Justifying Vegito (Z) or Vegetto (Kai) dub spellings

[mecha3000]

So, I recently reached the Vegetto part of the Kai dub and have seen the after all these years, Funimation has finally managed to correct the spelling and remove the annoying "i" out of the name (Vegito to Vegetto). I know this is common knowledge among the community at this point, but I'm not here to discuss that. What I'm here to discuss is: How do you guys justify the spellings for Vegetto even though it only works if Goku is called Kakarotto by Vegeta? Whether it's Vegito or Vegetto, the English dub has somewhat of a complication (depending on how you look at it). Neither Goku or Vegeta have an "i" in their names for VEGITO to work and the English dub doesn't acknowledge the "Bejita" instead of Vegeta spelling, which includes an "i". And Goku is not called Kakarotto for VEGETTO to work (applys to Vegito as well).

However, I think I've found a way for both to work for the English dub and not be contradicted by the original Japanese spellings.

Dragon Ball Z's Vegito Spelling - In Dragon Ball Z, Vegito acknowledges his name as being a fusion of Vegeta and Kakarot. Ignoring the added "i", you could argue that it's more so Vegeta substituting Kakarot for Goku even though he essentially means to say (perhaps even from Goku's point of view in the fusion), Vegeta + Goku. Unlike Fusion, Potara can be seen as not using the second part of a person's name (ku) but rather the first (go) when fusing the names. So Vegeta + Goku can = Vegito. And I'm reaching here, but perhaps you could take the "i" from Saiyan and the fact that Goku and Vegeta are both Saiyans and apply it to the "i" in Vegito's name, but again: I acknowledge I'm reaching.

Dragon Ball Z Kai's Vegetto Spelling - In Dragon Ball Z Kai, Vegetto also acknowledges the Vegeta and Kakarot thing. However, Kakarot doesn't feature two t's in the name. Still, the fused name makes the most sense in the Kai version because you could argue Vegeta plus Kakarot takes the two t's from Vegeta and Kakarot's names and adds it to Vegetto. Also, similar to what I said for Z - the Potara can be seen as taking the first part of Goku's name and fusing it with Vegeta to make Vegetto. So at the end of the day, it's a combination of Vegeta and Kakarot and Goku to create Vegetto (which takes the two t's and the "go" part of Goku's name to make Vegetto).

I know purists will shout NO WAY NO WAY NO WAY, THE ORIGINAL INTENT WAS VEGETA PLUS KAKAROTTO IS DEFINITIVE AND I AM RIGHT ABOUT THIS AND - but I am speaking solely to defend the English dubs and provide some justification for each of the versions Funimation chose to use for their particular dub. Thoughts? I posted this pretty late so I doubt I'll get too many replies as of now.

EDIT: I'm aware of the Vegerot spelling from Viz and I agree this should've been added to the dub, but since it wasn't - I'm simply trying to make sense of the dub since it's the definitive English dub version for international fans who may get confused by the spellings.

[mute_proxy]

It should be Vegerot if we were to follow the actual rules of the name.

[mecha3000]

It should be Vegerot if we were to follow the actual rules of the name.

I'm aware of this, in fact - I forgot to mention this in my post so I'm going to add that right now. Thanks for reminding me! But yeah, Vegerot makes the most sense so I don't know why they just don't go with this for the dub. But since they didn't, I'm just trying to justify what they did choose so dub fans can explain it to friends or for themselves in terms of the dub.

[Metalwario64]

I remember the "Vegito" spelling from the old Irwin Toys re-branded Super Battle Collection figures of Vegetto, and I assume FUNimation got it from that.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

It's pretty simple. "Vegeta", "Kakarot". Get rid of "a" from Vegeta, re-arrange "o" and "t" from Kakarot. Voilà "Vegetto"!

It should be Vegerot if we were to follow the actual rules of the name.

I'm confused when people say this. Vegetto isn't Vegerotto in Japanese so keeping the "rot" doesn't make sense? Shouldn't it be "Veget" more than anything?

[Vegard Aune]

It's pretty simple. "Vegeta", "Kakarot". Get rid of "a" from Vegeta, re-arrange "o" and "t" from Kakarot. Voilà "Vegetto"!

It should be Vegerot if we were to follow the actual rules of the name.

I'm confused when people say this. Vegetto isn't Vegerotto in Japanese so keeping the "rot" doesn't make sense? Shouldn't it be "Veget" more than anything?

"Veget" just sounds like Vegeta chopped off a letter from his own name. The "Vegerot"-spelling is simply the easiest way of making the "Vegeta + Kakarot" combination obvious.

[mute_proxy]

I'm confused when people say this. Vegetto isn't Vegerotto in Japanese so keeping the "rot" doesn't make sense? Shouldn't it be "Veget" more than anything?

Like Vegard Aune said, it makes the most sense in combining the names and actually making the composition intelligible.

Vegeta + Kakarotto = Vegetto

Vegeta + Kakarot = Vegerot

[ekrolo2]

Vegetto's name is something I take issue with since Goku never refers himself as Kakarotto or Kakarot so why he'd suddenly smash that name together with Vegeta's is a nitpick of mine.

But on the actual topic, Vegito doesn't make sense for his English name. Goku's Saiyan name in the dub is Kakarot so Viz made sense when they called him Vegerot. Vegito is closer to his Japanese name but once again, Kakarot is the Saiyan name for Goku, not Kakarotto in the dub.

This is one of those no win scenarios where, short of traveling in time and making Goku's dub name Kakarotto from the word go you can either stay true to the dubs naming convention which is inaccurate to the Japanese name or stay true to his original one that doesn't work with what the dub set up.

[ABED]

I still don't understand why anyone would have an issue with the dub calling him Gogeta in both the movie and the TV series. It's better than Vegerot.

[ekrolo2]

I still don't understand why anyone would have an issue with the dub calling him Gogeta in both the movie and the TV series. It's better than Vegerot.

I vaguely recall a game or something having both Gogeta and Vegito get called Gogeta with Gogetta (d) for the dance one and Gogeta (p) for the potara one.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

It's pretty simple. "Vegeta", "Kakarot". Get rid of "a" from Vegeta, re-arrange "o" and "t" from Kakarot. Voilà "Vegetto"!

It should be Vegerot if we were to follow the actual rules of the name.

I'm confused when people say this. Vegetto isn't Vegerotto in Japanese so keeping the "rot" doesn't make sense? Shouldn't it be "Veget" more than anything?

"Veget" just sounds like Vegeta chopped off a letter from his own name. The "Vegerot"-spelling is simply the easiest way of making the "Vegeta + Kakarot" combination obvious.

We know it's Goku and Vegeta fusing why the need to make the name combination obvious? So what of "Veget" sounds like they chopped "a" of Vegeta, it still sounds much better and is much closer to the Japanese intention of the name, that is what should matter right?

[TheGreatness25]

The three names are:
1) ベジータ (Be-jii-ta)
2) カカロット (Ka-ka-ro-tto)
3) ベジット (Be-ji-tto)
NOTE: The "ー" character extends the vowel of the previous character (hence why "ji" became "jii") and the "ッ" character creates a double consonant sound for the proceeding character (hence why "to" became "tto").

Vegetto's Name
Vegetto's name in Japanese katakana can be directly translated as "Vejitto," "Vejeetto," "Vejetto," "Vegetto," "Vegitto," "Vegeto," or "Vegito." When we're going by the acoustic sound of the name, "Vegito" is rather accurate. When you look at his Japanese name, it's obvious that they took the "Vege" from "Vegeta" and combined it with the "tto" from "Kakarotto" to make "Vegetto." That's a logical derivative because we use "Vegeta" for "Bejita," so it makes sense to use "Vege" to represent the "Beji." Thus, really, "Vegetto" and "Vegito" are both perfectly fine translation as far as carrying the name over from Japanese to English.

Funimation's Interpretation of "Kakarot."
I will preface this by saying that I'm extremely new to Japanese and have only started learning it super recently, so all of my information is more or less self-researched, so I might be wrong on part, all, or none of this. I would never dare say that I am an expert at this, so the following is merely what I've gathered through my own studying.

There are three forms of writing in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. All three names (Vegeta, Kakarotto, and Vegetto) are written in katakana. From what I've gathered, hiragana is used for native Japanese words. In the manga, whenever "Goku" is spelled out in kanji, there is an accompanying "translation" of Goku's name as "Go-ku-u" in hiragana. That's because "Gokuu" is derived from a Japanese word (from what I can tell). Meanwhile, names such as "Bulma," "Vegeta," "Piccolo," "Trunks," and even "Kakarotto" are written in katakana. From what I've gathered, katakana i used for words that have been derived from other languages and made into Japanese words. So the example that I'm going to use is Trunks. Trunks's name is spelled in katakana because it's an English word.

Now to bring this back to why Funimation might have turned "Kakarotto" into "Kakarot," I'll use "Trunks." Trunks's name is "トランクス" (To-ra-n-ku-su), which if read naturally, can sound like "Torunksu." You see, from my extremely limited exposure to Japanese, I've noticed that "N" is the only consonant that does not have a vowel proceeding it. Thus, there is no raw "T" or "S" to make "Trunks." Every ending after an "S" would be either "sa," "se," "si," "so," or "su." However, we know that it's a foreign word because it is written in katakana and thus, we properly derive his name into "Trunks." We realize that the "extra" vowels in the name are the Japanese language attempting to derive the name using their own written/spoken characters.

Well, "Kakarotto" is also spelled using katakana, which means that it is not a native Japanese word. It stands to reason that Funimation decided that the ending "to" needs to be a "T" the same way as the "su" should be an "S" for "Trunks." This is even reflected through Steve Simmons's translation, where he gets "Kakarrot" somehow (I say "somehow" because I don't know what that extra "R" is doing there). Personally, I do think that the name "Kakarotto" was intended. I think this because there would be no reason to have the double consonant making symbol "ッ" there if it was intended to be "Kakarot." I mean, it was either intended to be "Kakarotto" or "Kakarott," so personally, I think it was the former.

Basically, Funimation kind of "shot themselves in the foot" from the very beginning by naming him "Kakarot" -- not that they had any idea that "Vegetto" would be a real thing, in their defense.

Why I Believe Fans Hate "Vegito"
"Vegito" is just aesthetically bland. Plus, I think that before Vegetto was a character in Funimation's version of the series, we were used to seeing "Vegetto." Episode summaries, etc. used "Vegetto," which was a perfectly accurate spelling based on his Japanese name. But I believe people also dislike the name because it doesn't make sense when you look at why Vegetto's name is what it is.

What Funimation Seemingly Didn't Take Into Account
Funimation didn't do a bad job translating the name itself. However, their naming scheme gives off the impression that they didn't know -- or didn't care -- why Vegetto's name was what it was. Vegetto was created from combining Vegeta and Kakarotto. If Funimation did that using their own version, they'd end up with "Veget." Ew. Geez. Not only does it sound horrible, but if you were to read it, chances are that you'd read it as "Ve-get," or best case scenario, "Ve-jet." If that was what they'd go with, to make it accurate, I do think that they should have thrown the "I" in there as "Vegit" to at least give it a fighting chance of being read correctly. But alas, that name was definitely off the table for Funimation.

But what could they do? They didn't have a version of "Kakarot" that ended with the "tto" that was needed for Vegetto. So... they accurately translated the name and made it readable by putting the "I" in there. Personally, whether it's "Vegito" or "Vegeto," I think that the average person has an equal chance of reading it correctly as "Ve-ji-to." I'd rather they went with "Vegeto," but that's hindsight I guess. The extra "T" wouldn't make or break the name, despite it being a conscious stand-out in the original spelling due to the use of "ッ."

Why "Vegerot" Is Inaccurate
It just is. There is no "ro" in the name. See, Viz did a pretty creative thing. They also had a "Kakarot" and they looked at why the name "Vegetto" was chosen -- as a combination of Vegeta and Kakarotto. They did a very creative thing and I give them props. But that's not Vegetto's name. Vegetto's name is "ベジット," not "ベジロト," which would be "Be-ji-ro-to." Thus, Vegerot is inaccurate.

The Power Struggle
So because the "Kakarotto" was off the table, the companies had a dilemma and they had to pick the lesser of two evils. The two choices were: 1) Do an accurate translation but make it weird as to the meaning behind the name; or 2) preserve the meaning behind the name and make an inaccurate translation. Funimation chose the former, Viz chose the latter. The problem with Funimation's choice is that it's just odd even for them with the "I" in his name. Though not totally inaccurate, it makes no sense -- but then again, the name "Vegetto" itself doesn't make sense in their version of the series. "Ah, Vegeta and Kakarot is Vegito!" or "Ah, Goku and Vegeta is Vegito!" Neither makes sense.

There was just no winning in this situation and shoving that extra "I" in there didn't do them any favors.

I've said this before in another thread, that they could have kind of salvaged this. If I were the director, I'd make Vegetto put special emphasis on the "O" in "Goku" and then the "O" in "Vegetto." Like, "So, Vegeta and GOku... I guess I'm VegetO," to kind of make it look like the "O" came from "Goku." That's how I'd personally try to salvage it. And I'd name him "Vegeto." But, that's hindsight.


Anyway, everything I just wrote is logical to me personally and while I might not be super knowledgeable in Japanese, that served as just a small bit in my post, so hopefully my message came across and I don't look like a total idiot lol