If you could change the name of anything, what would it be?

[Blockhead Pippi]

If you could change the name of anything in the Pokemon franchise, whether it be the name of a Pokemon species, a move, a person, a place, or whatever it could be, what would you then call it and why?

For me, I would change Mirror Move's name to "Mockingbird". The original name in Japanese can be translated as "Parrot Mimicry", which gives sense why Mirror Move is flying type and why it can only be learned by birds.

"Mockingbird" should be able to fit the character limit. It's a little surprising why they hadn't gone with that. Mirror Move is a terrible move name in my opinion.

 

[Xenidal]

- "Surf" should be "Swim"... I like the name Surf and when used as an attack it is surfing and all, but its use as an HM is for swimming, not surfing.
- "Unova" should be called "Isshu"... I don't understand why that one region's name was changed when all other region names were (roughly) left the same. Not to mention it really confused me as to how to pronounce it... I kept pronouncing the "u" like an "oo" (as opposed to the "yoo" sound).
- "Suicune" should be "Suikun"... they left the other beasts's names in Japanese (it wasn't changed to "Entay" and "Raicoh")... why change this one? I've even heard some people weren't sure how to pronounce it, not knowing the "e" was silent (never happened to me though)
- "Lass" should be "Miniskirt" (her Japanese name)... it's hilarious!
- "Togetic" should be "Togechick"... I think that was really a translation error. It's bird-like, not a tick. "Chick" makes more sense.
- "Mr. Mime" should just be "Mime" or "Pantomime" (or even the Japanese "Barrierd")... the "Mr." doesn't make much sense with females. But you can't really blame the localization team for that.
- "Indigo Plateau" and "Pallet Town" should be swapped ("Pallet Plateau" and "Indigo Town")... Pallet Town is just a normal town, no reason why it should represent all colours instead of one... whereas Indigo Plateau is the final location, accessible only after collecting all the badges... a name representing all the colours would make more sense there. However, "Indigo Plateau" and "Pallet Town" do sound better than the alternatives.

 

[Te-em]

Would be nice if all the eeveelutions had names like those of Leafia and Glacia, so they would be Blackia, Eifia etc. There is nothing wrong with Blackie and Eifie though, but the first three could have had better names, they don't even end with the same letters. Perhaps Thundasia, Showazia, Boostasia, or something even better (adding -ia to those names isn't simple).

I don't usually complain about the names Game Freak comes up with, and the eeveelutions' names do not bother me, but sometimes the official spelling of names make no sense. If you look at Bulbapedia, you will see that レックウザ is spelled Rayquaza, and I don't understand how the 'quaza' part can be pronouncced 'kooza'. I think the English spelling of names are made by a Japanese who uses too much Engrish, thus we have Prasle for Plusle. I know it's supposed to be Plusle, but they made an error, or was it intentionally? Either way it's sort of annoying.

 

[Xenidal]

Would be nice if all the eeveelutions had names like those of Leafia and Glacia, so they would be Blackia, Eifia etc. There is nothing wrong with Blackie and Eifie though, but the first three could have had better names, they don't even end with the same letters. Perhaps Thundasia, Showazia, Boostasia, or something even better (adding -ia to those names isn't simple).

I don't usually complain about the names Game Freak comes up with, and the eeveelutions' names do not bother me, but sometimes the official spelling of names make no sense. If you look at Bulbapedia, you will see that レックウザ is spelled Rayquaza, and I don't understand how the 'quaza' part can be pronouncced 'kooza'. I think the English spelling of names are made by a Japanese who uses too much Engrish, thus we have Prasle for Plusle. I know it's supposed to be Plusle, but they made an error, or was it intentionally? Either way it's sort of annoying.

The names on Bulbapedia are the official romanized names... the ones that were trademarked. Which is why it's Blacky, not burakkii, and Rayquaza, not rekkuuza.
Some of the trademarked names were just... weird though. Foodin? It's obviously a reference to Houdini... why not trademark it as "Houdin"?
And I agree about "Prasle"... although I don't really care about that (or Foodin for that matter) because those names aren't actually used for anything. Japanese people just call the Pokémon by their Japanese names (which are in katakana)
One thing that does annoy me in the romanizations are when they Americanize the spelling... for example, Foodin instead of Fuudin. It confuses me when I want to see how to pronounce a Pokémon in the original Japanese, as half of them are written with Japanese pronunciations and half are written with foreign pronunciations (and then I have to read the katakana to know the truth...)

 

[Te-em]

Would be nice if all the eeveelutions had names like those of Leafia and Glacia, so they would be Blackia, Eifia etc. There is nothing wrong with Blackie and Eifie though, but the first three could have had better names, they don't even end with the same letters. Perhaps Thundasia, Showazia, Boostasia, or something even better (adding -ia to those names isn't simple).

I don't usually complain about the names Game Freak comes up with, and the eeveelutions' names do not bother me, but sometimes the official spelling of names make no sense. If you look at Bulbapedia, you will see that レックウザ is spelled Rayquaza, and I don't understand how the 'quaza' part can be pronouncced 'kooza'. I think the English spelling of names are made by a Japanese who uses too much Engrish, thus we have Prasle for Plusle. I know it's supposed to be Plusle, but they made an error, or was it intentionally? Either way it's sort of annoying.

The names on Bulbapedia are the official romanized names... the ones that were trademarked. Which is why it's Blacky, not burakkii, and Rayquaza, not rekkuuza.
Some of the trademarked names were just... weird though. Foodin? It's obviously a reference to Houdini... why not trademark it as "Houdin"?
And I agree about "Prasle"... although I don't really care about that (or Foodin for that matter) because those names aren't actually used for anything. Japanese people just call the Pokémon by their Japanese names (which are in katakana)
One thing that does annoy me in the romanizations are when they Americanize the spelling... for example, Foodin instead of Fuudin. It confuses me when I want to see how to pronounce a Pokémon in the original Japanese, as half of them are written with Japanese pronunciations and half are written with foreign pronunciations (and then I have to read the katakana to know the truth...)

I also got that problem sometimes, with the Americanization, but I think that names that are based on English words, or words from another language, should be spelled according to the language they belong to, if possible. Like Habunake having the word "snake" in it. But if you don't know it has, it will be confusing of course. That's why it's good that you can always look at the katakana. I prefer spelling the English in English, like Darkurai, but Daakurai works fine too, so it doesn't matter very much.

The trademarked names are not used in the games, but you will see them in subbed anime episodes. They also appear officially in the intro of the first season. And ポケモン is spelled Pockemon in the old anime