Giving real things a new name?

[Wize1]

I'm specifically talking about the "katana" sword in this thread. I want to have them in my rpg, but I don't want to name them "katana" -- What else could I do? If I give them a new name but have the same look, won't people just say "oh, it's a katana" anyways?

 

[Starbird]

you could hang a lantern on it. at some point in the game, have an NPC say "nice katana" (or whatever, you get the idea) and have the character reply "what's a katana?" obviously there are lots of ways to do it, but hanging a lantern on something like that short-circuits the audience's naturally skeptical reaction

 

[Wize1]

you could hang a lantern on it. at some point in the game, have an NPC say "nice katana" (or whatever, you get the idea) and have the character reply "what's a katana?" obviously there are lots of ways to do it, but hanging a lantern on something like that short-circuits the audience's naturally skeptical reaction

That's quite clever. Thanks.