Interesting thing I just realized about the Four Lords & Miranda
So, we know that Resident Evil: Village takes place somewhere in Romania. You can tell because the currency in game is Liu, which is the real-life name of Romania’s currency. But when thinking about the Four Lords and Miranda, something struck me as odd. Namely, none of them seem to actually be directly of Romanian decent, at least based off their names. Let’s start with easiest origins to hardest.
Donna Beneviento: Although the surname does not seem like an actual surname (or at lest is not common enough to have been listed on sites like Behind the Name), the origins for both are definitely Italian in origin. Donna, though being a name mostly used in English, comes from the Italian word for “lady”. While Beneviento could come from a few places. For one, it could be taken from a city in Italy called Benevento. Second, it could be a combination of the Italian word for good “bene” and the Spanish word for wind “viento”. And finally, the surname also sounds similar to “benvenuto” an Italian word meaning welcome. Another note is her mother’s name, Claudia. Although the name is used in many different countries, it is included as being both Romanian and Italian. Heck, the name is even pronounced the same between the two (KLOW-dya rather than the English KLAW-dee-ə). This could mean that Donna’s mother was either a village native or a foreigner like presumably her father. Angie is a very similar case. Though the name Angie itself is more of a specifically English name, it is a shortened form of Angela, a name that does again appear in both Italian and Romanian. But for the most part here, all roads lead to Rome(an Italy).
Karl Heisenberg: While the name Karl can come from a a good many places, based on his surname I’d say he’s German. “Heisen” likely comes from the German word “heißen”, meaning to call. Meanwhile, “berg”, meaning mountain, is a common word used in Germanic surnames. Though, to be fair, the reasonings behind the surname could also be aplied to Norwegian as well. But I doubt a surname would uses the word for “the elevator” in it. So yeah, I’d say it’s safe to say he’s German.
Miranda: Since she doesn’t have a surname to worry about, that means we’ve only got to worry about her on a first name basis. Miranda is a name that can be found in both English and Dutch. Now, I can’t be quite sure which side of that to pin her down as. Hell, even the name Eva doesn’t help much as it’s found all over the fucking place. My best guess would be that she leans more towards English decent, but either or could go.
Salvatore Moreau: Here is where we get into the trickier ones. Now, Salvatore, at least based on the spelling, is the Italian variation of Salvador. However, we never got a pronunciation of the name (at least to my knowledge) so it could be either “sal-va-TO-reh” or “sal-va-TOR”, which if it was the later would make the name more similar to a Late Roman version of the name, Salvator (note the lack of terminal e). Though, one other thing to note is that apparently during certain periods of the 1900′s, it was also a relatively popular French name. Thankfully, Moreau is the one surname of the four that actually shows up on Behind the Name. It’s listed as a French diminutive of the Late Roman name Maurus. Based on all that, I would guess that he’s probably French. Frog legs, yum.
Alcina Dimitrescu: Now this is where we truly enter Village of Shadows difficulty here. For one, Alcina is a name that originated in theater, specifically from an opera of the same name. Although the name is sometimes attributed as a feminine version of the Greek Alcinous. Her last name’s origin is not better. Her name comes from “Dimitr” the Slavic rendering of Demeter with the Romanian patronym, “escu”. On top of all that, in-game, the name is pronounced as if it were French. Her daughter’s names aren’t much help either. Bela, based on how it’s spelled, is either Georgian, Spanish, or Portuguese, Cassandra is English, French, and Greek, and Daniela is all over the place. So, my best guess is that Alcina is either Greek, Slavic, or is actually the only household that actually has any amount of Romanian decent.
“So what?” I hear you ask. “It’s an RE game, it’s not like any of this is actually important.” But there is another aspect I’d like to point out. And that is the names of the other villagers. All of them are Romanian names. Even Elena’s last name, Lupu, is a Romanian surname. So this does beg the question, just why and how did four families find their way to a middle of nowhere village in Romania and establish themselves as the fore-founders of it?
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