with danganronpa it's largely a translation issue, and where fans fall usually depends on how they consumed the canon. DR's first translation was a fantranslation that preserved the original japanese's name usage (referring to just about everyone with last names (and honorifics, depending on the character speaking.)) so, the fans who got into DR through the fantranslation or the anime tend to refer to characters by last names - "Naegi, Kirigiri, Komaeda," etc.
however, the official localization of the games switched to everyone using first names for the series. so fans who got into the series later tend to call everyone by their first names. it's not necessarily a strict dichotomy, however; for instance, i'm much more used to last names for the first two games because i read the fantranslations, but i also played the second and third localizations myself, so the first names are in my head too. i often swap back and forth between which names i use, but that helps less when i need to nail down which set i'm using when writing fanfic. i've definitely used different sets for different fics (but not, i hope, different sets in the same fic.) and that's without adding in honorifics, which i also go back and forth on using.
there are a few characters whose first names i feel weird about encountering; calling Komaeda "Nagito" or Togami "Byakuya" just plain feels odd to me. but the ones that really get my goat are a few "nicknames" that the localization introduced that totally weren't there in the original. i definitely get thrown when i hear/read fans talking about Hina (Asahina Aoi) or Taka (Ishimaru Kiyotaka) or Hiro (Hagakure Yasuhiro) (all examples are Lastname Firstname). like, really, what even were those nicknames about? i'm guessing it was to cushion the unfamiliar names -- all 3 examples were in Danganronpa 1, and there's only one other example iirc -- but like, seriously? i get that "Aoi" is gonna be weird for an english-speaker, but the other two really don't seem that hard :p
oh, and i almost forgot the other translation issue: the differing romanization of character names.
there's one main difference, but it crops up in a bunch of names. see, japanese お = o, and う = u. so, one method of romanizing おう is "ou." this is what the fantranslations, and generally fans who are more used to romanizations where おう = ou, do. however, おう is usually pronounced as a long "oh" sound, so the localization just romanizes it as "o" so that it isn't confusing for english speakers.
thus, we wind up with Ouma/Oma, Toujou/Tojo, and a few others along those lines. there's also a few cases where うう (uu) was localized as a single u, so Kuzuryuu/Kuzuryu and Shuuichi/Shuichi. ao3 tags are standardized to the localized version of spelling, in Lastname Firstname order. i understand this decision even if having to tag my stuff with "Oma" is bothersome :p
hmm, this got longer than intended. if anyone else has DR name preferences, feel free to share.
no subject
however, the official localization of the games switched to everyone using first names for the series. so fans who got into the series later tend to call everyone by their first names. it's not necessarily a strict dichotomy, however; for instance, i'm much more used to last names for the first two games because i read the fantranslations, but i also played the second and third localizations myself, so the first names are in my head too. i often swap back and forth between which names i use, but that helps less when i need to nail down which set i'm using when writing fanfic. i've definitely used different sets for different fics (but not, i hope, different sets in the same fic.) and that's without adding in honorifics, which i also go back and forth on using.
there are a few characters whose first names i feel weird about encountering; calling Komaeda "Nagito" or Togami "Byakuya" just plain feels odd to me. but the ones that really get my goat are a few "nicknames" that the localization introduced that totally weren't there in the original. i definitely get thrown when i hear/read fans talking about Hina (Asahina Aoi) or Taka (Ishimaru Kiyotaka) or Hiro (Hagakure Yasuhiro) (all examples are Lastname Firstname). like, really, what even were those nicknames about? i'm guessing it was to cushion the unfamiliar names -- all 3 examples were in Danganronpa 1, and there's only one other example iirc -- but like, seriously? i get that "Aoi" is gonna be weird for an english-speaker, but the other two really don't seem that hard :p
oh, and i almost forgot the other translation issue: the differing romanization of character names.
there's one main difference, but it crops up in a bunch of names. see, japanese お = o, and う = u. so, one method of romanizing おう is "ou." this is what the fantranslations, and generally fans who are more used to romanizations where おう = ou, do. however, おう is usually pronounced as a long "oh" sound, so the localization just romanizes it as "o" so that it isn't confusing for english speakers.
thus, we wind up with Ouma/Oma, Toujou/Tojo, and a few others along those lines. there's also a few cases where うう (uu) was localized as a single u, so Kuzuryuu/Kuzuryu and Shuuichi/Shuichi. ao3 tags are standardized to the localized version of spelling, in Lastname Firstname order. i understand this decision even if having to tag my stuff with "Oma" is bothersome :p
hmm, this got longer than intended. if anyone else has DR name preferences, feel free to share.