Do I have the meaning of "Saotome" right?

[Crescent Pulsar]

Saotome, in the case of Ranma 1/2, means "quick maiden" instead of "rice-planting girl." Whereas the latter was a mistranslation that became fanon. Do I have that right?

[Nekomata-sensei]

It depends on the kanji used, I don't know for the actual manga, but just the spoken word or if it were for some reason written in hiragana it could be either, however I believe the kanji is one or the other, and Japanese names are almost always written in kanji, but I don't have an original version of the comics, nor is my Japanese good enough to read kanji.

[Crescent Pulsar]

I checked out the Japanese Wikipedia for his last name, and it had: 早乙女. When I used Google to translate the page, I get "rice-planting girl." When I translate it as "sa" and "otome", I get "quick maiden." And when I take the "me" out of the equation, I don't get "rice-planting." Ah, damn me and my monolingual self.

[Knight of L-sama]

I checked out the Japanese Wikipedia for his last name, and it had: 早乙女. When I used Google to translate the page, I get "rice-planting girl." When I translate it as "sa" and "otome", I get "quick maiden." And when I take the "me" out of the equation, I don't get "rice-planting." Ah, damn me and my monolingual self.

That's because you're doing it wrong. 乙女 is a conjunction and if I'm remembering correctly (I've only actually studied Chinese becuase the tones were a pain in the ass) 乙 is actually kana and used to modify the pronunciation of 女. So 早乙 is more or less meaningless which is why you're not getting any results.

And don't forget that unlike Chinese there is not a one to one correspondence between number of characters and number of syllables. Also kanji, unlike hanzi do not have unique pronunciations. Linking them together can change pronunciation completely and names often have readings that don't correspond to everyday use of the character.

[Xenos]

My understanding of Kanji is vary limited but this is what I was able to come up with. According to my Book of Kanji and Kana the definitions to the each of the Kanji are as follows:

早 early; fast　

乙 No. 2 in a series; the latter; duplicate; bass (voice); strange; stylish; fine

女 woman; feminine

and the 乙女 gives 'virgin' or 'maiden'

So, from this the simplest understanding could be 'fast girl', but because it is the simplest is is most likely wrong.

The translation I got for Saotome from animelab's dictionary ended up giving 早乙女 and 早少女; both meaning 'young female rice planter / young girl'. The 少 meaning 'a little'.

So as far as I understand the 'young girl' is probably the most accurate, all things considered. Also it sort of works if you take the 'early' translation of 早. As far as the 'rice planter' thing goes, I'm not sure where that came from; its probably form some Japanese cultural obsession with rice...

[Drawde]

The "Ai Yori Aoshi" manga, volume 12, had a chapter titled saotome, which they translated as "young girls". Which was appropriate in that situation, since it was about Chika and her two friends.

Saotome isn't too uncommon of a name, from what I've seen from the credits of various series. I'd go with "young girl" though, given Takahashi's (and the Japanese manga and anime authors in general) preference for puns.

[Ezvir]

Short version: No, saotome 早乙女 really does mean rice planting girl/maiden.
It can also refer specifically to girls who participate in shintou planting rites or to girls in general, but the primary meaning is rice planting maiden.

The sa part is the same morpheme as in words like 早苗 sanae, rice seedling, 五月 satsuki, also written 早月, the fifth lunar month, 早降 saori, the prayer to make the field-god descend so as to commence planting or 早上 sanobori/ sanaburi, the prayer to make the field-god re-ascend after planting is finished. It certainly doesn't mean quick. (Strictly speaking not even the kanji 早 means quick; even though hayai means both fast / quick and early you are supposed to write 速い when you mean fast /quick and　早い only when you mean early. Unfortunately that rule is not always followed). Conceivably the sa in saotome could mean early/ young, but the theory that the sa in those words goes back to a lost word for sacred rice plant or something along those lines seems fare more plausible to me (which would mean that the character 早 is used for it's pronunciation value only).

[Crescent Pulsar]

So, at the very least, "young girl" is relevant? As a play on the fact that he fell into the spring where a young girl drowned? Or was it meant to be a surname of mundane purpose?

[Ezvir]

So, at the very least, "young girl" is relevant? As a play on the fact that he fell into the spring where a young girl drowned? Or was it meant to be a surname of mundane purpose?

Both. Sort of like naming a male crossdressing character MacQueen.