Did you know that most Pokémon names are puns? Yes, you did, but we had to intro this whole quiz somehow. Yup, there are over 1,000 puns of varying quality in the Pokédex these days, and most of them are different from the original Japanese puns... meaning that there are probably at least 2,000 puns in total between Japanese and English versions of Pokémon, and even more when you factor in all the other languages the games have been localised into. That's insane!
But do you know what all the puns and clever wordplay are? Sure, it's easy to figure out ones like Charizard (char + lizard) or Haunter (because, um, it's a ghost), but we've picked out some of the greatest and most obscure Pokémon names to test your knowledge.
Hop(pip) into the comments when you're done and let us know how you did!
Comments 32
11/20, guess that I'll never catch them all
16/20
I watch enough lockstin and gnogging to know my pokemon design origin facts.
I got 16/20, but the ones I got wrong stumped me good! You've outdone yourself, Kate.
The Mr. Rime question felt unfair 😅
Not a fan of wrong answers that are correct but missing one aspect. Because it's not me answering with anything that's actually wrong.
@CharlieGirl Mr Rime was one of the easiest for me, but I still got 10/20
Prepositions? Adverbs? Pronouns? Conjunctions? C'mon, these are school words, nobody uses these words in real world.
18/20, with 2 lucky guesses on the Honchkrow and Steenee questions.
Also, no mention of Turtwig, which is turtle + twig? That counts I think (twigs are considered plants, right?) but again, for the two answers Turtwig are in not all of them are plants + animals.
The last time I got a 10/20 in a quiz I nearly had a panic attack on my way back home form school.
11/20,
Well, i know that i need to learn more about puns, old words and tricks from another languages, XD
Does "Squirtle" sound like "squirrel"? Not in British dialects at least. We pronounce squirrel as "skwih-rul", which is lacking the "er" sound you get in the American pronunciation "skwerl".
I enjoyed this a lot! Interacting with facts and thinking about them is more fun than just simply reading them. Good job NL!
@ComfyAko You don’t use the words William Shakespeare every day, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know have a basic knowledge of his significance.
14/20. Guess I should read Bulbapedia entries all the way through.
As a resident Poke-fanatic, I'm ashamed to say I only got 14/20. Was very much pleased by getting some of the more obscure ones like Mareep and Mr Rime but by the same token I really should've known ones like Alakazam and Steenee. Oh well 🤷
Also there's a certain Groucho Marx-looking beetle who'd like to have a word with you on Ekans/Arbok being the only mons whose names are backwards.
17/20 - I too thought Honcho was spanish. Mareep question went kinda hard, I got the anagram for ampere but never thought about nursery rhymes
@CharlieGirl I think they mean literally "conjunctions, pronouns, etc." As in, we use conjunctions and pronouns without necessarily knowing that that is what they're called.
I knew they were pronouns but I couldn't define all four of those words for ya! 😅
@TotalHenshin @CharlieGirl That was a joke. Because in real life nobody constructs a sentence thinking <ok now I'm gonna use an adverb> and it's therefore easy for many people to mistake one another. Sorry if that was a poor joke on my side.
16/20
@Kategray
I think question 6 is incorrect, as Rotom is Motor spelt backwards, and Rellor is Roller backwards.
@Munchlax those aren't the names of the animals they're based on though
19/20. Only missed the Nidorino question. I know rhinos are ungulates but I don't associate the Nido families with them.
18/20. I'm really embarrassed about the Steenee one, I know I heard of them based on mangosteens. The other one I messed up was Mareep - that's the first time I heard of its name's origin, and it's pretty clever.
By the way, "nido" isn't the Japanese word for needle, it's "hari". But it's somewhat similar to how they would write/pronounce the English word "needle" (niidoru), which might be the actual origin. Then again, "ni" is "two", and "do" can mean "-times", so "nido" can also mean "twice", which might be a reference to how the Nidoran family is made of two evolution lines, but that might be a stretch.
I think my score was 13-20. Also, isn't Mangosteen a Cuphead boss? Just kidding, I know that Mangosteen's name comes from mangosteens, but why?
@KateGray @Bobb I always thought mareep was partially based on iRobot/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
15-20! Nice, and this was surprisingly well made.
14 out of ten for me, although I'm not a huge fan of Pokémon and lost interest in the series between UM/US and Sword and Shield.
@darkswabber that could very well be the idea behind it's concept
You see, I like to think Grookey is a combination of grass + groovy + uki (Japanese onomatopoeia for a monkey sound) but maybe I'm looking too much into it.
Anyway, I think the most impressive name I've seen is the French name for Iron Valiant. It's Garde-De-Ferre which not only sounds like the pokemon it's partially based on (Gardevoir) but translates to...Iron Guard so it's pretty much a straight translation.
I went to a dentist in Unova once. Didn't go well. They had to pull Alomamola teeth out.
18/20
Did not know about Rime and didn't put SAWS as the seasons together.
@ComfyAko Sorry for misinterpreting, it’s just a very common attitude I’ve found.
“Signed, Seel'd, Delibird”
Immaculate.
This was a really entertaining and informative quiz (I had no idea about ‘rime’!) but I have to second @Krisi‘s comment that it’s probably a bit of a stretch to say that ’nido’ is the Japanese word for ‘needle’.
‘ニードル/nīdoru’ is a (fairly uncommon) Japanglicisation/katakana transcription of the English word ‘needle’, but in the vast majority of cases, the native Japanese word ‘針/hari’ (or something more specific like ‘縫い針/nuibari/sewing needle’) would be used when referring to needles.
It just feels a bit like saying that the Japanese words for ‘fire’, ‘thunder’ and ‘freezer’ are ‘ファイヤー/faiyā’, ‘サンダー/sandā’’ and ‘フリーザー/furīzā’ respectively, when they’re really just English words written with Japanese orthography.
Incidentally, those happen to be the names of the three legendary birds in Japanese (you can probably guess which is which) in what must be some of the most unimaginative nomenclature in the entire series. Similarly, the Japanese name for Sandshrew is just… ‘Sand’ (サンド/sando) and Haunter is ‘Ghost’ (ゴースト/gōsuto). At least ‘Freezer’ evokes a useful kitchen appliance!
While some dogmatically stick to the view that all translations should be as faithful to the original product as possible, I’m very glad the localisation team gets a bit of creative license when renaming these creatures for a new audience. Give me ‘Moltres’ over ‘Fire’ any day!
17/20, got wrong the Uxie/Mesprit/Azelf, Elgyem/Beeheeyem and Mareep one (all of them because I didn't pay enough attention to either the questions or the answers), not bad!
I'd say all the questions were fair this time, keep these quizzes coming!
Got 9. This was hard.
Would be funny if you got Magmar's japanese name into the next quiz
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