Interesting! But unfortunately I can't even see some of the pictures since the whole page itself is kinda small. Hmmm, I wonder which world would Terra be in that new BBS pic on the top left corner...
Well, I guess if I had played FFVII first before KH, I too would have gotten used to 'Aeris' instead of 'Aerith'. But since I got exposed to KH first, I suppose for me it will always be 'Aerith' though I don't really mind both spellings.
Personally, I like "Aerith" better, sounds more feminine and pretty than the hard sounding "Aeris". It suits her personality as well. Originally I have heard of "Aeris" first but at that time I never played FFVII so I didn't know who she was back then. When KH came out, her name was spelt as "Aerith", so I've stuck with that spelling since I played KH first before moving on to FF.
Anyway, for those who are still confused, Aerith IS the correct and official spelling of her name. This has been proven when FFVII first came out in Japan, the English spelling of her name was shown in official Square materials, sources and even Japanese magazines featuring the game, as well as some of the artwork by Tetsuya Nomura. So far I've never seen any Japanese fan using the spelling "Aeris" in fansites, but as "Aerith".
In Japanese katakana, "Aerith" is written as エアリス (E-a-ri-su), which is pronounced as Air-ah-ree-su. Since there is no "th" sound in the Japanese language, they used ス (su) to transliterate foreign names ending with "th", since "su" is the closest they can pronounce to the "th" sound. Even Sephiroth's name in Japanese is also like that, which is セフィロス (Se-fi-ro-su). Additionally, according to the developers, "E-a-ri-su" is actually a non-standard Japanese transliteration of the English word "Earth". Make sense now doesn't it? Since Aerith, being a Cetra, can communicate with the earth itself in FFVII.
Some say that due to translation issues, her name ended up as "Aeris" in the English version of FFVII, as the ス in her name can not just translate to "th", but to the "s" sound as well. No official statement has been given by the English translators as why did they change her name like that in the English version. But apart from Aerith's name being changed, there were other mistakes in the English version as well, especially grammatical mistakes in dialogues. Strangely, Sephiroth's name was correctly spelt and I wonder how exactly could they have gotten Aerith's name screwed up. However, since KH came out, it has been spelt as the original "Aerith" onwards, especially in the ending credits of Advent Children as well as in the Dirge of Cerberus English website. Even third party groups that translate stuff from Japan are now using the correct spelling, such as Brady Games.
So there you have it, hope it helps to clear the confusion.
