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iname

 

Although each of the cast of Final Fantasy IX boast a unique name, Vivi Orunitia is perhaps one of the most unusual at first glance. But our little black mage's name is perfectly fitting, given its origins in the Latin language.

In Latin, Vivi is the word for alive.7 From this, it's not hard to see why this name suits Vivi like no other. Much of Vivi's inner struggles revolve around the topic of existence — whether or not he is alive.

After discovering he was created from Mist by Kuja, Vivi begins to question his role in life, including whether or not he should exist and whether or not he exists at all. Through his journey, Vivi discovers what it means to live, what it means to be alive: it's one of the goals he conquers on his personal quest of self-discovery. Vivi's thoughts, emotions, conscience and intuition prove to him that he's alive; after discovering this, he becomes an inspiration to others like him — and also some who aren't. He's an icon for the theme of aliveness, and his first name appropriately reflects this.

Orunitia...or Ornitier

In the original instruction booklet and in the Final Fantasy IX artbook, Vivi's last name is not Orunitia, but Ornitier. In the "Greatest Hits" re-release, his name is changed to Orunitia. On the official website, his name is also Orunitia. I'm not sure what the problem was in deciding which name to go with, but apparently there was one. I first played the game at a friend's house, and she had the original version, so I knew Vivi as "Vivi Ornitier". It took me a long time to switch things over in my head.

Both versions of Vivi's last name have a distinctly Latin feel about them. I'm no expert with Latin — in fact, I know next to nothing about it, which shouldn't be too surprising considering it is a dead language — so I can't pick apart either name to figure out what the parts mean. That said, the names could be completely made up, only given a Latin-ish feel to link up with the first name. In my journeys through the search results of Google, I have yet to find an occurrence of either "Orunitia" or "Ornitier" that doesn't have something to do with Final Fantasy IX, so the latter seems likely to be true.

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