Character Name Origins

When Anno created NGE, he borrowed from everywhere, which is more than evident in the way the characters were named. In the essay section of his personal website, he revealed most of the secrets for fans who have a ravenous thirst for such tidbits. Fortunately for those who can't read Japanese, “massangeana” did a rough translation and posted it on the newsgroup Japan.Anime.Evangelion in December of 2000. Presented here is a slightly tweaked version, supplemented by Japanese characters and some additional information. Notes by massangeana are this color; notes added for this page (mostly taken from info provided by MDWigs) are this color.

11/02/2000 (Entry 1)

Sorry to trouble you with such an old story now, but I'm going to go a little into the creation of the Eva character's names. In the first volume of Sadamoto's manga, I touched a bit upon a few of the Eva character's names and how they take shape according to my so-called rule. A little more about how I created them below.

碇シンジ Shinji Ikari	Ikari (anchor) is a component of a ship. It's also borrowed from the name of a friend from my college years. Shinji is also borrowed from a long-time friend (Shinji Higuchi). Incidentally, since both his wife and daughter's names have been used for anime protagonists, I wanted to do the same for the husband and make them an anime family -- but, that said, my reasoning wasn't too logical. Sorry, Shin-chan. *Higuchi's given name is written 真嗣. Perhaps if Anno had not opted to write the NGE characters' given names in katakana, Shinji's would have been written like this, as well.
綾波レイ Rei Ayanami	Ayanami is from a warship of the former Japanese navy. Rei is just a pun of rei 零 (zero) , but actually named after Rei Hino of Sailor Moon (by Naoko Takeuchi). At the time, this was a bait to invite Iku-chan (Kunihiko Ikuhara) to the staff, but he ran away. Too bad. *Rei's name is a pun about the Japanese “Zero” fighters. It's likely not an accident that Rei pilots EVA-00 (零号機)? ;;>
惣流・アスカ・ラングレー Asuka Langley Soryu	Soryu is from a warship of the former Japan navy (different kanji); Langley is from the US navy warship. Asuka is borrowed from Shinji Wada's manga heroine <(Chou-Shoujo Asuka). The name of Wada's heroine is written 明日香. The name of the warship Soryu is written 蒼龍.
葛城ミサト Misato Katsuragi	Katsuragi is from a warship of the former Japanese navy. Misato is borrowed from a heroine of Minako Narita's manga (Misato Izumi of Aitsu). *The given name of Narita's heroine is written みさと.
赤木リツコ Ritsuko Akagi	Akagi is from a warship of the former Japanese navy. Ritsuko is borrowed from a friend of mine in middle school.
加持リョウジ Ryoji Kaji	Kaji (rudder) is a component of a ship. Ryoji is also from a hero in Minako Narita's manga (Ryoji Sawada of Aitsu). The given name of Narita's hero is written 涼司. The ship part is written 舵.