Some Pokémon are more memorable than others, and their name can be part of the reason. The developer is known for putting some extra effort on creating those, which gives a special flavor in whatever language you play the games.
Fans of the franchise debated over which Pokémon species had the cleverest name in a Reddit thread from July 9. There were a lot of different answers, but the top-voted comment highlighted a unanimous response for Sudowoodo.
In Japanese, Sudowoodo is named “usokki,” which is a pun meaning “fake wood.” The English localization found a way to replicate it in that language somehow: when pronounced, Sudowoodo is reminiscent of the words “pseudo-wood.”
This pun refers to the unexpected type of the Pokémon, which is Rock, despite it looking like a small tree. “I think it’s super clever and a fittingly weird name for a strange Pokémon,” wrote one of the top-voted comments in the thread.
The developer is notorious for finding fun puns for their Pokémon names, and it’s not only true for Japanese names, but also English and other localization languages.
The author of the thread took Dardagnan as an example of a clever Pokémon name, which is the French name for Beedrill. In English, the name simply mixes bee and drill due to his insect body and his drilling weapon. But in French, the pun encompasses multiple references at once.
“Dard” designates the bee’s stinger, which is subtler than simply using “bee” in its name, and the rest refers to “D’Artagnan,” who’s the hero of classic French literature work The Three Musketeers. It’s a fun pun referring to the resemblance of Beedrill with a Musketeer due to its weapon and pose, which are reminiscent of fencing.
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Overall, there are countless stories to share on the names of Pokémon species. There are over a thousand of them, and they’re translated in 7 different languages.
Throughout all generations of Pokémon, the developer put a lot of emphasis on trying to replicate puns in other languages or find new ones that would fit localization better.
And then, you have Pikachu, whose name doesn’t change in any other language. That might be part of the reason why it’s the most famous Pokémon in the world.
