On Sun, 1 Sep 1996, The Venkarel wrote:

        Im wondering why Shampoo, Mousse, Cologne, etc.
have such weird names.  Ive never heard of a Chinese name
that sounded like *that*.  So of course I do notice that by
coincidence, these characters are named for bathroom
products...and that this must be some joke Takahashi-sama
is making.  But this is the English version...are their
names translated from Japanese into English (what DIC did
to North American version of Sailor Moon) to retain comic effect 
or did Takahashi-sama actually name them Shampoo, Mousse, 
Cologne in English.  Then I would have to speculate that
Takahashi-sama did it as a random joke...or that Chinese
names really do sound like bathroom products in Japanese.
Hmm...I wonder what my name sounds like to the Japanese.

OK, time to have a linguistics lesson.

Takahashi made this a joke. It just so happens that those three names 
translate into English, from Japanese into bathroom products. If they 
were translated directly from CHinese, it would be X'ian Pu, Kou Long, 
and Mu Su. I don't think you can get Conditioner or Bathrob from this. 
There are only a few sylibles (sp) in chinese that you can do this with. 
No, not all Chinese names sound like bathroom products. Take Lin Lin and 
Ran Ran for instance.

The only other names I can think of that can turn into bathroom products 
are Lotion= Lou Xian and Mirror= Mi Er. Oh, I am fluent in Chinese and am 
always surrounded by my friends who all take Japanese.

                            
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 Member of the #ShAS#: Shampoo Appreciation Society - Our favorite femaline!
	  jackji@efn.org - Jack Ji - http://www.efn.org/~jackji