Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Name Change Leads to Controversy

Square Enix revealed the pronunciation of "Cait Sith" and Final Fantasy fans aren't happy.

By Marc Deschamps - October 4, 2023 03:49 pm EDT

This week, Square Enix dropped a bomb on social media when it revealed the pronunciation of "Cait Sith" one of the playable characters from Final Fantasy VII. The character only made a brief appearance in Final Fantasy VII Remake, but will have a much larger role in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth when it releases on February 29. In that game, players can expect to hear the name pronounced as "Kate Sihth." The announcement came as a major surprise to fans, who had long assumed the name would be pronounced "ket she." That would have made more sense, as the Final Fantasy character is based on a creature that originated in Celtic folklore.

Reception to Square Enix's Tweet has been met with a lot of controversy! On one hand, those unfamiliar with the character's Celtic roots are happy to see their pronunciation given approval. However, those that are more familiar with it are frustrated to see the character's roots ignored in this way. Many have pointed out that the character's Japanese name is actually more authentic to the original Celtic. Cait Sith has also had a Scottish accent in most localizations, making it all the more puzzling that Square Enix wouldn't use the Celtic pronunciation for the character's name.

Keep reading to see what fans are saying about Cait Sith!

Some fans refuse to change.

Do I know that SE has given an 'official' pronunciation of Cait Sith's name? Yep.

Do I care? Not really.

You can take my Gaelic pronunciation from my cold, dead hands.
— M'ista Spot – P11S PF Prog 💜 (@Atticflowers1) October 4, 2023

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A lot of people feel very strongly about this.

Nah, sorry. I’ll just keep pronouncing Cait Sith correctly because languages matter. Especially a dying language I speak. 🤷‍♀️
— Hemlock Dumpling 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@Singloom) October 3, 2023

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The move is a bit strange.

Last silly post before I work on comms tonight – yeah, I saw the "this is how you pronounce Cait Sith actually" announcement and while I don't know Gaelic (sure wish I did) as a Scot I am uhhhhh going to ignore that announcement

Such a weird move
— Peony 🌸 (@pixelpeony) October 4, 2023

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It's easy to see why some are frustrated.

I hate the framing of the Cait Sith issue as a debate or argument
It's not, there is just a wrong and right way it's not a debate
— Shannon 🍏 (@faythscar) October 3, 2023

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The character's Japanese name makes this all the stranger.

The craziest thing about the Cait Sith thing is that his japanese name is literally “ketto shi”
— ASHLEY ROBBINS RETURNS (@antitractionist) October 4, 2023

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Does Square Enix have a cultural responsibility here?

if anything i think final fantasy has a responsibility to make sure cait sith is pronounced correctly and that's why it's really disappointing they're pronouncing it wrong
— diablo traeluz, demon cat vtuber (@DiabloTraeluz) October 3, 2023

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It's really not that surprising...

Dubs pronouncing foreign words wrong is nothing new and has been the source of debates for as long as dubs have been a thing, so I'm not surprised about the Cait Sith pronunciation thing.
— Hannes (@Rucean) October 4, 2023

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...they've been saying it that way for a while!

I never realized people were so opinionated about the pronunciation of the least popular FFVII party member's name. In any case, Cait Sith's name was pronounced phonetically (in American English) during the Compilation days, so I never expected them to correct it.
— FFVII Music (@FFVIImusic) October 4, 2023

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