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Pokémon Characters and their Nationalities

RichestAirPirate

RichestAirPirate

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I've seen discussions of disabled Pokémon characters and discussions of queer headcanons for characters. Those got got me thinking... The Pokémon world is big. Like, really, REALLY big. And with a world this big, it's only natural we see many different faces from different walks of life, and we absolutely have! But I wonder, what's the background of these folks?

This thread is about sharing and discussing the nationalities of Pokémon characters! This can range from the characters with nationalities we know in canon, to characters that seem coded to a certain nationality, and even to your headcanons and opinions!

So, what do you guys think of nationalities for Pokémon characters? How does this make them unique in the Pokémon world? Do you like the nationalities these characters have? Or do you want to share your headcanons with a bunch of folks?
 
I'll do the honors of kicking off the discussions.

I personally headcanon Sabrina as partially Russian, or whatever you would call the Pokémon version of Russia. I just sort of feel like she has the vibe. However, you'd be surprised by how interested Russia can be with supernatural and mystical stuff, so I suppose my little feeling has some merit to it.
 
(I'll be naming the real countries in case no Pokemon world equivalent has been created)

  • Brock probably comes from Southeast Asia, and his anime skin color is his canon color.
  • Giovanni is half-Italian but raised in Kanto.
  • Whitney is Unovan.
  • Tate & Liza are Chinese.
  • Juan is Mexican.
  • Elesa is half Kantonian.
  • Clay is from Sinnoh and Lacey is half Sinnohan half Unovian.
  • Brycen is Korean.
  • After the leaks revealed Iris as Egyptian it made too much sense to me to not accept it. Though let's make her half Native American to have the best of both worlds.
  • Marlon is a New Zealander.
  • Valerie is Hoennian.
  • Wulfric is Finnish though has some Sinnohan ancestors.
  • Lana and Sophocles are from a Pacific Island near Alola whose inhabitants lack sclera. Cilan's father is also from this area.
  • Bea is Venezuelan.
  • Melony and Gordie are Austrian.
  • Larry is Kantonian.
  • Tulip is Kalosian.
  • Rose and Peony are Indian.
  • Will is Argentinian.
  • Sidney is Galarian.
  • Phoebe is Alolan.
  • Glacia is Dannish.
  • Drake doesn't remember where he's from, he was an orphan who travelled from ship to ship.
  • Grimmsley is Korean.
  • Kukui is half Alolan half Unovan.
  • Kahili is Canadian.
  • Hassel is German.
  • Nemona is Colombian.
  • Cyrano is South African.
 
Nicolas721 said:
Drake doesn't remember where he's from, he was an orphan who travelled from ship to ship.
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A lot of cool headcanons you said there. Some surprised me, some I agree with, but this one specifically has me intrigued the most. This is really cool.
If I had to take a guess on where he's from, I'd say Norway.
 
RichestAirPirate said:
A lot of cool headcanons you said there. Some surprised me, some I agree with, but this one specifically has me intrigued the most. This is really cool.
If I had to take a guess on where he's from, I'd say Norway.
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Yeah, he just gave me that vibes after looking at him lol

RichestAirPirate said:
Btw, wouldn't this make Penny and Peonia part Indian as well?
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Definitely!
 
As soon as I start actually thinking about this topic for the first time (due to working on characters' headcanon surnames), this thread swoops in!
Aarune and Ryuki--due to my no-canon-basis-whatsoever take that they're brothers, "Ryuki" being a very Japanese name and "Aarune" sounding European, I have them both as mainly a mix of Johtonian and Galarian. They're a few generations down from the ancestors who immigrated to Unova, though, so they'd consider Unovan their "home culture".

Hugh--mainly Kalosian, again descended from immigrants to Unova. A couple of Hugh's names in non-English, non-Japanese languages are references to a French artist named Henri Matisse, so...

Nate--mix of the various euro regions and a bit of native Unovan. No real reason other than I'm the real-world version of that and I thought giving my ethnic background to one of the player characters would be neat :wynaut:

Allister--southern Galarian (Poké-Scottish). There was somewhat famously a Scottish family (the Kerr clan) known for producing lefties, and I headcanon Allister coming from the Pokéworld equivalent.

I'll probably come up with more as I keep filling out Beedrillverse bios.
 
Viridian Beedrill said:
Hugh--mainly Kalosian, again descended from immigrants to Unova. A couple of Hugh's names in non-English, non-Japanese languages are references to a French artist named Henri Matisse, so...
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Oh! I never knew about that! That's a really cool idea, actually!
 
personally since nemona says she moved to paldea when she was around seven i think of her as born in whatever the pokemon equivalent of mexico is and then moved to paldea. also i think juliana (and florian, despite me not thinking about him much. sorry) have paldean grandparents or some kind of family members … i probably have others im forgetting…
 
cinderace said:
personally since nemona says she moved to paldea when she was around seven i think of her as born in whatever the pokemon equivalent of mexico is and then moved to paldea. also i think juliana (and florian, despite me not thinking about him much. sorry) have paldean grandparents or some kind of family members … i probably have others im forgetting…
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Mexican Nemona... Interesting to hear about!

I think Florian/Juliana are said to have moved into Paldea, so I'm not quite sure if they're of Paldean descent as well. It could be possible though.
 
Kathylikestoread said:
What leaks?
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Oh so last year, some Gen 5 dev notes got leaked it revealed a lot about the inspirations and early draft info about the characters and stuff. The most well known info from that leak was Skyla originally going to be Hispanic (This led to a LOT of fanart).

Also in those leaks, it was revealed that Iris was going to be Middle Eastern.
 
We know the Battle Chatelaines are Hoennian. In fact, in the Japanese version, they speak in the Hakata dialect, which is spoken Fukuoka city, which is located in Kyūshū, the part of Japan that Hoenn is based on. Oh, and Morgan explicitly stated that they were all born in Hoenn.

However, in the English versions, the sisters speak in an Irish accent, which is evident by their occasional usage of Irish phrases and slang. Because of this, I believe they're part Irish as well!
 
Martis, or Lt. Surge as known in the English version, is OFFICIALLY American. His nickname was Lightning American in the original version. I am surprised that nobody had bring it up yet.
Melissa, or Fantina, is officially foreign too. She speaks in broken Japanese.
All the other gym leaders before B/W are probably Japanese, judged by their names. The only international name was Erika, but Erika is a Japanese name at the same time.
Since B/W, it becomes more difficult to guess their nationalities. B/W was based on New York, and you can get people with every skin/hair colour there. Kamitsure, or Elesa as known in ENG, and Hachiku(Brycen) had Japanese style names. Fuuro(Skyla) could be Japanese or Chinese. but none of them really representing their ancestry anymore, even for Hachiku, he looks like a gaijin enjoying Japanese culture.
The way they write Yaakon(Clay) reminds me of how the Spanish pronounces their J. He might came from a Spanish speaking place. I am not sure. The plant his name was based on is called Yaakon in Japanese too, and it's from South America so probably Spanish.
Shyaga(Drayden) is probably a local, a New Yorker, as that he was the guardian of Iris. Iris was confirmed to be foreign, but we don't know where is the Dragon's village.
For XY, Fukuji(Ramos) definitely has a Japanese root. He looks Japanese. His name can even be written as a real Japanese name.
Marche(Valerie) is officially Japanese, and speaks in a Kyoto accent.
SM was based on Hawaii, where lots of Japanese-Americans live. Hara(Hala) looks Japanese to me.
Kabu is officially from Hoeen, so Kyuushu, Japan.
 
A little headcanon I have is Whitney being Johtonian/Japanese but also partially Unovan/American. And she is very much more in touch with her Unovan side. She's a loud, brash, and energetic American girl living in the middle of Japan lol.

Side Note: In the Japanese version of the games, Whitney speaks in the Kansai dialect, fitting since Johto is based on that part of Japan. However, most anime and manga often translate this dialect into a sort of Southern American accent. And now I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of Whitney with a hick accent lol.
 
Got a few more...
(Edit: fixed a couple typos)
Rosa is Orrean. I headcanon her as having been sympathetic to (and later burned by) the BW iteration of Team Plasma, and thought it would be interesting if she resonated with Human-Pokémon separation because she'd seen some brutal treatment of Pokémon in Orre before her family moved to Unova.

Clay is all but canonically confirmed to be Sinnohan, but I like to think his family immigrated to Orre first and that's where he picked up his fashion sense. He would have expanded the family mining company into Unova and somewhat reluctantly moved the headquarters to Driftvale to improve the company's international image, as Orre has a not-unjustified reputation as "the lawless region". But he's still proud of the forge-your-own-way-in-life cultural heritage he picked up from Orre and wears its clothing all the time, even though it sticks out like a sore thumb in Unova.

Dexio is Kalosian. Like, extremely Kalosian. His (headcanoned) hometown of Anistar City is practically baked into his DNA.

Sina, on the other hand, is half Paldean, half Sinnohan. Her father is from Montenevera, her mother is from Snowpoint, and they both travel a lot for their jobs. They fell in love with Kalos during a trip and decided to move there, but both agreed they wanted their home to be in "the cold place", hence Beedrillverse Sina growing up in Snowbelle.

Drayden is Poke-German, taking a cue from his leaked character design notes. Drayton would, in turn, would also be mostly Poke-German. Both are notable in-Beedrillverse for being Dragon-Type specialists with no Draconid ancestry.

Iris is Draconid, her mother coming from a Unovan clan and her father from a Poke-Egyptian clan (the latter again taking a cue from her character design notes). When she was very young, her parents traveled to her father's home region for mysterious reasons and never made it back. She was then raised by the Unovan Draconid village/Village of Dragons for a time before Drayden adopted her.

Will (Drayton's father in the Beedrillverse) grew up in the Sevii Islands, but doesn't seem to be from there. He was found abandoned at the local Aether House as a baby (Faba being the Branch Chief in Alola means there's other branches, right? Maybe?). Authorities couldn't find any trace of where he came from, and in an area as small and sparsely populated as Sevii, that indicated he was almost certainly not a local's child. He took a DNA test later in life and the results showed he was from a mix of Euro region ethnicities, which makes it even more strange that he was left in an obscure sub-region of Poke-Japan, of all places.
 
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I have a personal little headcanon that Bugsy's got some Paldean ties to him. He's not related to Katy, but he does hold her in high regard for being a fellow kind soul that's also a bug-type expert.

Because of Sanqua from PLA bearing a resemblance to her, I believe that Karen is possibly part Sinnohian.
 
I infer that Shauna is Algerian. Kalos is based on France, and a possible origin of her Japanese name comes from sana, the Arabic word for healthy.
 
Kathylikestoread said:
I infer that Shauna is Algerian. Kalos is based on France, and a possible origin of her Japanese name comes from sana, the Arabic word for healthy.
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oooooh. Algerian Shauna. Considering her very energetic nature, she's definitely healthy.
 
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