Topic: Ahh native history

[VGuyver]

It always struck my fancy that there is an area in Portugal called Belmonte. Well today I was researching some linguistics from my homeland of Portugal, and couldn't help but notice it on wikipedia. Also I should note that this name would happen to pop up in religious discussion in my youth as well. So here.

"The Belmonte Jews (crypto-Jews from the Belmonte region in Portugal) also bear surnames that cannot be used to distinguish them from the older Catholic Portuguese families. Using tree names as surnames was not a common practice among converted or non-converted Portuguese Jews, before or after their expulsion in 1497." -From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_name
 
This of course led to another topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmonte_Jews

After reading the article, I can't help but note some of the parallels to the older plot lines in Castlevania, like the Belmont's being driven out of Romania and having to go to other nations before they could return to vanquish Dracula. In fact in the current Plot the Belmont's had to give up vampire hunting for a century or two and go into hiding in order to prevent some disaster. There are plenty of countries with a Variant of Belmont, so I was wondering if anyone had any ethnic background or known stories of the name spreading about.

For example, my surname is Viana (it means "Living" or "To Live", however there are plenty of variations of it in many countries, many cities and territories that share a variation of it. A good example is Castello de Viana (Castle of Viana or simply Castle Viana depending on how you should translate that... yes I know, funny. Though it should be noted my dear little cousin was named Vania, a common name in Portugal, which I think some of you should name any daughters that.) But if you note the most famous variation of the Name is Vienna, Austria. France, Italy, and Poland have some variation as well. Then there is also an ancient Roman version which may be the origin... and ect ect... you get the idea.

From what I can find, there is no Belmondo/Belmond from what I can gather though it sounds like Latin, but it's more likely Japanese pronunciations, there is Belmont or Bellmont in old French (It means "Beautiful Mountain"), but not much else is shown. I simply can't track the name when it's translated beyond Latin origins. Maybe someone speaking German or possibly even Greek/Serbian can track it down better. Heck, I'm trying to figure out where the Japanese even came up with the name, I'm actually led to Believe it was based on Portuguese since there is a good portion of Portuguese in Japanese language (Think "Pan" (Bread) in Japan it's based off "Pão" Portuguese when introduce almost 500 years ago). second to English as being the most heavily influencing foreign language, with German being third. It shoudl be noted there is a technology beauty company called TakaraBelmont which is based in Osaka and at least 70 years of age or more, it also has a subdivision simply called Belmont France in the French market. So maybe that's a clue, unfortunately it has no finished history page so I can't find out the origins of the name on their website, nor a Wikipedia page.

Well, hoping someone has some info to contribute.
 

[Odile Kuronuma]

I always thought that Belmondo is taken from the name of a famous french actor, Jean Paul Belmondo. Who knows? Maybe the creator of the first CV was a fan of Belmondo? Also I never understood why they were named Belmonts in English, and not Belmonds, or even Belmondos. If you look at the hiragana, it should be translated to do or the d sound.
 Anyway Belmont is a latin name I think  , and you can find lots of variation of it, in French, Italian, Spanish and maybe even Romanian..There's Belmon, Belmont, Belmond, Belmondo, Belmondi, DeBelmont etc .Beaumont for exemple is the modern version of Belmont, meaning beautiful mountain. Belmont is also the name of some Communes of France: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_(Ain).
Belmont is also a relatively common name in the Isère (department of France).
While I was searching for the Italian variation Belmondo (plural Belmondi), i found that it's a rare name worn in the Piedmont and the Alpes.But what's more interesting is that the name Belmont could be a variation of Bermond, a name used for people of Germanic origin in the Alpes, and has in fact little to do with the common translation "beautiful mountain"

[Ahasverus]

There's also the spanish Belmonte
I wish that was my surname :/

[Fofa]

I got searching on Google, and I found that there's a Belmont high school in Victoria, BC. Unfortunately, I didn't find a class on vampire hunting.

Heck, Wikipedia has a disambiguation page dedicated to use of Belmont, with all the cities in the world named Belmont. And there was a lot more cities named Belmont than I thought.

[Profbeanburrito]

Every time I go past Philadelphia, and when I lived there I always saw signs for Belmont Ave. don't know much about it or where the name comes from, maybe a famous Belmont?

[VGuyver]

I figure the name was far more widespread then what I could find in my limited segments. Searched a few baby name websites and they didn't even give me a variation, you seemed to of found what I was looking for. names often change with language in translation, or with the development of a language over time. I.E. France lost the R in it's alphabet once, but regained it some years later, this caused a calamity of spelling types in various dialects and entirely new names. It wasn't until the French Revolution that French became the National language, widespread and formatted in regulated spelling system.

Or take my second surname for example. It's "Resende", it's not only a territory, but it's a Visigoth name which became common in Portugal. The name means "Son of Resendo" so the original meaning, but the meaning of Resendo is "Path of Advice" Then there are a dozen variation of the former and the latter in both spelling and pronunciation.

Sorry off track, but you get the idea why I was trying to figure out the name? I was hoping to find out the following.

1.Origin of why the name was chosen.
2.Meaning of the name
3.Evolution of the name.
4.Original meaning of the name
5.and finally, if there is a Romanian variation of the name.

I was hoping that we could not only have a little fun digging into this mystery, but also, add some degree of realism to the Clan's origins and possibly find some sort of correlation to the Dracula novels or games.

It would help if we had a few details from the game explained, to help narrow this down immensely. The obvious first one is of course why the name was chosen. BUT the second most important that could easily help  us narrow a search would be Leon Belmont's nationality. That alone would narrow everything down since plot wise it seems that the Clan didn't originate in Romania (though originally it did with Sonia's plot before she was ret-conned out.) We could also research Mathias, but that is equally daunting since his name is possibly Swedish and or simply derived from around the Baltic Seas. 

I have a strong suspicion that Leon is actually Germanic himself because of not only the German variance of the name, but since the plot seems to coincide with the Holy Roman Empire (A mostly Germanic Empire), a time when the Church was reaching the height of it's power, kings were weakened, and before the major splintering of kingdoms. The fact his lords and the church wouldn't let him sortie seems to imply this. This map 2 years after the game seems to support this theory.

http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1100/1100.jpg

[Odile Kuronuma]

You know it would help a lot if someone who speaks Romanian could do some little search about the Belmont's name .So far we've done research in Portuguese and French, and it lead us to some variations in Spanish and Italian, but we haven't  searched for the Romanian variation if there is one.
My guess about the Belmont's origin  is that they used to live around the France/Italy area, before they were sent to Romania. Back in the middle ages, it was pretty common to reward someone who fought for the Catholic Church by giving him a fief. So maybe one of their ancestors(Leon if you want) who fought bravely for the Church received a domain in exchange for his services. And sometimes the said domain would be very far away from their native land.
Another theory would be that their ancestor was exiled for some obscure reason ,and forced to go live in Romania.But I highly doubt it since the Belmont's are brave warriors. Or maybe the Church was too afraid of their power.

[Sonic_Reaper]

Belmont is not a Romanian name.  There's no equivalent either.  Belmont's (the name) strongest ties are with the French language.  Unlike other Romantic languages, the word for beautiful in Romanian is strange,it is 'frumos'.  Beautiful mountain would be 'munte frumoase'.

To be honest, there is much truth to tracing history through names/naming conventions.  You get the sense, or at least a general picture, of origin, either from a specific people or area.  But in this case, can we really trust video game developers to have such insight or are we digging too deep?

Within Castlevania, there are few names that are truly Romanian.  Off the top of my head, Adrian, Maria and Sonia.

Others have equivalents, but they aren't used.  Such as Jonathan being Ion/Ionut.

And most have no equilvents.  Such as Eric, Charlotte, Shanoa, Richter, and the list goes on.

On a similar note, Charlotte's last name (the original, not the bastardized completely incomprehensible Aulin) MAY originally have been the Japanese developers intending to infuse some Romanian flavour in there, as Olteanu is a common Romanian surname.  It's not a stretch to think that Orlean was a play on that somewhat.

[Odile Kuronuma]

Thanks for clearing that up. I kinda figured out that Belmont is for the majority a typically French last name. It could derive from Bermond, a Germanic name. You're right when you say that developers rarely try to stick to reality and give such a great historical background to the series.I mean Dracula isn't the real Dracula according to IGA's canon. SO yeah maybe we're digging too deep.

[VGuyver]

Belmont is not a Romanian name.  There's no equivalent either.  Belmont's (the name) strongest ties are with the French language.  Unlike other Romantic languages, the word for beautiful in Romanian is strange,it is 'frumos'.  Beautiful mountain would be 'munte frumoase'.

To be honest, there is much truth to tracing history through names/naming conventions.  You get the sense, or at least a general picture, of origin, either from a specific people or area.  But in this case, can we really trust video game developers to have such insight or are we digging too deep?

Within Castlevania, there are few names that are truly Romanian.  Off the top of my head, Adrian, Maria and Sonia.

Others have equivalents, but they aren't used.  Such as Jonathan being Ion/Ionut.

And most have no equilvents.  Such as Eric, Charlotte, Shanoa, Richter, and the list goes on.

On a similar note, Charlotte's last name (the original, not the bastardized completely incomprehensible Aulin) MAY originally have been the Japanese developers intending to infuse some Romanian flavour in there, as Olteanu is a common Romanian surname.  It's not a stretch to think that Orlean was a play on that somewhat.

Hey thanks for clearing that detail up, it really helps. Yes, maybe I got a little too deep with this. XD
It does clear things up for fans on some topics, though, and that's always a good thing. Besides, researching and comparing the real world to videogames is pretty damn fun at times. Before the topic started, I had no idea about any of the Romanian names in association to characters, your post not only gave us some insight to how Romanian names were used in the series, or lack thereof, but prevented some otherwise silly assumptions.

I think some of what you mentioned here should actually be entered into the Castlevania wiki.

[TheouAegis]

I think it was Castlevania 3 that said the Belmont clan was forced into hiding because the Church feared their power. I remember writing something for the Castlevania Wiki a while back about the Church being possibly the Eastern Orthodox, which was a separate sect from the more popular Catholic Church. It's possible the Belmont clan had some standing in the Catholic Church and was exiled and then became Eastern Orthodoxy.

Anyway, you gotta take the whole CV backstory with a grain of salt. I mean, Wallachia was an entire region of Romania, not a town. And Sypha was androgynous until the US manual. I don't trust anything the US manuals say. I read Akumajou Densetsu's manual and it's vastly different from Castlevania 3's manual.

[Fofa]

And most have no equilvents.  Such as Eric, Charlotte, Shanoa, Richter, and the list goes on.

From all the spellchecks I've used and seen, I don't think Shanoa is an actual name. Heck, I've never seen it in name sights.

[Ridureyu]

The Belmonts are jewish?


BUT PORK ROAST IS NOT KOSHER!

[TheouAegis]

That's why they were exiled.