On viki channel “Shopping KIng Louie” we have just gotten instructions from the viki staff that we should subtitle the main character’s name L O U I E.
For those of you not watching, in the first episode there was a brand name custom made pair of underwear with his name spelled LOUIS. The main character, Seo In Guk is supposed to have been raised in France and in the first episode he is living in France. The same underwear is featured in one or two more episodes of the four which have already been broadcast. I checked Han Cinema, Dramabeans, and Asianwiki and they all spelled his name L O U I S. Some of you may know the pronunciation in France of the name Louis is Louie.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwgq6gxIkJ0FVXoydGstRGE5Zlk/view?usp=sharing
There were 18 kings of France whose name was spelled Louis. Do you get the point King Louis?
Do others think like me that we should be spelling his name L O U I S despite the viki channel name? Please post your thoughts on this!
Why can’t they just edit the drama name as Louis?
Louis.
The only reason I can think of for using Louie is if Viki thinks English speakers would pronounce Louis as “LOO-ISS”.
French native here. Completely and totally for “Louis”. I am not even sure we can find some “Louie” in France. If this is a pronunciation problem… well, this shouldn’t be about it since we are on a multicultural website (and to be honest, we don’t change the Asian names to suit non Asian people so why do so for French name?). Hopefully we get to keep “Louis”. Fighting on the channel!
Of course it should be Louis. How to pronounce it shouldn’t be a problem, at least for those watching the drama: the main character is called by name many times. By the 10th time they should get it.
Too much free time they could be spending on a real problem…
that led me to do a research (as in, google & wikipedia) on whether Louie is a real name (i really didn’t know). it says that:
Louie is a moderately common given name, related to the more common name Louis. It originated in the United Kingdom (where Louis is pronounced /ˈluːi/) as a more regularly-spelled version without a silent ⟨s⟩. In 2011, it was the 74th most common forename for births in England and Wales, with Louis only slightly more common at 68th.[1] In the United States, Louis (there pronounced /ˈluːɪs/) is far more common.
which means that if the setting is in the UK then we can use Louie. but if it’s France…
I have to say that Louis makes sense since:
- name is in origin drama
- French name
Louie looks always like there is a typo, and it even contradicts with his name tag in his undies, it naturally truly makes sense to use Louis.
Louie is probably more for the English/American speakers but being European Louie is wrong 
since Louis lived in France and not the USA he should be called Louis.
The story takes place in France, so it has to be LOUIS. And as you said , on his underwear, especially created for him, it’s written LOUIS.
What does writer PD say? I mean he/she wrote the story so… but since his underwear states Louis I guess it should be Louis? But on the other hand the shopping king louie might give the Dutch brand some free promotion 
But anyway it’s weird if the subs say Louie and his underwear Louis.
Serieux une vrai demande aux différentes équipes de modifier orthographe du prénom Louis dans les sous titres apportés pour le drama
alors que dans épisode meme le dit drama coréen orthographie le prénom LOUIS (ref au sous-vêtement brodé)
pour une question de prononciation c’est… ? ? ?
mais de base déjà en voyant la page (lol) me suis “interrogé” si il y avait un dit partenariat avec une dite marque " louie " quelconque et là…(lol)
Another vote for Louis!
Short answer: Agreed. Obviously.
Longer answer? Somebody around here probably needs the Sun King to illuminate them. (Louis XIV).
The only place someone named Louis is called Louie is USA. Where even Louisville, Kentucky, is Loo-eeville…
The only question I would have for a really direct instruction like that is this: Is there a trademark or copyright being infringed on by giving the name as it is shown on the tag…say we had someone named Calvin…(Klein) and they said call him Calvin (Kline). There would be a reason, per se.
I hope you get a good explanation for this one. 
Crouching Dieter, Hidden Donut
I am completely and absolutely for LOUIS.
I am also a French native speaker, and besides the brand Louie, I never heard or read the name “Louie” anywhere.
If they insist on changing the name, I hope they will give a good explanation.
LOUIS 100% ! The one who should be correct is LOUIE !
As a french speaker and part of the french team, it definitely must be LOUIS. I mean, our french moderator even received PM asking us to change the LOUIE in the title in LOUIS because that’s the correct spelling 'as if we didn’t knew…) ! What’s wrong with viki ? Are they for real ? It can’t be a pronunciation problem, in the drama when they call him Louis, they don’t prononce the -s so I don’t see why anyone will misunderstand. And like it’s been said, they did spell it correctly on his underwear “Louis”. Should they reshoot and change the spelling on the underwear too then ? Pfff…
More seriously, It was my first time seeing “Louie” spell this way. And I just learned there was a brand name this way too.
A good question. Language-wise, logically and grammatically, we all know if it’s English, then LOUIS is it! However, if one were to casually google it, one can see a mix of usage, and a mix of the title form (i.e. Shopaholic Louis vs Shopping King Louis/Louie).
I think we should not forget how a drama is titled and spelled is not up to fans, or even Viki. It’s up to the writer, the PD, and/or the broadcaster, whether jointly according to business P+L intent, or singularly according to the writer’s creative intent.
I understand the frustration though. Oftentimes, I’ve come across Chinese dramas that either originated in some oddly irrelevant English titles or have been translated into English without rhyme, reason or logic. Yet, ‘correcting the format according to known rules’ would often render it unrecognizable to fans, searchers, etc. Actually, we can also see variances in spellings of similar names, like Yve vs Eve vs Evie vs Eva, etc. What can we do but to respect the style, and to spell or speak the name according to the parents’ original naming intent?
IMO, if it comes from the direct official source or indirect official source, then it has to be it. It’s also not a question of ‘blind adoption’. How shall I say it… perhaps a respect for originality, for creativity, for IP ownership, and so on?
All I’m saying is…perhaps Viki has its reason(s) for asking for the change from LOUIS to LOUIE? How about clarifying this, Viki? It’ll be very helpful if you would do that. Btw, I’ve to applaud Rakuten and its subsidiaries Viki and Soompi for ensuring uniformity in the usage of the said drama’s titling and referencing across their platforms.
I guess LOUIE is now franglish, hehe 
Apropos Klein means Little now see that on a man’s undie 
See here please. In Asian Wiki it’s spelled “Louis”:
http://asianwiki.com/Shopping_King_Louis
Drama: Shopping King Louis
Revised romanization: Shopingwang Looi
Hangul: 쇼핑왕 루이
And in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopaholic_Louis
Shopaholic Louis
Cast[edit]
Main cast[edit]
Seo In-guk as Louis / Kang Ji-sung[7]
Nam Ji-hyun as Go Bok-shil
Yoon Sang-hyun as Cha Joong-won
Im Se-mi as Baek Ma-ri
People around Louis[edit]
But Soompi and kpop spell “Louie”.
http://www.soompi.com/2016/07/28/shopping-king-louie-kicks-off-production-first-script-reading/
http://www.allkpop.com/article/2016/07/shopping-king-louie-confirms-star-studded-lineup
I think one started a typo and the others thought that Louie was correct… or like they call “coffee” in korean “keopi (koppi)”… is that perhaps the case, but hey Louis it is
@jadecloud88
Look! in the URL they use LOUIS
and here if you look the broadcaster uses the word shopaholic louis
So if you really are changing the channel to match the broadcaster it should be Shopaholic Louis!
