Full List of Name Puns?

[Acid_Reign]

Does anyone know where I can find a list of all (or most) of the Dragon Ball characters, with their name translations and puns? I ask because most sites I go to, including Wikipedia, I'm unable to find anything "complete"—for example, I'll get Tao Pai Pai's dub names, and his name in Kanji, but no explanation as to what it means.

I'm sure a lot of the people here know this stuff right off the bat, and though I could ask every time I can't find something, I'd prefer a quick reference. If such a thing doesn't exist, maybe we could compile one ourselves?

[desirecampbell]

There's this, but it's only a few names.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

I used to have a list of the all the manga characters' name puns typed out on ny PC, but the sucker died. I would possibly be able to create it with a few hours work, but I don't know if I have the time. Hmmm...

[Herms]

There is a list of name puns from Toriyama himself in Dragon Ball Forever, the second of the guides that were made for the kanzenban release. It's not exactly complete though, but still very usefull. I actually do have my copy of Dragon Ball Forever with me right now, unlike the rest of my Dragon Ball stuff, so maybe I'll make a translation.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

That's actually where most of my list was translated from, too. By all means, please do a translation of it (as your Japanese is superior to mine).

[Herms]

All right, here it is. This is from pp.158-159 of Dragon Ball Forever. The thing about Landmark and Forever is that a lot of their contents were based on letters from fans. So this list was derived from a fan's question, which appears at the beginning. Most of these fans even go by obvious screen-name type handels (Android#28 here). It's a neat reminder that fans in Japan aren't neccessarily smarter than the ones anywhere else.

All of my notes are in [ ] marks. If the character's name was based on a Japanese word, I left it in but added the word's meaning in [ ], so that you can see the pun. With names derived from English words they give the English word and then give the Japanese word, but I've edited this so that they just give the word once (i.e. instead of writing out something dumb like "Kakarot is derived from carrot, meaning carrot" I just put "Kakarot is derived from carrot"). Allthough sometimes I forgot to do either of those things. I'll fix it later.

I've added links to Wikipedia for some of the more obscure food names (or at least what I deem to be the more obscure ones)

I Want to Know the Sources of the Character Names!

I want to know how you give names to this many characters!! Tell me their sources!! (Android#28, Tokyo)

Because you wanted to know, we asked sensei for you

Son Goku: This name was taken completely from that of the protagonist of Journey to the West. This was because I originally planned on him being an actual monkey.
Kakarot: Saiyan is, of course, a pun on vegetable. Although they’re a fighting race, I decided on the ambience of reversing “vegetable” [yasai in Japanese]. Because of this, the Saiyans all have names that are puns off of vegetable names. “Kakarot” comes from “carrot”.
Son Goten: The characters have the meaning of “Understanding the Heavens”, which is on an even bigger scale than “Goku” [“Understanding the Sky” and various other interpretations].
Son Gohan: He inherited this name from Goku’s dead grandfather.
Pan: Well, to put it simply, she’s the child of gohan [“rice” in Japanese. Here Toriyama uses the actual kanji for rice rather than the ones used to write Gohan’s name] so how about bread?
Chi-Chi: Since she’s the daughter of the Demon Ox King, I chose chichi [breast or milk] because it’s a cow-related name that was also girlish.
Muten Roushi (Kame Sen’nin): There really isn’t any great reason; “Turtle Sage” just didn’t seem like all that amazing a name for whatever reason, so I thought up a name that sounded suitably renowned and powerful.
Kuririn: This is a name that I decided completely based on just the ambience from the character’s image. At that point, I didn’t think this was going to be a character that would continue to appear for a long time afterwards, so I used this half-backed naming.
Yamcha: This was also taken from a form of Chinese cuisine. Originally the name was just “Yum Cha” itself [here Toriyama spells “Yamcha” in kanji with a katakana reading, like the Japanese word for Yum Cha, instead of just in katakana like it’s written in the series], but like that it wasn’t popular.
Oolong, Pu’er: I thought of including Chinese tea, so for these two I used Oolong Tea and Pu’er Tea.
Tsuru Sen’nin: There’s no great reason. I thought “If not turtles, how about cranes?” [cranes and turtles are paired together in Japanese art]
Tenshinhan: Even though he’s a strong, cool guy, I used a well-known name from Chinese cuisine just to be silly. For me, I chose the basis for each name based mostly on silliness, which is why they usually end up being as stupid as this.
Chaozu: Of course, this was taken from the Chinese reading of gyoza
Taopaipai: I wanted to use a name that would be a complete reversal of his image, a cute Chinese name, so I used this. I don’t actually know if this name is even possible in China.
Mutaito: Sorry, but I don’t remember
Bulma: Since she was a girl I didn’t want a cute name, but something that would be silly and that females would recognize. So I did this.
Dr. Brief: because it’s underwear-related
Bulma’s mother: Now that you mention it, she didn’t have a name, did she? Supposing I did name her, I would have probably used “Panchy”. Not “Panty”.
Trunks: He’s part of Bulma’s family, so his name was taken from underwear, as well as from sports wear.
Bra: From the others you can see that Bulma’s family have underwear-related names, so obviously hers is from brassiere.
Karin-sama: This was taken from the Karin Tower (from the karintou candy); since he’s the tower’s owner he’s named Karin. ['tower' in Japanese is tou, so Karin Tower is read as Karin-tou, the same as the candy]
Kaiou: because he’s the king of the worlds. [Kaiou's name is made up of kai, 'world', and ou, 'king']
Bubbles: Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee was named Bubbles, so I used it to be silly.
Mister Popo: I think I named him this simply because of the sound.
Kibito: Since he’s Shen’s attendent, I took his name from tsukibito [Japanese for attendant].
Videl: Since she’s Satan’s daughter, to go along with that I wanted to give her a demonic name taken from “Devil” , but since “Devil” wasn’t very girlish I used “Videl”.
Mister Satan: Since he’s a professional grappler, I used a name that would make him sound like one. Because this is his ring name, I think his actual name is probably something different.
Yajirobe: Since I imagined him as a Japanese person, I just used a Japanese-like name.
Lunch: I can’t remember at all. It was probably just something or another.
Marron: Because she’s Kuririn’s (Japanese chestnut[=kuri]) child, I just took her name straight from maron [chestnut].
Polunga: I don’t remember this one either, but it was probably just a completely random name.
Colonel Silver, Adjunct Black, General White, Commander Red, Sergeant Major Murasaki, Sergeant Metallic, General Blue: The military personal of the Red Ribbon Army all have the names of colors, so it’s the same for this group. The characters’ image color were chosen based on things from the story outline.
Sno: She’s a girl from a cold village, so her name comes from ‘snow’.
Piccolo: I decided that to be silly I’d use a cute name for a scary guy. From that, Piccolo’s henchmen became a series of musical instruments.
Tambourine, Piano, Cymbal, Drum: These are all musical instruments.
Vegeta: Since he’s the prince of the Saiyans, he name was taken directly from ‘vegetable’.
Raditz: from the vegetable ‘radish’.
Nappa: This might just be my dialect, but leafy vegetables like spinnich are called ‘nappa’, so I took it directly from that.
Barduck: I don’t really remember this. Did he even appear in the original story [i.e. the manga]? If he was in the original story, then his name was definitely taken from a vegetable. (Bardock=burdock)
Freeza: I took his name from ‘freezer’, since that went along with vegetables (Saiyans) and milk (Ginyu). Actually, it would have been more correct to use refrigerator, but that wouldn’t have gotten the joke across so I used freezer.
King Cold: From the image of a refrigerator, I came up with ‘cold’.
Kyui: I don’t have a single memory of this, but I’d think that it’s probably from the kiwi fruit. It’s the same reasoning behind Zarbon and Dodoria below: using fruit rather than vegetables, since the character isn’t a Saiyan.
Zarbon: This is taken straight from zabon [Japanese name for pomelo]. That big thing that’s like an orange.
Dodoria: It’s a pun on durian.
Apule: From ‘apple’.
Ginyu: This is of course from gyuunyuu [cow’s milk]. I thought it’d be good to think of the names from things that you put in refrigerators, so I was able to complete the names for the Freeza-related characters without much difficulty.
Gurd: I thought that I’d name all of Ginyu’s underlings after dairy products, and Gurd is taken from yogurt.
Jheeze: This is a pun on cheese.
Butta: Butter of course.
Recoome: It’s cream.
Muuri: Since ‘Namekian’ itself is taken from namekuji [slug] because of the antennas they have on their heads, they all get their names from slugs and the similar snails. “Muuri” is from katatsumuri [snail; Kami/Piccolo’s parent Katatsu also gets his name from this]
Kargo: Obviously, this comes from the snail cuisine escargot.
Dende: From dendenmushi [another word for snail]
Tsuuno: From a snail’s antenna [tsuno in Japanese]
Neil: From the English name for snail.
Cell: Since this character absorbed many humans and transformed, his name has the meaning of “cell” in English.
Dabra: This was taken from the famous magic word “abracadabra”.
Bibidi: This is the first part of the magic word below.
Babidi: This is taken from the famous magical word “bibbity bobbity boo”.
Majin Buu: It’s the last part of the above magic word.
Namu: I don’t remember at all, but wouldn’t his name probably just be derived from “Namuamidabutsu” [a Buddhist chant]?
Bacterian: A took his name from bacteria, because of his dirty image. However, now that I think about it, if there were no bacteria we wouldn’t be able to live. I did a bad thing to bacteria.
Ran-Fan: When I was working in an advertising company, female underwear was called “Ran-Fan”. This comes from an abbreviation of “Lingerie and Foundation” [remember, Japanese doesn't distinguish between l and r]. The character has that sort of image.
Giran: It simply feels like a common monster name. [the word used here is kaijuu, which is the term generally used specifically for monsters like Godzilla and Rodan]
King Chappa: In Indian cuisine there’s a dish called chapatti, and he looked Indian, so I took his name from there.
Panputto: Um…I can’t even remember the character. It’s a Tai-esque name though, so I guess he was that sort of character.
Idasa: Personally, I can’t think of his hairstyle as being at all cool, so I made his name a pun on dasai [out of fashion].
Ikose: This is a pun on sekoi [small-minded].
Ueburi: I don’t really remember, but I think this was probably taken from England’s cool-looking Webley revolvers.
Pyontatto: I don’t think this name is supposed to sound like much of anything. I can’t remember.
Kira: I think that I took this from “killer”, like an assassin. [I so want to make a Death Note joke here, but nothing’s coming to mind…]
Jewel: He’s a snobby character, so I took his name from jewels.
Captain Chicken: I imagined him as a chicken-version of Captain America.
Mighty Mask: The characters are completely different, but there used to be this cartoon (probably American) called Mighty Mouse, which as the name suggests was about a powerful mouse; I just took the ambience of the name from there.
Mou Kekko: The characters on their own seemed strong, but of course this is a worthless pun on the phrase mou kekko [literally “That's enough.”, means something like "I'm fine." in practice].
Bora: I don’t think there’s any particular meaning.
Upa: If I’m not mistaken, I think it was that my assistant Matsuyama had I dog named this at his parents’ house, and I said “Ah, that’s a good name!”
Grandma Paozu: I think that’s the Chinese name for manjuu.
Bee: It’s the name you get when you shift the letters for ‘Buu’ over one row. [This refers to Japanese alphabetical order, which goes a-i-u-e-o for each starting sound]
Hejj/Hogg/Lee: When I was trying to think of what to name these characters, my eyes fell on a Tamiya plastic tank model with the nickname “Hedgehog”. Sure enough, Lee is also the nickname of a tank.
Toninjinka: Just like his name says. He’s a bunny [to] that transforms [ka] people into carrots [ninjin].
Pilaf: It seems that I wanted to give them a food theme.
Shuu (Soba), Mai: Shuu and Mai make “shumai”. “Soba” was probably just a name that I thoughtlessly gave him when I thought I hadn’t already given him a name. Knowing that from beginning now, it looks pretty bad.
Uub: It’s a name like if you took the original, Buu, and reversed it.
Shen: From the Chinese reading of kami [神, 'god'; used to write the character Kami-sama's name, the shin in Kaioushin, and the shen in Shenlong; shen is an approximation of the Chinese reading of the character, rather than a normal Japanese reading].
Jackie Chun: Of course, this comes from slightly distorting the name of my beloved Jackie Chan.
Suke-san [usually called the Invisible Man in English versions]: It’s embarrassing to explain, but since he’s see-through [suketeiru] he’s Suke-san [Mr. See-Through, I suppose].
AkkuMan: Since he’s demonic I named him Akkuman [akuma=demon], but I carelessly forgot and made a manga that was also named “AkkuMan”. I guess it’s a pretty simple idea.

[The Time Traveller]

They aren't exactly Pussy Galore.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Wait...He seriously named Bubbles after Michael Jackson's pet? An old joke is coming to mind about that monkey, and it makes me look at King Kai in a new light.

[Acid_Reign]

Awesome. Thanks a lot, Herms!

This is especially useful because I've decided to go ahead and expand the list into a full-blown project, with the objective of indexing every Dragon Ball character in each of the three series into a single database. This would be complete with name puns, bios, moves, transformations, etc. I've begun work on the schema already, and when it's complete, I will invite others to contribute to the list with any information they may have on each character.

It'll be a pretty big undertaking, but I figure, once it's finished, it'd be the ultimate fan resource (like a Wiki, but more complete). Stay tuned for details!

[Herms]

This is especially useful because I've decided to go ahead and expand the list into a full-blown project, with the objective of indexing every Dragon Ball character in each of the three series into a single database. This would be complete with name puns, bios, moves, transformations, etc. I've begun work on the schema already, and when it's complete, I will invite others to contribute to the list with any information they may have on each character.

Well, for character moves, I posted a translation of the Special Attack Index from Daizenshuu 7 in a thread awhile back. That has a (slightly incomplete) list of what moves each character has.
Anyway, on name puns: the supplemental Daizenshuu TV Animation Part 3 had a guide to the name puns of the movie characters. Unfortunately, I don't have that with me now, but I could probably remember most of the information in it.

I want to expand a little on what it says about Goku and Goten's name. There was a whole thread on this a little while back, but here's the short version: Goku's name in kanji is written as this: 悟空. The first character means roughly to understand or to percieve. More importantly, it's used to write the verb satoru (悟る), from which the name of the Buddhist concept of satori derives. The second character can mean sky, empty, or void. It's the kanji for sora, the Japanese word for sky, which you might be familiar with if you're a Kingdom Hearts fan. When it's read as kara, it means 'empty'.

Anyway, when you put these two characters together, you get the meaning of "Percieving the Void"; I believe that Anthony C. Yu translates it "Aware of Vacuity" in his translation of Journey to the West. Goku is of course named for the Monkey King from Journey to the West, who recieves the name Son Wukong from a Buddhist Patriarch ('Wukong' being the Chinese reading of the same characters, and 'Son' being added as a family name).

The joke behind Goten's name is that it replaces the character for 'sky' in Goku's name with the character for heaven (天). As Toriyama explained in Forever's name pun guide, the idea is that instead of merely percieving the sky, Goten percieves the heavens.

...I'm awful at making 'short versions' of things...

[desirecampbell]

Awesome. Thanks a lot, Herms!

This is especially useful because I've decided to go ahead and expand the list into a full-blown project, with the objective of indexing every Dragon Ball character in each of the three series into a single database. This would be complete with name puns, bios, moves, transformations, etc. I've begun work on the schema already, and when it's complete, I will invite others to contribute to the list with any information they may have on each character.

It'll be a pretty big undertaking, but I figure, once it's finished, it'd be the ultimate fan resource (like a Wiki, but more complete). Stay tuned for details!

And I'd love to steal it for Wikipedia So, the only thing I ask is that you'd note where you found everything (the more specific the better) so it can be cited properly - I'd really appreciate it.

[Acid_Reign]

...I'm awful at making 'short versions' of things...

Quite alright; it's very interesting stuff! I didn't know about any of that before.

And I'd love to steal it for Wikipedia So, the only thing I ask is that you'd note where you found everything (the more specific the better) so it can be cited properly - I'd really appreciate it.

Well, some of this stuff is coming from memory, and others from sites that don't really have any "official" information beyond me knowing that it's correct. But, for completeness, I'll try and include where I found things.

Though, I am putting a lot of work into this, so while I can't stop the information from being disseminated, I'm opposed to the idea of just copying everything over to Wikipedia, because it kind of defeats the point. However, if you were to cite the page itself that this will all eventually be going on, I would have no problem with that.

[desirecampbell]

Though, I am putting a lot of work into this, so while I can't stop the information from being disseminated, I'm opposed to the idea of just copying everything over to Wikipedia, because it kind of defeats the point. However, if you were to cite the page itself that this will all eventually be going on, I would have no problem with that.

Oh, well, obviously. And, just as an FYI, Greg Warner's got a complete list of names already, if I can find it...

-edit-
Boom, two minutes. Damn I'm good.

http://www.thegrandline.com/dbzinfo/dbzclist.html

[Acid_Reign]

Oh, well, obviously. And, just as an FYI, Greg Warner's got a complete list of names already, if I can find it...

-edit-
Boom, two minutes. Damn I'm good.

http://www.thegrandline.com/dbzinfo/dbzclist.html

Well, that certainly cuts down on a lot of the research... Thanks! Hm, old too... Last update: 2003? Wow. I'm surprised I haven't seen it before. Although, just to be clear, this will more than a mere duplication of that list, as I hope to cover a lot more information.

[Herms]

OK, I collected the puns for movie characters. Part of this was from my memory of the movie character name pun guide in the TV Animation Part 3 daizenshuu, but Japanese Wikipedia and Jim Breen's online dictionary were both extremely helpful. There was also a podcast episode on this, but I forgot the number. It probably would have helped...

DB Movie 1: King Gourmes is a pun on gourmet. Pasta comes from pasta. Bongo comes from vongole, as in spaghetti alle vongole

DB Movie 2: 'Lucifer’ is of course one of the names of the devil. The name itself means 'Light Bearer' and referred to the morning star, but got associated with the devil through a really long and interesting process that's too off-topic to go into in any real depth. Look into it on your own.

DB Movie 3: No original characters here, right?

DBZ Movie 1: All spices. Garlic Jr. and Ginger of course come from garlic and ginger; nikki is Japanese for cinnamon, and shanshou is Japanese pepper.

DBZ Movie 2: Dr. Uiro comes fromuirou , a regional food of Nagoya. Kishime is from kishimen, a noodle made of flat strips; it’s another Nagoya regional speciality. Ebifurya comes from ebi fry, or fried prawn . Misokattsun is from misokkasa, miso lees. I believe the theme here is that all of these foods are associated with Nagoya, capital of the Aichi Prefecture, which is where Toriyama comes from.

DBZ Movie 3: Tullece is from lettuce, Rezun is from raison, Daiz is from daizu/soybean, Amond is from almond, and Cacao is from cacao.

DBZ Movie 4: Angira, Dorodabo, Medamatcha, and Zeiun get their names from andoromeda seiun, Japanese for the Andromeda Galaxy. Kakuja is a pun on kagakusha, Japanese for ‘scientist’. I’m not quite sure what Slugg is a pun on; possibly doughnuts?...Seriously though, while some people complain that Slugg’s name is unoriginal, it’s worth noting that for a Japanese audience, a pun based on the English word for slug is far less obvious than it is for us English speakers. After all, for them the word is namekuji, and Slugg is arguably a much more creative reference to that than namekkuseijin.

DBZ Movie 5: Dore is a pun on dressing, Naise is a pun on mayonnaise, and Sauzer is a pun on Thousand Island Dressing (in fact, his name arguably should be spelled Thouser). Coola is a pun on both a cooler and kuura (食うら). There's a story behind his name that I have completely forgotten...

DBZ Movie 6: Big Gete Star is from getemono, meaning something that is a combination of different things or simply low quality; sort of similar to saying that something is ‘thrown together’.

DBZ Movie 7: All the original characters just follow the naming scheme for androids.

DBZ Movie 8: Broli is from broccoli, and Paragus is from asparagus.

DBZ Movie 9: Bojack and Bujin come from the adjective boujakubujin, meaning “arrogance or audacity”. Zangya is from zangyaku, Japanese for cruelty. Gokua and Bido are both from gokuakuhidou, meaning ‘heinous and inhuman’. Gyousan Money comes from gyousan, meaning ‘a large guanity”, and the English word ‘money’. His son Doru comes from the Japanese word for dollar, and his wife Okkane comes from okane, the Japanese word for money. Dosukoi is from dosukoi, an exclamation used by sumo wrestlers (which of course he is). If you’re a One Piece fan, you might remember the Dosukoi Panda background gag.

DBZ Movie 10: Natadei Village comes fromnata de coco, coconut milk. The girl Koko probably gets her name from the same place.

DBZ Movie 11: Bio-Broli and the Bio Warriors are of course the product of biotechnology.

DBZ Movie 12: Janenba comes from combining janen (‘evil thought’) with 波 (kanji for ‘wave’, also the ha in Kamehameha and the pa in Dodon-pa). So "Wave of evil thoughts", I guess.

DBZ Movie 13: Hildegarn gets his name from the fact that his character design made Sei’ichi Hiruda, one of the planners for the movie, go "ga~n" (that is, his jaw dropped to the flow). So Hiruda-ga~n=hirudegaan=Hildegarn. Tapion’s name comes from tapioca pudding. Planet Konatsu comes from coconuts. Similarly, Minoshia is a slightly altered reversal of yashi no mi, or “palm tree fruit”. Interestingly, directly reversing Minoshia’s name gets you ashi nomi, which would mean “only legs”. I don’t know where Hoi comes from, but there is a youkai called the hoi-hoi-bi (‘hoi-hoi fire’); it’s a ball of fire that appears at ruins if you call out “Hoi hoi!” two or three times. Also, I seem to recall that Uranai Baba’s chant does go something like “hoi hoi hoi yo hoi hoi sa”, so maybe ‘hoi’ is a chant associated with magic?

[Kikoha Hater]

So if Nikki and Shanshou Japanese names have a direct meaning in English would it be more proper for their US dub names to be Cinnamon and Pepper or just leave them as it is?

[Herms]

I'd say to leave them as it is. After all, there are plenty of other characters in the series whose names derive from Japanese words with fairly direct English equivalents, but whose names are left as is in all English versions (Ginyu, for instance).

Anyway, just to be clear, Sanshou gets his name from a fairly specific type of pepper, and isn't the standard word for pepper in general (that would be koshou for the condiment and piiman for the vegetable).

(I'll put the Wikipedia link for Sichuan/Japanese pepper in my initial movie pun post)

[Tanooki Kuribo]

There was an article in Animerica years ago with pretty much everyone's name pun. Iam sorry, I really bring nothing to the table.

[Herms]

Here are some more movie characters that I forgot about. My source for this information is Japanse Wikipedia.

DB movie 2’s Gastel gets his name from combining gasuteeberu, one of the Japanese words for stove (seems to literally mean ‘gas table’) with “el”, a suffix often used in the names of angels (which in this case means ‘God’; i.e. the angel Michael’s name means “Who is like God?”, Raphael’s name means “God has healed”, etc.)

From DBZ movie 11, Jagger Butta gets his name from jaga butaa, buttered potato. His henchmen Men-Men, Dr. Kori, and Nain get their names from the novel hei no naka no korinai menmen (Stubborn Guys Inside the Walls) by Jouji Abe. The novel apparently deals with prisoners. It was adapted into a movie in 1987, which featured Shigesato Itoi, the creator of the Mother/Earthbound games, as an actor.

[Kikoha Hater]

Herms, why is it “Buu” and not “Boo”, what’s the deal with the names in the subs like Yamucha, Reacoome, Batta, Jheese, Nail, and Cargot. Did Daimao’s subs go the same route as Viz with the names and try to keep them closer to the puns?