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Oops, AI Named This Girl 'Latina' in Kiraku Kishima's New Novel

One difficult aspect of creating a story is naming the characters, especially fantasy and science fiction names or names from cultures the author isn't familiar with. Such was the case for light novel author Kiraku Kishima (The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Back to the Battlefield: The Veteran Heroes Return to the Fray!) and the heroine "Latina" from his new novel Kasshoku Musume no Latina-san ni Ore no Karada ga Nerawarteiru. Thankfully, the author cleared things up on his naming choice.

The X (formerly Twitter) account Manga Mogura RE gave a short synopsis of Kishima's new novel Kasshoku Musume no Latina-san ni Ore no Karada ga Nerawarteiru on August 15:

However, on August 17, Kishima took to X/Twitter to reply and clear up some confusion. The author noted that the heroine is, in fact, named Latina as well as a being a Latina girl. The author further explained he chose the name “Latina” after asking an AI, “Please tell me the most typical South American female names.” But Kishima wasn't aware “Latina” is a term used to describe women of Latin American descent in general.

Kishima also expressed why he was open about his mistake in another reply on August 18:

Unfortunately, since Kishima only posted a machine translated version of his statements, it's difficult to parse out exactly what he meant. Surprisingly, though, “Latina” is also the name of an Italian city and province. So, there's precedent of the term not specifically referring to girls and women of Latin American descent, though it's still odd to have a character named "Latina."

Even though Kishima likely means no harm by his naming, it's a good reminder that authors and editors should do a little research into names before deciding on one.

Update: The sentence "So, there's precedent of the term not specifically referring to females of Latin American descent…" has been changed to, "So, there's precedent of the term not specifically referring to girls and women of Latin American descent…" as "females" is generally used as a descriptor for animals and not humans.

Sources: Kiraku Kishima's X/Twitter account (link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5) via Manga Mogura RE's X/Twitter account, Shueisha's website