Aerith Gainsborough

Aerith Gainsborough (エアリス・ゲインズブール, Earisu Geinzubūru?)—spelled Aeris Gainsborough in the English Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics—is a female protagonist in Square's (now Square Enix) console role-playing game Final Fantasy VII. She was designed by Tetsuya Nomura with influence from Yoshinori Kitase, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshitaka Amano.

In Final Fantasy VII, Aeris is a 22-year-old woman who joins AVALANCHE. As the story progresses, AVALANCHE begin to pursue the antagonist Sephiroth, and the player learns that Aeris is a Cetra, or "Ancient", the first race to live on the planet. Aerith has also appeared in the later-released Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts series.

Her voice actors are Maaya Sakamoto in the Japanese versions of the Kingdom Hearts series and Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, singer and actress Mandy Moore in the English version of Kingdom Hearts, actress Mena Suvari in the English versions of Kingdom Hearts II and Advent Children, and Andrea Bowen in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Aerith and the events surrounding her death in Final Fantasy VII have met with an overall positive reception from critics and fans.

Aerith of Final Fantasy VII was designed by Tetsuya Nomura with influence from director and scenario writer Yoshinori Kitase and Hironobu Sakaguchi. Yoshitaka Amano created conceptual artwork of Aeris for Final Fantasy VII, which also helped to influence her design. She has green eyes and long brown hair tied in a braid with a pink ribbon. She wears a long pink dress, a bolero jacket, and brown hiking boots. The long dress was designed to appear ladylike and as a contrast to Tifa Lockhart's miniskirt. Her green eyes were meant to symbolize nature and also served as another contrast to Tifa's brown ones. Nomura re-designed Aerith similarly for Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, but her design was updated in Kingdom Hearts with the removal of her bolero jacket, which made her attire resemble her as Amano had drawn her. Other changes included the addition of bracelets and a belt. Nomura modified her dress in Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII to add white and green colors, and that version was used as a base for her design in Kingdom Hearts II.

Aerith's original Japanese name is エアリス Earisu, pronounced [eaɽisu̥]  ( listen). This has been transliterated to "Aeris" in Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics, but later as "Aerith". Both transliterations have basis, as the Japanese "su" (ス) is used when transcribing "s" (/s/) and "th" (/θ/) to Japanese. However, official Japanese material uses the spelling "Aerith", and developers have stated that "Aerith" is an anagram of an English phrase "I, Earth".

Source: Wikipedia