Why are japanese comic storyboards called names (ネーム)?


ネーム is the rough draft which the finished manga is based on.
_([reference](http://bakuman.wikia.com/wiki/Name))_

I can't for the life of me figure out the origin of this word. Why did it end
up being the English word "name"?




So you're referring to [ネーム in this
sense](http://bakuman.wikia.com/wiki/Name), right?

ネーム was originally [jargon used in the Japanese (non-manga) publishing
industry](http://iso-labo.com/wakaru/category/publication.html#NA), where it
means 'caption' (of figures, tables, etc.), a short text describing the
essential point of a figure/table. Then it gained a broader sense, and it may
also refer to any "floating" small fragment of text that has to be typeset
separately from the main text -- such as contents of balloons of manga.

The following is my speculation, but in the past when DTP was not available,
manga publishers needed the contents of the balloons before the drawings,
because they needed to physically prepare the movable types. People in charge
of the typesetting process might have said "絵は要らない! 早くネームをくれ!" ("I don't want
pictures! Just give me the ネーム!").

When this term, ネーム, came into use in the manga industry, its meaning changed
a bit. It began to refer to not only the balloon contents, but also the
storyboarding/plotting process as a whole. Even today, the most important part
of ネーム is the text, not pictures, as you can see in real examples.

