I shared the meaning of some names on the comment section, and I thought that it might actually be fun to list all the name I can find meaning for in this show.
The village name and the cliff name "Pha Pun Dao" has 2 meanings.
1.Star-sharing cliff in standard thai
2.1000-stars cliff in northern dialect that they speak in this drama. (if you see thai sub, yeah, that's when they speak the dialect)
Btw, they said on ep1 that the village is near the border of Thailand. The bordering country, judging from the geography and google map, is probably Myanmar.
Also, "ph" is read as soft ordinary P sound, while "p" in "Pun" is read as hard P, like how GunATP said "Papii"
Character Names:
- "Phupha" means "cliff" (very original, lol... it's fitting)
- "Tian" means, of course, "philosopher" (they said it in the 2nd episode y'all)
- "Seetian" means "crayon." Noted that this "tian" in "seetian" means "candle" and is written differently in thai script from the philosopher "Tian." (so "see" is color, and candle color is crayon)
"Torfun Charoenpon"
- Torfun means "dream-weaving"
- Charoenpon means something like "fruitful" or literally "growth of result"
It's a rare instance of thai name where there's no nickname. There are some rare thai people with no nickname. They often have 1 or 2 syllable first name. Most thai people have 3 syllable first name as average.
The ranger gang:
- "Yod" means "peak" or "the highest point"
- "Rang" is probably eroded from "Farang" which means "westerner"
- "Nam," the doctor, means "water"
The villagers:
- The village chief Khama, his son Longtae, the shaman Joma, the kids Ayi, Meejoo and Inta, all of their name are not thai name. It's probably language of minor ethic group(s) that I cannot find a translation to.
- "Kalae" is a name of architectural part of the roof, mostly seen in northern area of Thailand and probably Myanmar too. https://f.ptcdn.info/578/057/000/p8pddthf26EaRdw2hrM-o.jpg
- "Khaonueng" literally means "steamed rice" which is how they say "sticky rice" in northern dialect.
Others:
- "Tul," White's character, means "Libra" as in the Zodiac. Yeah, it's the same name as Tul of Maxtul.
- Tian's dad... according to mydramalist... is Teerayut, which is kinda impossible to know the meaning without seeing the writing, but the best guess is "battle/war of philosopher." Basically, both Teera- and Tian is derived from the same word, probably of Sanskrit origin.
- Tian's mom, Lalita is "charming"
- Sakda, the guy in the ep5 preview means "power" (talk about ominous name...)
EDITED:
I've got the full name of some people.
Phupha's is Phupha Viriyanon... might be another case of no-nickname people.
Viriyanon means something like "joy of effort/labour/diligence" yeah... lowkey workaholic lol
Yod's is Yodchai Muengnuea.
Yodchai is "great man" or "highest point of manliness" if you wanna be literal, but great man is better imo.
Muengnuea is "northern city".... basically his full name is Great man of the north city... pretty much on the nose, lol. But not a weird name at all in thai.
Rang's full name is Alex Kirin. Yeah, Rang is probably the nickname people call him because he's westerner or something, and not the nickname he name himself. Kirin actually has a meaning in thai which means "mountain"
Doc's first name is Wasun, lastname unknown.
Wasun means "Spring" as in season. It's worth noting that it's often mistaken to mean "rain" by most thai... it's possible that the writer was thinking of that meaning since his nick name means "water."
Still have no idea what Tian's full name is... his first name might or might not actually be Tian.