Final Fantasy series producer Yoshinori Kitase has explained the origins of Materia in Final Fantasy 7, saying the name came from series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.
In a YouTube video (spotted by Twitter user Genki and further translated by GamesRadar+) featuring a conversation between Kitase and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, Kitase recalls that the Materia system was originally going to be called the "Sphere System." He explains, "At that time, the planner… Materia is a spherical object so the setting was named the Sphere System." He says that it was Sakaguchi who made the decision to change this.
"However, at that time the producer [Hironobu] Sakaguchi said 'Sphere is difficult to understand.' So we changed the name to Materia."
When a word is translated from English to Japanese it is written in katakana. This is a very simple looking script like this: > マテリア = Materia. Japanese people also have a tendency to think that English words are cool, but スフィア (Sphere) is a little harder to pronounce because of the 'fee' sound in the middle. The Japanese 球体 is pronounced kyuutai, literally meaning sphere. Basically, Materia just sounds cool in both English and Japanese.
And almost 30 years on, the name has stuck as an iconic part of Final Fantasy lore, and ultimately, Kitase thinks it was the right move, too: "Looking back now, I think many players find Materia easy to say, and it's really pervasive, rather than a English pun like Sphere. Materia has just four characters [in Japanese] and has a nice ring to it, so I think Sakaguchi had brilliant foresight."
Ultimately, Final Fantasy would get its Spheres down the line, albeit in a different form with Final Fantasy 10's Sphere Grid. While not exactly the same thing as Materia (which would slot into your characters weapons), the Sphere Grid allowed you to choose which skills your party would learn at a given time. So while Kitase doesn't mention if these are related at all, it does make me wonder if whoever got their spheres denied held onto that for years to come.
