Proposed Fixes For ML's Terrible Names
Marinette → Marine. Unlike her canon name, which fell off the map around the 1950s, "Marine" was popular around the tail end of the 90s and the early 2000s, when Marinette was supposed to have been born. It's also the French form of Italian Marina, better tying her to her Italian heritage. And she can still be called Marinette as a nickname.
Kagami → Kanami. Leaves just her surname as reference to the Japanese Imperial Regalia, and can be written with the kanji for "wave", completing the quartet of sea-themed names with Adrien ("from the Adriatic Sea"), Marinette ("of the sea", "female sailor", "compass"), and Luka ("port, harbor").
A lot of Romance language dubs, specifically the Italian, Latin Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese ones, also had to change Kagami's name anyway because it sounded too close to rude words in those languages, so this kills two birds with one stone.
Also also, Japan is really into portmanteau nicknames where they blend together someone's first name and surname—see Kirito from Sword Art Online, whose full name is Kirigaya Kazuto—and changing her name to Kanami allows other characters to get away with calling her Tsunami.
Marc Anciel → Marcel Thibaudeau. "Marcel" is for Marcel Proust (who was gay, fun fact), while Thibaudeau is for Sébastien Thibaudeau, the show's head writer, through the same logic used for Nathanaël's name. And he can still use "Marc Anciel" as a pen name, a play on "arc en ciel" ("rainbow") and his first name. It's exactly the type of terrible pen name a middle-schooler would come up with.
Anarka → Aranka. It's a real Hungarian name meaning "golden". Anarka can still be a nickname.
Juleka → Julija. Again, Juleka can still be a nickname. The Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene dubs also already use "Julija" as her name anyway.
Kubdel → Kamal. Unlike Kubdel, Kamal is a real surname. It also honors the first Egyptian egyptologist, Ahmed Kamal.
Wayhem → Farid. It's the name the Italian dub uses for him. It's a real Arabic name meaning "unique, precious", and it resembles Italian "fa ridere" (literally, "he's funny").
Socqueline → Solène and Jacqueline. Her name sounds like a blending together of Solène and Jacqueline, so I'd split her into a pair of twins with those names.
Sublime → Maïa, as I said here. There's also Brigitte, but it sounds too much like the fanon name for PV Marinette. I mean, I'm still not happy with it, because I headcanon Maïa as the name of Arlette's fashion designer BFF ("Arlette and Maïa" sounds like a spoonerism of "Marinette and Alya"), but w/e. It is what it is.
