[Riful]

The main argument for Holo is not that it's written in Katakana, but that it is the only romaji spelling used in Japan so far and therefore really seems to be her official name.

The only official place where "Horo" has been ever used is indeed Yen Press' homepage. On the other side Holo has been used everywhere, from the japanese anime homepage, to Kadokawa's English page, to the Japanese merchandise [ one, two, three, four, and many more] and finally now by Funimation. And I completely agree with LKK here, usually the licensor decides spellings or at least approves them, especially for the main characters.

Originally Posted by Vexx

<shrug> I probably would have conceded the debate because of the katakana counter-argument until I learned that all Ainu words are spelled using katakana.

so ... do we know that Holo's name is taken from an Ainu word? I don't think so. You can prove me wrong, but afaik it's only a theory some fan came up with. It's a nice one, but we have no idea how true it actually is, so it's not really an argument.

Originally Posted by Vexx

I haven't seen a published book using　ー'lo' for ’ほろ’　（ホロ) in years (or any kana chart that translates the "r" row as "l").

err, that completely depends on the word. Japanese words normally will use R, but not always with names (like Risa/Lisa, Rina/Lina, Satoru/Satol).
For non-japanese words though both are completely equal, because there is no choice, since japanese doesn't make a difference.

Unless we know what the author was going for, there are many possibilites, many more even than Holo and Horo.

Also, when the actors say "Chloe" (Kuroe) you can hear them shooting for an "L" sound.... whereas "Horo" dives directly for the "r".

I think you're imagining things, because that Japanese sound does have different possibilities of being pronounced depending on the person and some of them are closer to L than others.

But for the Japanese it's essentially the same sound and they never make a difference consciously. In fact, they cannot. Even if they try (for example when studying a foreign language), they have extreme difficulties, distinguishing and especially pronouncing L and R differently in a certain context and need at least some training. (Which is absolutely normal.)