’s curly black hair, and Meijack’s sleepy-looking eyes. Because of this, many people in the fandom suspect that she might be Chilchuck’s wife.
Kui hasn’t explicitly told us that she is Chilchuck’s wife, but until Kui clarifies the issue we have no way of knowing one way or another.
Chilchuck loves to drink, his father died from over-drinking, but Chilchuck isn’t worried, and thinks it would be fine if he also died enjoying something he loves. Alcohol consumption is an important part of many cultures, but the Irish, who the half-foots seem to have a lot in common with, have a particularly intense relationship to alcohol and alcohol abuse, as I mentioned in the previous section.
Brewing alcohol in Ireland has a long history. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were over two hundred breweries in the country, fifty-five of them in Dublin. This number decreased over time, due to economic, political and social pressures, but alcohol production remains a major part of the Irish economy.
Alcoholism in Ireland is a significant public health problem. In the modern day, 70% of Irish men and 34% of Irish women are considered to be hazardous drinkers.
The reasons for excessive alcohol consumption in Ireland are varied, however it has its roots in the poor living conditions of the working class in the 18th century, which coincided with the mass industrialization of whiskey manufacturing, which dramatically decreased the cost of alcohol. The population of Ireland increased by 50% in the 18th century, but the consumption of whiskey grew by 750%
Chilchuck’s drink of choice appears to be beer, and he says that he prefers drinks with a lot of hops, which is the ingredient that makes beer bitter. This makes sense, since we also know that he dislikes sweet foods. Chilchuck says his favorite food is a stout beer from a specific brewery, and the World Guide says his favorite food is ale (エール, eru).
Beer/Ale is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world, and was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes as far back as 3000 BCE. Early beer/ale did not contain hops, which were first mentioned in European beer/ale around 822 ACE.
In early forms of English and in the Scandinavian languages, beer was called ale, and in the late Middle Ages, the word beer was used to denote ale with hops. Later beer came to include both beer and ale, and in the modern day, ale is considered a type of beer, and all beers and ales contain some amount of hops.
Early beer/ale was an important source of nutrition in the medieval world. It was one of three main sources of grain in the diet at the start of the fourteenth century in England, along with pottage and bread.
Small beer/ale (also known as table or mild beer/ale), was highly nutritious, contained just enough alcohol to act as a preservative, and provided hydration without intoxicating effects. This drink would have been consumed daily by almost everyone, including children, in the medieval world, with higher-alcohol beers/ales served for recreational purposes.
A stout is a dark beer that contains both hops and malt. The word “stout” is used to describe the strength (alcohol content and flavor) of a beer, so beers that are stout usually have a higher alcohol content and more intense flavor than non-stout beers.
Stouts originated in the 1720s. They had a strong flavor, took longer to spoil than other beers, were significantly cheaper than other beers, and were not easily affected by heat. In the 20th century, sweet and oatmeal stouts became popular, with Ireland becoming the primary source of traditional stouts, which came to be called dry or Irish stouts to differentiate them from the other varieties.
Chilchuck saying in the manga that his favorite food is a “stout” beer, and the World Guide saying his favorite food is “ale”, suggests that Kui is probably using the term ale to generically refer to all types of beer, including stouts. This implied that the Dungeon Meshi world is probably past the Medieval era of brewing, and hops is a standard ingredient for most or all beers and ales.
Chilchuck likes wine too, but we don’t know anything about his wine preferences, only that he’s probably picky.
The manga never mentions harder alcohols like whiskey, but in the real world, Irish whiskey is one of the oldest distilled drinks in Europe, arising around the 12th century, or possibly even earlier. It is believed that Irish monks brought the technique of distilling perfumes back to Ireland from their travels to southern Europe around 1,000 ACE. The Irish then modified this technique to obtain a drinkable spirit.
Uisce beatha, literally "water of life", is the name for whiskey in Irish, and is a translation of the Latin phrase aqua vitae. The word "whiskey" or "whisky" is simply an anglicized version of this phrase, stemming from a mispronunciation of uisce.
Aqua vitae is an archaic name for a concentrated aqueous solution of ethanol. Usage was widespread during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, although its origin is likely much earlier. This Latin term appears throughout all lands and people conquered by ancient Rome. The term is a generic name for all types of distillates, and eventually came to refer specifically to alcohol for human consumption.
If history in the Dungeon Meshi world follows this real world example, then whiskey distillation may be a technique that originally came from the Western elves, and was refined by the half-foots of the Eastern hemisphere into their own unique style of liquor, that might be very popular!
Chilchuck mentions that his favorite beer is a stout that is brewed at the Clingley/Kringley Brewery. Because of the strong connection between the half-foots, Irish culture and alcohol brewing, I’m putting this name in the half-foot section, but it’s also possible that it’s an Eastern hemisphere tall-man, dwarf or gnome name.
We don’t have an official spelling from Kui, but the name is written as クリングリ, which should be pronounced as kuringuri or klingli in Japanese, so either Clingley or Kringley is an accurate translation. Clingley comes from the official English release, and Kringley comes from Everyday Heroes, the unofficial fan translation group.
My immediate gut reaction as a US American English speaker is that “Clingley” sounds weird and wrong, and that “Kringley” sounds more like a real name, however this sort of gut reaction is also why so many readers thought “Falin”, “Touden” and “Tansu” were incorrect names, so although both spellings are equally valid, let’s investigate a little further!
Clingley appears to be an English habitational family name. Clinge/De Klinge is also a village located on the Dutch-Belgian border. Clinge is on the Dutch side, and De Klinge is on the Belgian side, so Clingley in Dungeon Meshi could just be a family from a place called Clinge/Klinge.
The word cling comes from Middle English clingen, from Old English clingan (“to adhere”), from Proto-West Germanic klingan, from Proto-Germanic klinganą. It has the obvious meaning of “to stick or adhere”, but could also mean “attachment or devotion”, or even a type of fruit, like a peach, whose flesh adheres strongly to the pit.
The suffix -ley (also spelled -leigh) comes from Old English lēah (“meadow, pasture, field, clearing”) and is used in various compound names, especially place-names.
So the name Clingley could either suggest something like Peach Meadow, Attachment/Devotion Meadow, or the Meadow of Clinge, a village somewhere in the region. Peach Meadow is actually pretty interesting, since a fruit like a peach could be part of the brewery’s signature flavor.
Kringley is a Scandinavian or German name with many spelling variations.
A kringle is a Northern European pastry, a variety of pretzel. Pretzels were introduced by Roman Catholic monks in the 13th century in Denmark, and from there they spread throughout Scandinavia and evolved into several kinds of sweet, salty or filled pastries, all in the shape of kringle.
Kringle, meaning “ring” or “circle”, comes from Danish kringle, ultimately from Old Norse kringla (“ring, circle, orb”), which comes from Proto-Germanic kringaz, which comes from Proto-Indo-European grenǵʰ- (“to turn”).
All of the following names can be spelled in many different ways (Kringlie, Kringle, Kringel, Krengel, etc.) but they all are derived from the same linguistic root, kring or kringle.
Though either spelling could be correct, the fact that Clingley could be a reference to stone fruits like peaches is really interesting, since the Clingley family brews drinks and might use fruit in them. Meanwhile Kringley potentially being a Jewish name caught my attention, because of the connection of half-foots to the culture of Jewish people, and because of the name’s association with pastry-making. Brewing alcohol involves elements of baking, so perhaps the Kringley family are bakers and brewers?
In The Daydream Hour book, Kui drew a picture of Chilchuck dancing what appears to be some kind of step dance. Step dance is a generic term for dance styles in which footwork is considered to be the most important part of the dance and limb movements are either restricted or considered irrelevant. In other words, the feet and legs move around freely, but the upper body and arms are held still during the dance.
The most famous and common European step dance is Irish step dancing, so Kui drawing Chilchuck doing this style of dance just reinforces the apparent connection between half-foots and the Irish people.
Sean-nós dance is an older style of traditional solo Irish dance. It is a casual dance form, as opposed to the more formal and competition-oriented form of modern Irish step dance, and logically it is probably closer to what Chilchuck is doing in Kui’s drawing, since I doubt he’s performing a formal dance.
Sean-nós dance is characterized by its "low to the ground" footwork, improvised steps, free movement of the arms, and an emphasis upon a "batter" (the sound the feet make to emphasize the beat of the music).
Because sean-nós dancing is improvisational, spontaneous expression is highly valued. Therefore, instead of doing choreographed group dances, dancers may dance in turns, playing off the energy of the other, similar to the concept of a “dance battle.”
It would be fun to see Chilchuck have a dance battle! I wonder who he could compete against? We know that Marcille loves to dance, and has some wild dance moves…
Chilchuck reveals to Laios that trolls, a type of monster, are probably not real in the Dungeon Meshi world, and that “troll” is just the half-foot word for “tall-man.” Half-foots invented the myth of the troll to describe tall-men, and frighten naughty half-foot children into behaving.
This joke hinges on the fact that the Japanese word for troll is tororu (トロル) and tall-man is toruman (トールマン), and tororu and toru sound similar. This joke is a lot less obvious in English, where tall and troll do not sound alike at all.
The Old Norse nouns troll and trǫll (variously meaning "fiend, demon, werewolf, jötunn") and Middle High German troll, trolle "fiend" developed from Proto-Germanic neuter noun trullan. The origin of the Proto-Germanic word is unknown.
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore and mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful or friendly to human beings.
Later in Scandinavian folklore, trolls are frequently described as being extremely old, very strong, but slow and dim-witted, and are at times described as man-eaters who are turning to stone upon contact with sunlight.
However, trolls are also sometimes described as looking much the same as human beings, without any particularly hideous appearance about them, but living far away from human habitation and having a society of their own. Trolls also sometimes took part in bergtagning ('kidnapping'; literally "mountain-taking") and overrunning human lands.
Laios is a big fan of trolls and was disappointed to learn that they might not be real. I wonder if, as a child, he secretly hoped that trolls might kidnap him and take him away to the mountains? Remember, one of his name meanings is “solitary mountain dweller.”
Chilchuck being the founder and president of a union for half-foots is an important element of his character, and possibly half-foot culture in general, since the stereotype of “being a union member” is something Irish and Jewish people have in common.
In the original Japanese, Kui uses the characters 組合, which can mean union, association or guild. The important thing to note is that it does not exclusively mean guild, which would be written as ギルド (girudo) in Japanese. In English, the term guild is often considered a “more primitive” form of a union, and utilized in older historic settings, while the word “union” is considered modern.
I think translating what Chilchuck is running as a “union” rather than a guild better conveys what Kui is trying to tell us about Chilchuck and the half-foots. However, understanding the differences between guilds and unions is very useful for understanding what exactly Chilchuck is doing, and why it’s exceptional, so I’ll cover both concepts.
A guild is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft or trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on permission from a monarch or the local government to enforce the flow of authorized work, and to retain ownership of their tools and the access to necessary resources.
The main privilege of guild membership was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the territory of the guild. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild.
Guilds may set minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. Guilds typically fund their work through regularly imposed fees, paid by their members, called dues.
A union (sometimes called a trade or labor union) is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and benefits, improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers.
Like guilds, unions typically fund their work through regularly imposed fees, paid by their members, called dues.
While a commonly held mistaken view is that unionism is a direct product of Marxism, the earliest modern trade unions predate Marx’sThe Communist Manifesto (1848) by almost a century, and there is a historic record of pre-modern worker’s associations from as far back as 2200 BCE, that functioned much the same way as modern associations, guilds or unions.
Unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the guilds of medieval Europe, but the two forms of organization are not directly connected.
Guild masters employed workers (apprentices and journeymen) who were not allowed to organize, which is seen as contrary to the core purpose of most unions. Guilds were also usually composed of people with some amount of privilege, such as highly skilled workers or merchants with resources, unlike unions, which were often made up of “unskilled” and socially vulnerable workers.
Because of this, guilds were not normally the target of violent oppression the way unions were and are.
Anti-union violence is physical force intended to harm union officials, union organizers, union members, union sympathizers, or their families. It has most commonly been used either during union organizing efforts, or during strikes.
The aim most often is to prevent a union from forming, to destroy an existing union, or to reduce the effectiveness of a union or a particular strike action. If strikers prevent people or goods from entering or leaving a workplace, violence may be used to allow people and goods to pass the strike line.
Violence against unions may be isolated and random, or may be an organized response to suppress the union: For example, the hiring and deployment of gangs of people to intimidate, threaten or even assault union members and their sympathizers.
It is strongly implied that the half-foot union is not taken seriously: even some other half-foots are skeptical of it and think Chilchuck is greedy, unrealistic, or foolish for trying to improve working conditions for half-foots involved with dungeon exploration.
It would not surprise me at all to learn that half-foots in the union face violence and discrimination for their attempts to organize, even if Kui doesn’t explicitly mention it happening. How else might the other races logically respond when faced with uppity half-foots demanding higher wages and better working conditions, such as not being killed?
Because we don’t have an official English spelling for any of their names, we can only guess how Kui means for them to be spelled. I start out with the official Yen Press translations but those are no more valid than any other translation.
Chilchuck’s daughters are grown adults, and all three of them are still unmarried. Meijack does not seem interested in marriage (perhaps because she has a steady job of her own, and doesn’t need anyone to support her), but both Fleurtom and Puckpatti are interested in marrying up (a dwarf or a tall-man rather than a half-foot) and becoming wealthy through marriage.
Based on what else we know about half-foot culture, it seems unusual that Fleurtom and Puckpatti are both still unmarried, since they clearly want to marry. There’s several possible reasons:
It’s of course also possible that the girls simply have bad luck, haven’t met the right person yet, or that Kui needed them to be single in order to make a joke about wanting to marry Laios.
(Japanese pronunciation: Meijakku Alt. spellings: Mayjack)
Meijack (メイジャック) is the daughter that is the most like Chilchuck in appearance and personality. She’s a hard worker who seems to be very independent, she isn’t interested in getting married to Laios the way her sisters are.
Mei is a feminine given name used in many different languages. Some possible Japanese meanings are: sprout, garment, bright, reliant, or echo. Some possible Chinese meanings are beautiful, Chinese plum, light or bright.
Most of these seem too feminine or soft for Meijack’s character, however sprout and echo are both possibilities, since they could be a reference to Meijack’s resemblance to Chilchuck. She is an echo of him, or a sprout that has budded off of its parent, a nearly identical offspring.
Mai (مي), sometimes spelled May or Mei, is an Arabic name which either means water, little gazelle or little monkey. Chilchuck and half-foots in general do have a passing resemblance to monkeys, with their round faces and large ears, so this could be what Kui intended too.
May (sometimes written Mae or Mai) is a name found in various European cultures and are derived from the month of May, which comes from Ancient Roman Maius, which comes from Maia, the Greek goddess who was the mother of Hermes, who is a trickster and the god of heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. Hermes is known for being extremely fast and sneaky.
Meijack’s father, Chilchuck, is of course a pick lock and locksmith, and though Chilchuck hates the trickster stereotype that half-foots have, he isn’t an exception from it. He’s seen as a good negotiator and shrewd businessman, so it makes sense to associate him with the god Hermes who is the protector of orators and merchants. Meijack is carrying on in Chilchuck’s footsteps, so being named after the mother of Hermes seems very fitting.
The word may comes from Middle English mowen, mayen, moȝen, maȝen, from Old English magan, from Proto-West Germanic magan, from Proto-Germanic maganą, from Proto-Indo-European megʰ-.
Its primary modern meaning is to have permission, to be allowed, and the word is used while granting permission and while making polite requests, such as “may I leave?” There are also several obsolete meanings such as “to have power” and “to be able to do something or go somewhere.”
May is also an obsolete way to say maiden or young woman. This usage comes from Middle English may, maye (“woman, maid, girl, virgin”), from Old English mǣġ (“kinswoman”), from Proto-West Germanic māg, from Proto-Germanic mēgaz (“kinsman”).
Jack comes from late Middle English jakke, from Anglo-Norman jacke, and is a pet form of the name John.
The term was used originally to refer to any male peasant, but expanded to also mean a male youth, a male animal, or a laborer or device that helps with labor (jackhammer, jackknife, lumberjack). There is also a connotation of jack meaning smallness, or a stupid person. All of these meanings of course make sense when given to a half-foot, so it seems logical that “Jack” might be a common name component that many half-foots have in their names.
Since there aren’t any clear and obvious instances of Chinese names in the Eastern Continent outside of the orcs, and Japanese names are rare compared to Germanic, Latin or Greek names, I think that Mayjack might be a more fitting translation.
As for what her name means, it could be a variety of things: Echo of a man, little monkey laborer, little mother of thieves, capable man or capable laborer, small maiden, maiden laborer or my personal favorite, maiden man.
Fleurtom (フラートム) is the daughter with black hair, who thinks half-foot men are stingy and hopes to one day marry a rich dwarf.
Fleur means flower in French, which comes from Latin flōrem (“flower; the finest part of something”), from Proto-Italic flōs, from Proto-Indo-European bʰleh-s (“flower, blossom”), from bʰleh- (“to bloom”).
Fuller is an occupational name for someone who cleans freshly-shorn wool to remove any residual dirt, oils, and other filth. It comes from Latin fullo.
Tom is a word and name with multiple meanings in several languages.
The most well-known is that Tom is short for Thomas, which comes from Ancient Greek Θωμᾶς (Thōmâs), and is the Biblical Greek transcription of the Ancient Hebrew תְּאוֹם (t'óm), which means twin, specifically a male twin. Thomas also has a derogatory connotation, where it means doubter or infidel, in reference to the Apostle Thomas, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus.
Like Jack, Tom was also used as a nickname for a male peasant or a male animal, most commonly a cat, but there are many others, including the orangutan and turkey, which are also called toms.
This association with cats (who are infamous for being very loud while mating) has led to tom being slang for both a female prostitute and a lesbian. In the lesbian meaning, tom implies a masculine woman.
In both Irish and Scottish Gaelic tom can mean bush, shrub, tuft, hill, rising mound, and it comes from Old Irish of the same meaning. In Welsh, tom specifically means a pile of dung or manure, but comes from the same Irish source.
You could say Fleurtom is a flower that grew out of a pile of dung (the poor conditions that half-foots live in), or a small hill (because half-foots are small). Fleurtom’s curly black hair does resemble a shaggy bush, so her name could be in reference to her hair. You could also interpret her name as meaning “a boyish flower.”
Her name could also imply that she is a butch lesbian, though I think it’s unlikely just because she doesn’t appear to be particularly masculine.
On the other hand, I think Fleurtom occasionally being involved in sex worker is not implausible, as it is a common way to make money in poor communities, and her dream of wanting to marry a rich person for their money could be construed as a socially acceptable form of sex work… Her character clearly isn’t ideologically opposed to trading herself for money.
Her name could even mean “a flower that doubts”, since we know that she has no faith or trust in her own race, and thinks half-foot men aren’t worthwhile marriage candidates.
Going with the spelling Fullertom, her name could mean that she’s someone who cleans the filth off of men, perhaps a reference to the phrase “to be cleaned out” meaning to take all of someone’s money.
(Japanese pronunciation: Pakkupati, Alt. Translation: Puckpatty, Packpatti, Packpatty)
Puckpatti (パックパティ) is the daughter Chilchuck worries the most about. She makes her living by selling dragon dung, and the implication is that it’s fake (dragons are very rare), and that’s why Chilchuck worries about her, since he dislikes half-foots that make a living by scamming and cheating.
Both “puck” and “pack” are written as パック (pakku) in Japanese, so her name could be either Puckpatti or Packpatti.
Puck is an English word that means a mischievous or hostile spirit, it comes from Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”), from Proto-West Germanic pūkō, from Proto-Germanic pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)pāug(')- (“brilliance, spectre”).
In rustic areas of Ireland puck/poc can mean various male animals such as a goat or a deer, and comes from Middle Irish boc, pocc, poc (“he-goat”), from Old English bucca.
Pack is an English word that can mean several things, including a bundle made to be carried, a multitude, a number of similar things, a full set of playing cards, a group of dogs or wolves, a group of malicious people. It can also be used as slang for cheating, plotting or scheming, such as to pack a deck of cards, or pack a jury.
Pack comes from Middle English pak, pakke, from Old English pæcca and/or Middle Dutch pak, packe; both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic pakkō, from Proto-Germanic pakkô (“bundle, pack”).
Patti is an archaic way of spelling the English word patty, which means either a pastry with a meat filling, or the filling by itself (hamburger patty). It comes from pattipan (“something baked in a small pan”), which comes from an English alteration of the French word pâté, meaning meat paste, or pastry/dough/batter, from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá). Patty or pat is also used to describe bovine manure, since it dries out and looks like a patty. It’s often used as cheap fuel, and being formed by human hands into a flat shape makes it look even more like a patty.
Patti/Patty is also an English name derived from Patricia, which comes from the Latin patrician, a word for the Roman nobility.
The most obvious reading of Puckpatti's name is that she's a trickster selling people cow manure while telling them that it's dragon dung.
Another possible reading is that her first name means he-goat (like how Jack and Tom are both male names), and Patty is an aspirational name, hoping that she can grow up and become nobility, or at least have a good, prosperous life, perhaps with a lot of pastries full of meat in it.
The final option would be “he-goat” and “cow manure” combined to make a name that means “male animal poop”, which I think is very funny, but it’s unlikely that Chilchuck named her with that intention.
Meijack appears to be the most boyish of the three sisters, and the most like her father, so it’s possible the name jack is alluding to that and nothing more.
However, Fleurtom and Puckpatti also have male components in their personal names, and they seem much more feminine than Meijack, and don’t strongly resemble Chilchuck in appearance or personality. Additionally, in all three cases, the girls don’t just have name components that happen to be male, they are all words that literally mean “male”: jack, tom, and puck.The three half-foot men we have names for are Chilchuck, Dandan, and Mickbell, and none of them have female components in their names. Since half-foot culture seems to be patriarchal, we can probably conclude that they think masculine names are good (strong, protective), and feminine names aren’t (weak, need to be protected).
Since all three of the female half-foots names Kui gives us have this trend, that suggests it’s a trait Kui wants us to notice. Why? It could be just a popular trend with no deeper meaning, or it could have cultural significance.
According to folklore and mythology, knowledge of a true name allows one to affect another person or being magically. Knowing someone's, or something's, true name therefore gives the person (who knows the true name) power over them. Variations of this belief exist around the globe, however it is particularly common across Germanic cultures, which seems to be the dominant culture of the Eastern Continent.
One of the most well-known examples of this idea is the story of Rumpelstiltskin, a magical imp who demands the first-born child of a girl as payment for helping her. Rumplestiltskin challenges the girl to guess his true name, which she eventually does, enabling her to escape their contract and keep her baby.
There was also a belief that children who were not baptized (named) at birth were in danger of having the fairies kidnap them and leave changelings in their place, due to the lack of name.
In many stories, fairies seem to have a specific interest in people’s names, and will often try to “steal” a person’s name upon meeting them, in order to replace them with a changeling, steal them away to the land of the fairies, or simply bewitch and control them. In these stories, the way to protect oneself from this trap is giving the fae a name that is partially true, such as a nickname, or a clever pun.
Apotropaic magic (αποτρέπειν "to ward off") is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences. Apotropaic observances may be practiced out of superstition or tradition, and common examples are good luck charms, amulets, gestures, wearing certain clothes, or naming people certain ways.
Some cultures give children names that either describe what they hope for the child (beauty, wealth, intelligence, living to old age, etc.) or names that describe the bad traits they don’t want the child to have (ugly, lame, dirty, stupid, etc.) Some will name children after strong things (wolf, stone, mountain) in the hopes that the name will protect them by making them strong. Some of these names are only temporary and are changed once the child reaches adulthood, others stay with them their whole life.
The Ancient Greeks also had an apotropaic practice of dressing boys as girls to hide them from enemies, or protect them from the evil eye, a curse cast upon children out of envy of their good traits, or hatred for their family. The mythological figures Dionysus and Achilles are both examples of this custom.
Of course, it’s possible that these male name components in half-foot women’s names might not mean anything at all. Kui could have chosen them because she thought they sounded good, established a pattern and kept following it with no deeper meaning.
However, if we consider the common folk beliefs and ideas surrounding true names and false names that I described in the previous sections, Kui may be trying to tell us something about half-foot culture. Since half-foot society appears to be patriarchal, they would consider girls more vulnerable and in need of extra protection.
It might be that half-foots believe a male name component, by virtue of being male, will protect the girl from harm in a general sense, or that the male name will either ward off, or attract men to her. The male name, because it is strong, could protect her from bad luck and illness, or it could scare away weak men, and attract strong men who would be good husbands. They might believe the male name will increase her chance of birthing sons once she’s married.
Alternatively, a male name component might also be considered a false or decoy name, something that will prevent half-foot girls from being controlled or stolen by supernatural forces, or the people of other races. The male name could confuse evil spirits or people with bad intentions by making them mistake the girl for a boy, who they are less interested in stealing… Or simply make the girl impossible to steal, since they don’t know her true name.
Slavery and human trafficking exists in the Dungeon Meshi world, and of course half-foots, the race with the least physical strength and social power, would be the most likely to be victimized by it, and half-foot women and children, being the smallest and weakest category of half-foots, would be the most at-risk. Pimps and slavers probably disproportionately target half-foot women for jobs involving entertainment and sex work, since they’re small and easy to kidnap, and can’t be used for work that requires strength or size.
We know that half-foots scare their children by saying trolls (tall-men) will come and steal them, and elves sometimes arrest and imprison half-foots that they discover are using magic. We also know that half-foot and dwarven interracial relationships are probably considered both desirable and risky by half-foots. Due to the racial power imbalance, a dwarven partner could easily abuse or abandon a half-foot, who may have to turn to crime or sex work in order to survive.
Since half-foot society appears to be patriarchal, being stolen (or seduced away) from home and forced into sex work would probably both be considered a terrible fate that parents wouldn’t want for their children… So it would make sense if half-foot culture had a lot of anxiety about their young women being stolen or taken advantage of by the other races, and thus need these protective names.
Dandan is a half-foot in Chilchuck’s union, and he was the one that introduced Laios to Chilchuck.
Dan is a name and word in several different languages.
The most well-known is probably as a diminutive for Daniel (דָּנִיֵּאל) a masculine Hebrew name that means "God is my judge." Dan (דָּן) by itself means “one who judges.”
In English there is a family name spelled either Dan, Dann or Dane, which is a toponymic name that comes from Middle English dene and Old English denu, and means valley. In Middle English, dan, daun, or dam was an honorific title meaning lord or master. It ultimately comes from Latin dominus.
In Irish, dan comes from the Old Irish dán, which several related things: gift, endowment, present; skill in applying the principles of a special science; the art of poetry; an industrial pursuit of a skilled nature; a craft, trade, calling, profession; a profession as represented by its practisers collectively; an allotted task; a payment.
In Scandinavian Dan is a given name of disputed origin that may come from the Old Norse danir, meaning Dane (someone from Denmark), which comes from the Proto-Germanic word daniz.
Dan is the pronunciation of multiple Chinese, Japanese and Korean family names, with too many possible meanings for me to list here. Dan is also the pronunciation of over 100 different Chinese characters, all with different meanings. Because a Chinese, Japanese or Korean linguistic source seems unlikely, and because many of the other options seem to describe Dandan so well, I think most of these can be ruled out.
Finally, dandan noodles, or dandanmian (擔擔麵/担担面), is a noodle dish originating from Chinese Sichuan cuisine. It consists of a spicy sauce usually containing preserved vegetables. The name dandan refers to a type of carrying pole that was used by walking street vendors who sold the dish to passers-by. The name is usually translated as “noodles carried on a pole”, but may be better translated as “peddler's noodles.”
This is mostly worth mentioning because it is a food, and Dungeon Meshi is about food, and because it’s the one instance of “dandan” being used together the way it is in Dandan’s name.
We don't know Dandan's last name so we only have the first and middle to work with.
His name could mean that Dandan is a harsh judge because he judges people twice, or that he's a fair judge who only makes a decision after thinking about his judgment twice.
It could be a doubling of any of the other meanings of Dan, or a combination of different meanings of dan. I am the judge in the valley, Master of judgment, or someone from Denmark, wherever that is in the Dungeon Meshi world (probably the Northern Continent).
I think the most interesting and likely meaning for Dandan is "Skilled member of the trade union", or “skilled judge from the trade union,” derived from a combination of the Hebrew and Old Irish meanings, since the half-foots appear to have so much in common with the Irish and Jewish people, and this describes Dandan’s character extremely well.
Dandan is a member of Chilchuck’s half-foot union, and he judged that the only half-foot skilled enough to go past the third floor with the Touden party was Chilchuck. Making this judgment, and introducing Chilchuck to Laios’ party is Dandan’s primary contribution to the story of Dungeon Meshi.
(Japanese pronunciation: Mikkuberu Tomasu, Alt. Translation: Mikbell)
Mickbell (ミックベル) is the half-foot trap specialist of Kabru’s party, and Chilchuck’s counterpart. Although Kabru’s party generally trusts and believes in Kabru much more than Laios’ party believes in him, Mikbell, like Chilchuck, is their leader’s greatest detractor, and is generally the party’s most cynical member.
Mikbell grew up in the worst slum of Kahka Brud, and after freeing Kuro from a demihuman slave trader, he’s been working together with him, and considers himself Kuro’s “owner” or “employer.” Mikbell is terrified of Kuro becoming self-sufficient and leaving him (an interesting parallel to Chilchuck’s wife who left him) and so he tries to keep Kuro isolated and ignorant. Though this aspect of their relationship is unhealthy, his dream is to make enough money to buy a nice house where he and Kuro can live together.
We know that “Mick” is his first name, and therefore Bell is his middle name, because Kuro calls him Mick in the extra comic in the World Guide about Kuro studying the Common language with Kabru.
Ryoko Kui’s official spelling for this character’s name is Mickbell, but because Yen Press had already called him “Mikbell” in the official English manga release prior to the World Guide’s publication, they edited the art in the World Guide like they did with Thistle and Null to change the spelling of the character’s name. They also falsely identified Mickbell as female for a while, but Mickbell is male.
As always, I’ll cover both versions of the name.
Mick is short for “Michael”, a name that comes from Hebrew Mī kāʼēl (מיכאל) which is a rhetorical question meaning “who is like God?” Since Mickbell’s name only uses the first part, מִי (mí, “who [is]”) + כַּ־ (cha-, “like”), the meaning becomes “Who is like (blank)?” In this case, it would be read as “Who is like [a] bell?”
Mik does not appear to be a stand-alone name, and when it is part of a larger name, those names all appear to be derived from “Michael.”
Mik is a word in several languages, but as Kui’s intended spelling was “Mick” and not “Mik”, I do not think any of these are particularly relevant. For the sake of completion, the most interesting ones are:
A bell is a hollow object, usually made of metal and typically (but not always) having the shape of a deep inverted cup widening at the lip, that sounds a clear musical note when struck, typically by means of a clapper inside causing the bell to resonate. The word bell is derived from Middle English belle, from Old English belle, from Proto-Germanic bellǭ.
The word bell can also mean “to bellow or roar”, or “to utter in a loud manner.” The entomology of this meaning is from Middle English bellen, from Old English bellan (“to bellow; make a hollow noise; roar; bark; grunt”), from Proto-Germanic bellaną (“to sound; roar; bark”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰel- (“to sound; roar; bark”).
In French, bel (pronounced the same as “bell”) is a masculine conjugation of the word beau, which means handsome, fine, attractive, fair, or nice. Beau/bel ultimately comes from Latin bellus, which comes from Old Latin duenelos, diminutive of duonus (𐌃𐌖𐌄𐌍𐌏𐌔), which means "good."
Bell as a human name likely originated as an occupational name for a bell ringer or bell maker, or a topographic name for someone who lived by an actual bell or a place with “bell” in the name.
Bel was also a Medieval personal name, derived from the French bel/beau, and was originally a descriptive nickname for a beautiful person.
Tomas, following Kui’s half-foot rules, is a family name that means Mickbell’s father’s name was Toma.
In Scottish Gaelic, Tòmas is a male personal name derived from the English Thomas, from Latin Thōmās, from Ancient Greek Θωμᾶς (Thōmâs), from Aramaic תאומא or תאמא, which both mean twin or double. Thomas also has a later derogatory connotation of meaning “infidel or doubter”, aka a “doubting thomas”, because the Apostle Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus.
In Irish, toma is the vocative plural of tom, and means bush or shrub, and the genitive singular form of tom, meaning fit or paroxysm.
Toma in various Latin-based languages is an inflection of tomar, which literally means “to take”, but colloquially means “to drink”, and is frequently used in reference to alcohol. Toma means “he takes” or “he drinks.”
Mickbell’s name most likely means “who is like a bell?”, “who bellows loudly?” or “who is beautiful?” rhetorical questions whose answer is “the person with this name.” All of these meanings are pretty hilarious, since Mickbell is generally depicted as being loud and annoying (like a bell that won’t stop ringing) and “beautiful” is probably not the way most people would describe him: in the race swap illustrations, Kui draws Mickbell with an extremely weak chin, something that is traditionally considered unattractive. Generally Mickbell seems uncharismatic and unpopular.
Though I think the above explanation is most likely what Kui intended, the name could also be a reference to “mik” from the various other languages I listed, which would make Mickbell’s name mean something like: loud target, beautiful groin, loud friend, loud crumb, beautiful crumb, or just “I’m loud.” These are a bit more ridiculous, but not wrong either.
As has been the case with other names Kui uses, I think it’s very likely she saw that there were many ways that the name fit her character, and that’s probably why she picked it.
I think the most likely intended meaning of Tomas is the Scottish Gaelic version, since it is a real existing name, it’s spelled exactly the same as Mickbell’s name (minus an accent mark), and the meaning of “twin” and “doubter” makes a lot of sense.
Mickbell truly doesn’t trust anyone, not even other half-foots, but he’s always with Kuro, his kobold friend, and they are an inseparable duo. Kuro’s real name, Yodan, means several things, including “sequel,” which is probably meant to imply that Kuro is the “second part” of Mickbell, always following him. They are “twins” in the sense that they are a pair that are always together.
The name Tomas could hint to Mickbell’s father having been a twin, as names like this are often descriptive. Could Mickbell have some cousins out in the world who look almost exactly like him that he doesn’t even know about? Tomas could also be referencing the Irish meanings, a shrub is a small plant and Mickbell is a small person, and he is prone to fits of shouting and anger.
It could also be a reference to the Latin-derived tomar, meaning “he drinks [alcohol]”, since we know Chilchuck and his father before him both loved to drink alcohol, it could be that drinking is common among half-foots, so his father’s name meaning “he drinks” could mean Mickbell’s father liked to drink. In contrast to this, we know Mickbell actually doesn’t like drinking and avoids it, which is a way in which he’s the opposite of Chilchuck. Perhaps his father was a heavy drinker and that scared Mickbell off of the habit?
So Mickbell Tomas’ name, all together, could mean something like “the twin that bellows loudly/is like a bell/is beautiful”, or “the loud one, son of the drinker.”
In Dungeon Meshi, kobolds are a demi human race that looks like a cross between a human and a dog. They are frequently captured and sold as slaves. There are kobold villages in several spots on the Western Continent, and since they can survive even in harsh environments, kobolds often make homes where no other races are willing or able to live, with the similarly tough and adaptable tall-men as their closest neighbors.
Because of their facial anatomy, even when a kobold is fluent in the common tongue, they have difficulty speaking it, and their speech often sounds broken. Aside from making logical sense, this may be a reference to the original Dungeons & Dragons description which states that kobolds have “dog-like” voices!
The mythological kobold is a magical “small person.” Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialize in the form of a non-human animal, a fire, a human, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size of small children. Kobolds who live in human homes wear the clothing of peasants; those who live in mines are hunched and ugly and some can materialize into a brick; kobolds who live on ships smoke pipes and wear sailor clothing.
The mineral cobalt’s name comes from the mythical kobolds that live in mines, due to the belief that kobolds were invisible mischief-makers, and the source of the invisible and toxic arsenic fumes that are released when smelting cobalt.
Kobolds have evolved in pop culture to become something completely different from the original source material, and in the modern era there are two primary types, reptilian kobolds and canine kobolds.
In the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons (1974), kobolds were described as hairless humanoids with small horns, it was mentioned that their voices were “dog-like”, and the artwork that accompanied this showed a strange hybrid of a human, reptile, and dog. This kobold had a long muzzle, with what looks like a soft black dog’s nose at the end. Later editions of D&D emphasized the reptilian aspects of the kobolds, and suggested that kobolds were biologically related to dragons, which they worshiped. In the 3rd edition (2000), the original kobolds were replaced completely by the new draconic version.
Meanwhile, in 1981, a computer role-playing game named Wizardry was released. Wizardry was heavily influenced by Dungeons & Dragons, and eventually spawned a series of games that were highly influential.
In Wizardry, kobolds were depicted as looking like dog-men in the in-game pixel art, and this dog-like appearance was solidified in Japanese pop-culture due to the art of Jun Suemi that was attached to the Japanese release of the game, which emphasized their dog-like features further. In Japan, the Wizardry series became extremely popular, to the point where many Wizardry games were made for the Japanese market exclusively, and as a result, the idea that kobolds are dog-men has become a staple of Japanese fantasy fiction.
Kuro is a kobold originally from the Western Continent, and a member of Kabru’s party. He left his hometown to see the world, but was caught while loitering in a port, and sold to a slave merchant. Mickbell rescued him from slavery, and they’ve been traveling together ever since.
Kuro is studying the Common language with Kabru’s help, hoping that someday he’ll be able to communicate better with Mickbell. He isn’t interested in the potential honor or wealth that the dungeon could give him, he just wants to see the world and keep traveling with Mickbell, who he cares for very deeply.
In The Daydream Hour book, Kui says that she eventually decided that kobolds in Dungeon Meshi shouldn’t look like any real world dog breed, but more like their wild ancestors.
This is most likely meant to imply that kobolds have never been domesticated and bred for the unique physical features like domesticated dogs have, so it would be implausible for there to be kobolds that look like any recognizable type of modern dog.
Kuro’s cute Shiba Inu/Akita inspired design was probably originally intended as a joke, since those dog breeds are so famously associated with Japanese culture, and Dungeon Meshi’s story clearly takes place in a non-Japanese setting, where it would be implausible for a Shiba Inu or Akita named Kuro to exist. This is similar to the joke of the European-coded characters trying to prepare an Italian noodle dish, and instead making a bowl of ramen.
Kui probably designed Kuro before deciding that kobolds should all look like wild canids, but luckily both Shiba Inus and Akitas have an appearance that isn’t too far away from wild canines, and they are often described as looking fox-like or wolf-like.
Should the name “Kuro” have been translated as “Black” or “Blackie” in English? I’d argue yes, but I also understand that translators working on the manga as it was released had no way of knowing if Kuro’s name would have future significance or meaning beyond the obvious “he has a dog’s name” joke, so it was safer for them to just leave his name alone.
However, this means a few things:
Ironically, this issue mirrors a similar translation problem from the original Wizardry games that Kui was inspired by. In those games, various English jokes and references weren’t localized into Japanese, which led to things like Japanese players thinking “Cusinart” was a serious name for a legendary swordsmith, when it was actually a joking reference to a popular brand of kitchen appliance in the United States.
Kuro doesn’t seem to mind his nick-name, so it’s possible that he simply doesn’t care about it, but this could be because he lacks sufficient language skills to express his opinion, or even understand what the rest of the party is calling him… Or he’s used to being called much worse and considers this an improvement.
As for whether “kuro” is Japanese or not, we know that the dwarven culture of the Eastern Continent has picked up several Japanese names, words and cultural elements, so while Kuro probably still means “blackie” and the name probably still originates from the language of Wa Island, Mickbell and the others may be using it because of their knowledge of local dwarvish culture, rather than Japanese.
Yodan (ヨダン) does not appear to be a real name, however, it is a Japanese word with several meanings.
余談 (yodan), means digression, aside, or a sequel of a story. 予断 (yodan), means prediction, or to predict, and finally 四段 (yodan), means quadrigrade, and is normally only used on connection with 活用 (katsuyō, conjugation), so together it means “quadrigrade conjugation,” an obsolete and obscure Japanese grammatical form.
Sequel or prediction is probably a reference to how Kuro always accompanies Mickbell wherever he goes, and is fitting both because Kuro and Mickbell are inseparable, but also because Mickbell’s last name, Tomas, can mean “twin.”
Yodan (四段 literally “four” + “step”) meaning quadrigrade is most likely a joke about how dogs (the animal kobolds resemble) walk on four legs. “Grade” when used to refer to animal gaits like this, is normally used to describe what part of the foot a creature steps on. For example, “digitigrade” means a creature that steps on their digits, or toes.
With some knowledge of standard scientific terminology and Latin (“quadri-” meaning four, and “-grade” meaning a step, pace, degree), one can interpret “quadrigrade” as meaning “creature that steps on four.”
Normally, instead of quadrigrade, the word quadruped is used to refer to creatures that walk on four feet. It comes from Latin quadrupēs (“four-footed, a four-footed animal”), which is derived from quadri- (four) pes (foot).