It’s something that doesn’t cross most people’s minds. Where did the name “Final Fantasy” actually come from? As it turns out, there’s a bit behind the story of the name, and Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, shares some insight into this in an interview with The Washington Post.
Sakaguchi used to work for Square Enix, before branching off to create the studio, Mistwalker, which is the studio behind Fantasian - likely the last Final Fantasy game that Sakaguchi works on. During the 1980s at Square Enix, Sakaguchi created numerous games, but none of them ever saw success. “Final Fantasy” was actually pitched as an idea after a long string of failures, as Sakaguchi thought that this would be his last game before he considered leaving game development altogether - hence the "Final."
Despite a rocky patch while working at Square Enix, Sakaguchi has seen quite a history of success by this point. In fact, he has done so much that even he has to consult Wikipedia the rare times that he looks back at his work.
In terms of reflecting on my career, I don’t really do it that much. Very occasionally, I might go onto Wikipedia when I need to recall some information and wonder, ‘Hey when was “Final Fantasy VI” released?’ When I look up myself, it would just list everything that I’ve worked on in some capacity. That to me is kind of a wow moment. I really have developed a lot of things! But that’s the extent of the reflection that I do.
It's interesting to read that Sakaguchi doesn’t look back at his work much, but it’s clear that he’s proud of it, regardless. In total, Sakaguchi produced nine Final Fantasy games before he started Mistwalker.
After his long and successful journey, Sakaguchi discusses Fantasiasn being the last game he plans to work on and how he was able to fulfill one of his life-long dreams of creating a tribute to the film, Independence Day in the game.