Which of FUNimation's Name Changes Bother You the Most?

[Robo4900]

Nimbus Cloud? (That was from Harmony Gold but still)

They didn't have to keep it, though.

Also, Special Beam Cannon
Destructo Disc
Spirit Bomb
Shen, and thus, Hero
Goku (Not "Son Goku")
Kami (Not "God")
Hyperbolic Time Chamber

Paikuuhan's name is taken from a Japanese term for spare ribs and rice. For anyone ever looking for a quick reference of the Japanese names and meanings there's this old thread by Herms.
As for the Funimation name not having any particular meaning, well, that's the case with most of Funi's names. They seem to be written in such a way to evoke a sense of sci-fi/fantasy naming based on the various characters' alien origins. Certainly no one's considering any semblance of the root puns.

Thanks.
And yeah... That's pretty spot-on about Funi's idiocy regarding not respecting the name puns.

Although it may be a reasonable assumption, it's never really been verified that the "rin" in Kuririn's name comes from Shourin (Shaolin). It could also be taken from the cutesy Japanese suffix "-rin" or even just the sound of it. Either way, the "kuri" in his name alone pretty much completely covers the character's Shaolin origins (as a reference to the kuri-kuri bouzu whose shaven heads resemble the flesh of a chestnut).

That's fair. And I suppose keeping it as "rin" keeps the Japanese suffix connection, whether that's the true intent or not, so I suppose that's one reason why Kuririn is generally preferred... Thank you, I always did wonder why Kuririn instead of Kurilin.
... And of course, given all this, Krillin ultimately still completely ruins both asepcts, whichever way you look at it.

[MasenkoHA]

Kami translates to God though right? That was more of a case of leaving something untranslated to avoid religious groups being offended at an Annnimay depicting God as a Green Slugman

[linkdude20002001]

Kami translates to God though right? That was more of a case of leaving something untranslated to avoid religious groups being offended at an Annnimay depicting God as a Green Slugman

Is that the reason, tho? They didn't just change him from "God of Earth" to "Kami of Earth", tho. They changed him into the "Guardian of Earth named Kami". And the straight-up Latinization of the Japanese is the same as they did with "Shenron", "Dabura", "Bibidi", "Babidi", "Buu", et cetera.
They borrowd from some of the Harnony Gold's name choices, and then from there, they probably used whatever the horrible translations they received from Toei used. The script (I think) was translated by Toei Animation Enterprises (T.A.E.) of Hong Kong, China. Thus the horrible translation from Japanese to English by peopel who don't speak either language natively. Which would explain names like like "Tenshinhan" becoming the more-Chinese "Tien Shinhan".

[Super Sonic]

ReCOOOOOm, DaBOOOOra, pikkon, they add extra OOOO and take them away from names that had it originally. Ginyu's boys and Bardock's crew too, they messed up the already alien sounding names for the Ginyu Corps but then just straight up gave Bardock's crew new names.

Well, aside from his friend, Bardock's crew are unnamed outside the credits in Japanese.

[Yuli Ban]

I still use some dub names out of tradition, though I've altered my use of others (all of the "i" renames: Tenshinhan instead of Tien, Chaozu instead of Chiaotzu, Freeza instead of Frieza; Muten Roshi rather than Master Roshi; Kaio-sama over King Kai; Bra over Bulla; Shenlong over Shenron; Tullece over Turles; and I mix using Goku and Son Goku since, canonically, 'Son' is technically his surname and using the full name is more of a shout-out to Sun Wukong). I know Krillin and Kulilin both work, and the latter is just a bit more work to type so I almost always go with the former. I also mix using Boo and Buu just because of how foreign the double-u's make the name seem. But I can never seem to fix my use for the Ginyu Force or use Freezer instead of Freeza.

Fun fact: "Super Saiyan" and "Super Saiyajin" both should have the initials "SS", and because of this, I've stopped using SSJ. It makes writing the initials for Ascended Super Saiyan so much better! (Of course, there also is no Ascended Super Saiyan; just SS grade 2 or 'Super [Character]'). SSJ makes no sense in places that translate it as 'Super Saiyan' to begin with, but how damning is it that Japan— where it's rendered as Super Saiya-jin— still uses "SS"!
I also still pronounce it 'SAY-an" IRL. I've almost never said "saiyajin", but the couple of times I have, I did pronounce it as "Sigh-ya-jin."

None of them bother me really. But I do find attack names like Special Beam Cannon and Destructo Disk to be dumb sounding. I'll never get how any of us who grew up on the original Funimation Dub took those names seriously and thought they were so cool. They are like the goofiest attack names ever.

We were kids and the show took them seriously enough.
When I was a kid, I thought "Destructo-Disk" was goofy, but Krillin was pretty goofy anyway and whenever anyone else used a similar ability, they never gave it a name. So I always assumed it was Krillin just being a goofball.

Blame 90s anime dubbing and puritanical standards in regards to animation. It was out of control.
I can blame a few of these name changes on copyrighting— you say "Shenlong" and my mind immediately goes to Street Fighter and Gundam first; say Shenron, and I immediately know you're talking about Dragon Ball.

And it's known that Bulma's name was actually ruined by Toriyama himself since he made a typo in the comic that transliterated her name as 'Bulma'.

[DanielSSJ]

I still use some dub names out of tradition, though I've altered my use of others (all of the "i" renames: Tenshinhan instead of Tien, Chaozu instead of Chiaotzu, Freeza instead of Frieza; Muten Roshi rather than Master Roshi; Kaio-sama over King Kai; Bra over Bulla; Shenlong over Shenron; Tullece over Turles; and I mix using Goku and Son Goku since, canonically, 'Son' is technically his surname and using the full name is more of a shout-out to Sun Wukong). I know Krillin and Kulilin both work, and the latter is just a bit more work to type so I almost always go with the former. I also mix using Boo and Buu just because of how foreign the double-u's make the name seem. But I can never seem to fix my use for the Ginyu Force or use Freezer instead of Freeza.

While it may seem like FUNimation's just throwing in extra "i"s for the hell of it like with Frieza and Vegito, there is a rational behind the names "Tien" and "Chiaotzu". To make a long story short, it's essentially a matter of the Chinese spelling vs the Japanese spelling. "Chiaotzu" is the Chinese word for potstickers. "Chaozu" is the Japanese approximation of "Chiaotzu" (the actual Japanese word is gyoza). This is a very similar situation to how "Shenlong" and "Dabra" got localized, albeit in reverse. In the case of the latter two examples, FUNImation decided to directly romanize the Japanese spelling, despite how it obscured the root words ("Shenlong" is Chinese for "dragon god", "Dabra" comes from "abracadabra"). However, they actually used the direct Chinese spelling of "Chiaotzu" which is arguably more valid than "Chaozu".

Likewise, Tenshinhan's name comes from Tianjin Fan or Tianjin Rice, a dish that is supposedly made from rice from Tianjin, China (in actuality, it's a Japanese-original dish, similar to how fortune cookies aren't actually Chinese). Tenshinhan is the Japanese reading of the word, and Tien Chinfan would be an alternate romanization of the Chinese spelling. So on its own, "Tien" is perfectly valid, albeit based on the Chinese spelling as opposed to the Japanese. The problem is that they
combined it with the Japanese "Shinhan", which is weird. Even more weird is that they drop the "Shinhan" part most of the time, creating the illusion that the character's first name is "Tien", and his last name is "Shinhan", when it actuality, "Tenshinhan" is supposed to be a singular given name.

[Yuli Ban]

I still use some dub names out of tradition, though I've altered my use of others (all of the "i" renames: Tenshinhan instead of Tien, Chaozu instead of Chiaotzu, Freeza instead of Frieza; Muten Roshi rather than Master Roshi; Kaio-sama over King Kai; Bra over Bulla; Shenlong over Shenron; Tullece over Turles; and I mix using Goku and Son Goku since, canonically, 'Son' is technically his surname and using the full name is more of a shout-out to Sun Wukong). I know Krillin and Kulilin both work, and the latter is just a bit more work to type so I almost always go with the former. I also mix using Boo and Buu just because of how foreign the double-u's make the name seem. But I can never seem to fix my use for the Ginyu Force or use Freezer instead of Freeza.

While it may seem like FUNimation's just throwing in extra "i"s for the hell of it like with Frieza and Vegito, there is a rational behind the names "Tien" and "Chiaotzu". To make a long story short, it's essentially a matter of the Chinese spelling vs the Japanese spelling. "Chiaotzu" is the Chinese word for potstickers. "Chaozu" is the Japanese approximation of "Chiaotzu" (the actual Japanese word is gyoza). This is a very similar situation to how "Shenlong" and "Dabra" got localized, albeit in reverse. In the case of the latter two examples, FUNImation decided to directly romanize the Japanese spelling, despite how it obscured the root words ("Shenlong" is Chinese for "dragon god", "Dabra" comes from "abracadabra"). However, they actually used the direct Chinese spelling of "Chiaotzu" which is arguably more valid than "Chaozu".

Likewise, Tenshinhan's name comes from Tianjin Fan or Tianjin Rice, a dish that is supposedly made from rice from Tianjin, China (in actuality, it's a Japanese-original dish, similar to how fortune cookies aren't actually Chinese). Tenshinhan is the Japanese reading of the word, and Tien Chinfan would be an alternate romanization of the Chinese spelling. So on its own, "Tien" is perfectly valid, albeit based on the Chinese spelling as opposed to the Japanese. The problem is that they
combined it with the Japanese "Shinhan", which is weird. Even more weird is that they drop the "Shinhan" part most of the time, creating the illusion that the character's first name is "Tien", and his last name is "Shinhan", when it actuality, "Tenshinhan" is supposed to be a singular given name.

Oh I understand all that already; I just prefer going with the Japanese names.
Same reason why if I wrote a story with a character named Juan and it was dubbed in Japan to be the equivalent of "Shawn" but diehard subbers prefer saying "John", that's technically the same/"correct" name but in all honesty the character's name was meant to be Juan. Just feels better to go with the creator's intention.

Which, as I mentioned, makes me a hypocrite since I still use spellings like Krillin, Jeice, Burter, Bulma, etc. But generally, I just try to imagine "what if DBZ was never dubbed until the 2010s when studios actually tried being faithful to the source material? What would we call these characters?"

[Kunzait_83]

Likewise, Tenshinhan's name comes from Tianjin Fan or Tianjin Rice, a dish that is supposedly made from rice from Tianjin, China (in actuality, it's a Japanese-original dish, similar to how fortune cookies aren't actually Chinese). Tenshinhan is the Japanese reading of the word, and Tien Chinfan would be an alternate romanization of the Chinese spelling. So on its own, "Tien" is perfectly valid, albeit based on the Chinese spelling as opposed to the Japanese. The problem is that they combined it with the Japanese "Shinhan", which is weird. Even more weird is that they drop the "Shinhan" part most of the time, creating the illusion that the character's first name is "Tien", and his last name is "Shinhan", when it actuality, "Tenshinhan" is supposed to be a singular given name.

Considering that Tianjin Rice isn't actually a real Chinese dish but was invented in Japan to simulate one, I honestly think that just going with Tenshinhan - the Japanese reading of Tianjinfan/Tienchinfan - is much more befitting in spirit to the nature of the pun's origins as a Japan-ification of something that's supposed to be Chinese. Kinda like Dragon Ball as a whole generally is.

Anyways, getting into the territory of pure pettiness here: "Ascended Super Saiyan" as a term has always hugely annoyed me. Apart from just being wholly made up as a term by the dub (no such term has ever appeared in the Japanese series) the term at this point is primarily associated in my mind with agonizingly tedious "Power Level/Power Scaling" debates, where dub-centric fans have always tended to throw the term around left, right, and center. It was particularly egregious during the early-2000s Cartoon Network days, where it felt like I kept hearing the term Ascended Super Saiyan being said in DB discussions far more often than even the main characters' names.

And its not even like its a dub term that sounds surface-level corny and cringingly idiotic like "Destructo Disc": its just simply that at this point, Ascended Super Saiyan as a term is 100% ingrained into my brain as being totally synonymous with some of the absolute worst, most mind-deadeningly dumbest corners of Dragon Ball fandom. Its a wholly made up dub-ism that's mainly used by dub fans as a major talking point to discuss pointless, totally arbitrary and made up numbers that ultimately have ZERO bearing whatsoever on anything of any tangible substance to Dragon Ball's characters or story whatsoever. The term is largely just a tool used primarily for infantile "my favorite character could totally whoop your favorite character" schoolyard pissing contests.

[Yuli Ban]

Likewise, Tenshinhan's name comes from Tianjin Fan or Tianjin Rice, a dish that is supposedly made from rice from Tianjin, China (in actuality, it's a Japanese-original dish, similar to how fortune cookies aren't actually Chinese). Tenshinhan is the Japanese reading of the word, and Tien Chinfan would be an alternate romanization of the Chinese spelling. So on its own, "Tien" is perfectly valid, albeit based on the Chinese spelling as opposed to the Japanese. The problem is that they combined it with the Japanese "Shinhan", which is weird. Even more weird is that they drop the "Shinhan" part most of the time, creating the illusion that the character's first name is "Tien", and his last name is "Shinhan", when it actuality, "Tenshinhan" is supposed to be a singular given name.

Considering that Tianjin Rice isn't actually a real Chinese dish but was invented in Japan to simulate one, I honestly think that just going with Tenshinhan - the Japanese reading of Tianjinfan/Tienchinfan - is much more befitting in spirit to the nature of the pun's origins as a Japan-ification of something that's supposed to be Chinese. Kinda like Dragon Ball as a whole generally is.

Anyways, getting into the territory of pure pettiness here: "Ascended Super Saiyan" as a term has always hugely annoyed me. Apart from just being wholly made up as a term by the dub (no such term has ever appeared in the Japanese series) the term at this point is primarily associated in my mind with agonizingly tedious "Power Level/Power Scaling" debates, where dub-centric fans have always tended to throw the term around left, right, and center. It was particularly egregious during the early-2000s Cartoon Network days, where it felt like I kept hearing the term Ascended Super Saiyan being said in DB discussions far more often than even the main characters' names.

And its not even like its a dub term that sounds surface-level corny and cringingly idiotic like "Destructo Disc": its just simply that at this point, Ascended Super Saiyan as a term is 100% ingrained into my brain as being totally synonymous with some of the absolute worst, most mind-deadeningly dumbest corners of Dragon Ball fandom. Its a wholly made up dub-ism that's mainly used by dub fans as a major talking point to discuss pointless, totally arbitrary and made up numbers that ultimately have ZERO bearing whatsoever on anything of any tangible substance to Dragon Ball's characters or story whatsoever. The term is largely just a tool used primarily for infantile "my favorite character could totally whoop your favorite character" schoolyard pissing contests.

Its initials are indicative of its quality.

That said, ASS is also a narrative problem in the dub because there are technically two forms with that name— the Super state (aka Super Saiyan grade 2) and Super Saiyan 2. In reality, "ascended" is just supposed to describe what it does. Sort of like how the dub ran with "Legendary Super Saiyan"— it was never actually a named form, just a description.
Of course this is just a surface level problem that can be scratched off to reveal a festering maggot-infested tumor of an issue with the franchise— I'm surprised we haven't gotten a game called "Dragon Ball Transformers" yet because good god, there are so many transformations! Many of which have no business being transformations. On a narrative and functional level, transformations have become the creative bane of the entire series ever since ASS appeared. But that's a topic for another thread.

[BWri]

Definitely Top. There's nothing pleasing about saying that as someone's name and it doesn't invoke any feelings. Toppo was just perfect for that character so that's just the most baffling change to me. I think name changes overall come off the worst.

[VegettoEX]

Definitely Top. There's nothing pleasing about saying that as someone's name and it doesn't invoke any feelings. Toppo was just perfect for that character so that's just the most baffling change to me.

We somewhat recently talked about this on the podcast; may be of interest / worth listening to you.

[BWri]

Definitely Top. There's nothing pleasing about saying that as someone's name and it doesn't invoke any feelings. Toppo was just perfect for that character so that's just the most baffling change to me.

We somewhat recently talked about this on the podcast; may be of interest / worth listening to you.

I'll definitely give it a listen. Thanks for pointing me towards it!

*edit, Now that's complicated but it makes sense when laid out. Glad you guys stuck with Toppo. To simplify the issue, it just sounds better.