How Do You Use Axel/Lea's Name?

Do you use it interchangeably? Do you refer to Lea as the Somebody and Axel as the Nobody? Exclusively Lea? Exclusively Axel?
Personally, I use it interchangeably. As far as I'm concerned, Axel is Lea and Lea is Axel, so I don't worry about the specific name and just use whichever one I feel like

 

I use Lea as the somebody name and Axel as the nobody name. Just simpler for me to use.

 

I use Lea when referring to his child self, and Axel when talking about him as an adult, regardless of whether he is a Somebody or Nobody.

 

I got used to calling him Axel, so to me he's Axel, but when he's a child he's Lea to me.

 

well, I call the character what their name is.

Why would I call Sora "Roxas?"

 

Because he looks and acts completely differently, and has completely different relationships?
Axel and Lea are interchangeable, by comparison

 

okay, but his name is Lea. You can't just call him Axel because he was Axel at one point. They're two different people regardless of characterization.

 

They aren't really, though. Axel was Lea, then Lea was Axel. Lea has all the memories of Axel, and is still the same person. It's like if someone has their name changed, it doesn't suddenly make them two seperate people.
Roxas is a separate person because of Kairi and Ventus. He looks and acts differently, and existed at the same time as Sora.

 

So by that logic he may as well have kept the name Axel once he became whole again. But he didn't. Because his name is Lea. So call him Lea.

 

He could have. In DDD they assumed he did :P
It's more of a pride thing on his part if you ask me

 

I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I had to call him Lea - but I think of Lea as the somebody, and Axel as the nobody.

 

When referring to the Nobody, I call him Axel. When referring to Lea, I call him Lea. It will be the same with all the rest of the Organisation XIII members. I mean, you people don't mistake Sora for Roxas or Roxas for Sora?

 

They were used to calling him Axel, they didn't think that just decided to keep his Organization name. And if you want to use be called by the wrong name a point then you do need to call Sora and Roxas the same because Sora gets called Roxas a lot in KH2 (and vice versa but more rarely)

Anyway I try to stand close to the cannon when naming people, right down to differentiating DiZ and Ansem the Wise. So Lea=Human and Axel=Nobody. The only character I have real trouble with is Xehanort's heartless as he went by Ansem. Spelling out his existence constantly is weird. Ansem Seeker of Darkness (SoD) is better but I've seen that lead to confusion still. On a related note I almost always go by Ansem the Wise rather than just Ansem to avoid confusion, and that actually does hold decently (though still not always since that name conflict causes a lot of issues).

 

The thing is, the Axel things basically equates to if you changed your name, you became a new person, but if I constantly tell you you're hatok, it doesn't become true.
If Sora's Nobody had looked and acted exactly like Sora, and hadn't existed at the same time as him, then the same would apply in that case.
But yeah, names in KH are weird. I hate how they went back to calling him Ansem in DDD.
I mean, it jsut makes things confusing. What were Ansem's motivations? How did Ansem find Riku? What is the exact relationship BETWEEN Ansem and Riku? Isn't it weird how both Ansem and Ansem have dark skin? Has Ansem ever MET Ansem?
And then there're the Xehanorts, so yeah...

 

I'm not sure if I'm just reading this wrong, but isn't that a point toward what I'm saying. Since his name is Lea it doesn't matter how many people call him Axel anyway, he's still Lea. But anyway, I was just pointing out that it is invalid as an argument for Axel and Lea being interchangeable unless you also consider Sora and Roxas interchangeable; you would have to accept both cases, or scrap that as a reason.

Does it matter how different two things are? I mean it would be one thing if you could not distinguish them and had to guess everytime Axel/Lea showed up, but you don't. They do look different (the teardrop marks), they do act somewhat different even if it is more subtle due to Axel slowly becoming Lea, and even failing both of those there is a distinct chronological point where he becomes a somebody again.


I will concede that there IS one valid point I'm seeing beneath the surface of your argument that you might be having trouble addressing formally. Because of the chronological distinction in the Axel/Lea case a listener can correct the wrong one being used without much trouble. So if you talk about Axel doing something in Dream Drop Distance, I know who you really meant in Lea; therefor getting the name correct is not vital for proper communication. But if you were to mention Roxas during the Chain of Memories time period, it would be much harder to conclude if you actually had meant Sora since both are applicable, thus leaving an error unchecked.

 

His name is known as Lea to indicate that he has both his body and heart fully restored.
Although I do admit that it's gonna be a challenge to call him Lea because we're used to his incomplete name "Axel ". Not to mention Axel sounds more badass than Lea.