Funny as, personnaly, when i first found about Love Live i always mistook Umi and Nozomi becauseof the similarities.
if they cange the role as long as the ship stills stand and it do
I mean,no ship is canon in LL so you can ship what you want.I mean, you can ship Umi/Nico or Eli/Hanayo and it will as canon as Eli/Nozo or Nico/Maki