Heh, some of the stuff was new to me.
According to Mandy Moore, her character was originally named "Aeris", which is the name the character had in the English version of Final Fantasy VII. When she actually went in to record her part, the name was changed to 'Aerith', which is the character's original Japanese name.
So Aeris' name IS actually still Aeris, they just used the Jap version.
Irvine from Final Fantasy VIII had a small role in the original draft of the game's script, but never made it into the final game.
Irvine would have been ace in it. ^_^; Another FF8 char. XD