Board Thread:Theories/@comment-33229263-20180629171833/@comment-1327106-20180629202135

It's a nice idea, and I could see it being true, but the supporting evidence isn't that strong.

1) Eren's Attack Titan is Shingeki no Kyojin in Japanese, the exact same name in Japanese as the series itself. Its revelation late in the story is what we call a title drop (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TitleDrop). Why is the series called Attack on Titan? Because it was named after Eren's Titan (not the other way around). The wordplay doesn't work in English, but it's extremely effective in its native language. A title drop is usually a big moment, so I imagine the revelation of the true name of Eren's Titan is something Isayama had been looking forward to for years, possibly since he named the series.

When Eren first gets this Titan there's no reason we should know the name to it, because at the time he gets it, he's the only character we know who can turn into a Titan. (Yeah, we already saw the Armored and Colossus, but we didn't know those were people at the time.) It's just Eren's Titan, and it kept being his "whatever" Titan for multiple story arcs because there was no way for him or anyone else in the Survey Corps to learn its proper name. If he was intended to have the Founding Titan from the beginning, the soonest he could have learned the name would have been in the Uprising arc, and he learns the real name the arc after that, so it's not like there was a vastly earlier opportunity that Isayama was neglecting. At best they could have given it a nickname and found out the real one later.

2) We don't quite know nothing. The Titan names are usually based off of physical descriptors (Beast, Armored, Colossus, Female, etc). When there is not a distinctive trait, they get named after what the Titan does. For instance, the Cart Titan's role as a supply unit in the army. The Attack Titan is named in a similar fashion. "In every era, this Titan has always moved ahead, seeking freedom. It has fought on for freedom. Its name is the Attack Titan." Again with the Japanese wordplay, Eren talks about always moving forward and "shingeki" can be "advance" (as in moving forward) as well as "attack."

As a side note, the Jaw Titan's name wasn't revealed until the Marley arc and we first saw it in the Clash of the Titans arc. If there's no reason for the Titan's name to be known, we just don't learn it. Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie's Titans have highly visible markers that make them stand out, so the Survey Corps independently is able to give them the same names the Marleyan army is already using (it's not like RBA ever told them what their Titans' names are), but the Attack and Ymir's version of the Jaw don't have such distinctive markings, so they go nameless.

3) I think this is a stretch. Annie's Female Titan is extremely human looking, and didn't have the skinless look until the anime. (Look at the Vol 7 and 8 covers. Same skin tone as Eren's Titan.) This places Attack, Founding, and Female all on the same scale of human-ness in appearance.

4) I figure this is just a plot point. :) It's unusual, but he's the protagonist. Protagonists are usually remarkable in some fashion.

Again, there's nothing to say your theory is wrong, but I think the evidence supporting it is weak. The only thing that stands out as me is 2, because people keep asking what the Attack Titan's special power is, which seems to say that something didn't go quite right here from a planning perspective. I think the name is well enough and says a lot about the Titan (Eren's turning into a relentless war machine and repeatedly mumbling "fight" to himself by the end of Ch 106), but we don't have an ability list for it like the others.