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So I'm watching this anime a couple of days ago and one of the characters were describing a group of people. He ended his description with "GIGN to iu na no inu". The subtitle says that meant: "Those dogs of the GIGN". So I'm wondering is "GIGN no inu" or "GIGN de inu" wrong? I would think they all mean the same thing.

*GIGN = military police unit

dotnetN00b
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1 Answers1

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GIGNと言う名の犬: a (or those) dog(s) by the name of GIGN. na is name.

Dono
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  • Ah! Thank you! So と言う can be translated as "to call" as well? I thought that's what yobu is for...? – dotnetN00b Aug 30 '12 at 13:40
  • よぶ mean to literally call out to or invoke. The expression という means "to go by the name of". – rurouniwallace Aug 30 '12 at 15:56
  • A question that I have though, why is it 名? It sounds like it's saying "The name GIGN's dogs." Why isn't it something like と言う所の犬 or と言う警察の犬? – rurouniwallace Aug 30 '12 at 16:20
  • @phoenixheart6 N1のN2 does not always translate as "N1's N2", and Xという名のY is pretty common for "(a/those) Y named X". GIGNという犬 would be possible but it has a wider range of possible meanings, so possibly 名 is used to make it clearly that GIGN is the name of the group.

    See: http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2770/

     – nkjt Aug 31 '12 at 16:19