->There is no clear Romanization of Violen Jiger's name, as no ''Zone'' media has ever been officially released in the West. His name has been interpreted as "Violenjiger", "Violen Jygar", "Violent Jiger", "Violent Chigger", "Violen Jig-er", "Violin Juggler", "Bio Ranger Iga", "Valium Chugger", and "Crazy Engrish Fun-Man".\\
-- [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Violen_Jiger TFWiki.net]]

->"No Jean, the T is silent, as in Harlow."\\
-- '''Margot Asquith''' corrects Jean Harlow on the pronunciation of her first name.

This trope describes characters whose names are almost never spelled consistently, usually because of transliteration issues. This tends to happen in {{Anime}} and Japanese video games that haven't been officially translated into English, although it also crops up in other languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. Situations include anything from drama between vowel additions to unique-cipher dropping, due to phoneme sets and writing systems. English, for example, is famous for many ways and rules of spelling (e.g., Americans generally dropping extra vowels), despite having much fewer actual ''sounds'' they represent. Japanese have separate vowel-heavy phonetic and symbolic alphabets. Spanish has several familiar looking letter combinations intended to be pronounced in specific ways. Complicating the issue is some names simply become popular enough in other languages that they're modified to fit them better, and [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory you can't be sure if it's actually intended to be meaningful]]. Another if the name is ''only'' ever shown in modified form, meaning we simply have to guess.

[[ArtistsAreNotArchitects Assuming]] [[AllThereInTheManual an official release settles the issue]], some fans deliberately use one of the alternate spellings to establish their "credibility" as [[FanDumb fans]]. In true fannish fashion, this often persists even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such as ThemeNaming, [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Names]], PropheticNames and [[WordOfGod direct proclamations by the work's creator]]. Eventually, this stops being cool and just starts making people angry, and the self-righteous morons get GannonBanned. (Where did you think the trope name came from?)

In some cases, official translated versions will adopt bizarre transliterations for the sake of WritingAroundTrademarks and/or establishing new ones -- because, when a CashCowFranchise gets imported, it's more useful to have character names that can be trademarked for the sake of [[MerchandiseDriven selling licensed merchandise]].

The trope's name comes from an IsaacAsimov short story, in which a pair of [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] use TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday to stop TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt -- by persuading an obscure scientist to [[ForWantOfANail change one letter of his name from Z to S]], and watching [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity Ensue]] (until they realize that TheWatcher will know that there was supposed to be an EarthShatteringKaboom, and so are forced to come up with an equally subtle ResetButton). Asimov was inspired to write the story after having ''his'' name misspelled -- A'''z'''imov, or even ''Asenion'' once -- one time too many. Ironically, Asimov's original name in the Cyrillic alphabet was "Озимов". The standard transcription of this into the Latin alphabet is "Ozimov".

This does not include minor differences in romanization systems, such as the various methods of indicating long vowels in Japanese, or the use of the apostrophe to indicate syllabic nasals.

Contrast MyNaymeIs, which is the ''intentional'' misspelling of one's name.

The opposite of NoPronunciationGuide, which is when the spelling/writing of the name is unequivocal but people can't agree on how it's supposed to sound.

May lead to a WhoNamesTheirKidDude.

Related to AdaptationDyeJob and AdaptationDecay (and/or other [[DerivativeWorks Adaption Tropes]], as the case may be).

----
[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Perhaps partially because China plays a fair role in the series, meaning that both Chinese and Japanese names get mentioned for the same thing, RanmaOneHalf has a number of these. Nyucheizu/Joketsuzoku for the village of [[LadyLand Chinese Amazons]], the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Spring of Drowned Yeti Riding Ox While Holding Crane And Eel]], which results in various spellings of "Niuhomanmaolenniichuan", Happosai's old friend/rival, whose nickname is "Lucky" but whose name has been spelt Lukkosai, Lukkyosai, Rakkosai, Rakkyosai...
* A character in ''ExcelSaga'' name is spelled "Ilpalazzo" in the anime but spelled "Il Palazzo" in the manga.
** "Menchi" is "Mince" in the manga
*** According to the pop-up assists in the ADV-translated anime, "Menchi" does, in fact, mean "mince meat". Note that Viz handled the manga and apparently did not choose to stay consistant with ADV's translations in the anime, so that's all of these inconsistencies are coming from.
** And Ropponmatsu II is sometimes called "Nishiki" in the manga.
** Since the names of =ACROSS= members are also the names of hotel chains, the manga's is probably the right one.
* In ''Shakugan no Shana'', the real name of the Flame Haze codenamed "The Specialist of Everything" is "Wilhelmina", a Dutch name. Pioneer botched her name, spelling it as "Wirhelmina."
* Sylia / Celia Stingray from ''BubblegumCrisis'' was an older example of this trope.
** The 1992 parody fanfic ''[[http://www.textfiles.com/stories/bgcspoof.txt Bubble Gum Cards]]'' by Ryan Mathews pokes fun at this by never using the same spelling twice.
** Also, the [[strike:robots]] androids in the BGC world are ''Boomers''. They're frequently translated as, "buuma," because that's the strict Japanese spelling, but the fact is that the name was ''specifically'' chosen by the creators to evoke the raw destructive power of American nuclear submarines. You know, Boomers.
*** Somewhere in Tokyo 2040 it was written onscreen as VOOMER, spelt out as [=VOOdoo MEtal=].
* ''BlackLagoon'' has "Rebecca", who is usually called Revi/Levi/Revy, etc. Ironically, such R-L confusion never exists for her partner 'Rock', who is given the nickname for amusing reasons.
** Rock is Japanese, and his nickname is a contraction of his given name, Rokuro, so it ''cannot'' have an "L".
* Guts/Gats/Gattsu from ''{{Berserk}}''. Made interesting by a fan theory that big G was based on Götz von Berlichingen, since both were mercenaries who had lost their right hands and replaced them with iron prostheses. WordOfGod killed that theory, though.
*While its universally agreed on how to spell [[JungleWaItsumoHaleNochiGuu Guu]], the other title character's name has many different spellings. His name has been spelled Hare and Hale. Haré is the official English name.
** Altough early chapters of the manga (and some episodes of the anime as well, if I'm not mistaken) romanized Guu's name as "Goo".
** The problem is that Hare is an actual Japanese word, 晴れ or はれ and should be read as such in the title, but since it is written in katakana as ハレ some translators assumed it must be a non-Japanese word.
* Mercifully, the opening to ''{{Baccano}}'' features all the names of the main characters in English, because a lot of them would be damn hard to romanize.
** ... Which they still are, at least for the characters that aren't named in the opening. Mr. Chic/Tick/Tik/Tic/Chick/Chik/ARRRRRRRGGGG! Jefferson probably gets the worst of it.
* Rune/Renee/Renais from ''[[GaoGaiGar GaoGaiGar FINAL]]''.
** Hell, GaoGaiGar itself had been spelled several different ways in the ''official'' subtitles of the [=DVDs=], some of which wouldn't even come close to actually being pronounced "GaoGaiGar", if said aloud.
** Most fans spell "Palparepa" like that when the official spelling is "Palpalapa". Also, spelling "[=GaoFighGar=]" as "[=GaoFaiGar=]", though in fairness, those instances are mostly in discussions of SuperRobotWars Alpha 3 or W where the writer's only exposure to [=GaoFighGar=] was through kana.
* "Raidiin"/"Raideen", licensed "Raydeen", and the remake ''{{Reideen}}''.
* The famous space pirate Captain Herlock is better known as ''CaptainHarlock'' in English, with most fans preferring the latter spelling.
** Mainly because it ''IS'' his official name as per Leiji Matsumoto's plans. He was called "Herlock" due to copyright reasons.
* Light Yagami from ''DeathNote'' is an odd example, since most fans assumed it sounded so odd it had to be ''Raito''.
** Some scanslations had trouble with this, as they had gone with the Raito name, then had to switch to Light half way through the series (as more official translations became available). Ditto with Near and Mello, who were written as "Nia" and "Merro" in some scanlations at first.
** That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also Sidoh/Shidou, Jealous/Gelus, Lester/Rester, Gevanni/Giovanni, John Mackerenshaw''/''the decidedly [[{{Narm}} narmful]] John [=McEnroe=], Larry Connors/Rally Connors, plus the fact that the manga itself changes one of the FBI agents' already ridiculous names partway through.
*** Don't forget Hal Lidner/Hal Ridner/Halle Ridner/Halle Lidner/Harinda.
*** It's Ray'''e''' Penber, strangely enough.
*** There is also Rem/Remu and Ryuk/Ryuuku.
* ''ElementalGelade'' often displayed this problem with either the ''show title'' and other plot elements; for example, Pledgers (initially introduced as either "Preja" or "Pleasure"), Sting Raids (misspelled as "Stream Raids" or "Sitting Raids"), or even the Eden Raid (called "Edil Raid" by the first [[{{Fansub}} fansubs]] of the series). In the official Geneon release it's subbed (and pronounced) "Edel Raid", adding to the confusion. Same with Edel Garden.
** It doesn't help that the series's name was originally romanized as "Erementar Gerad" in Japan.
*** It should also be noted that the title of the "official" Geneon release has it ''both'' ways: the title is listed as "Elemental Gelade" if you have the English subbing turned on, whereas the actual title sequence has "Erementar Gerad" appearing below the original kanji (look for it after the silhouette of Ren appears in the title, in the lower right).
* Speaking of giant robots, many of the ''[[MobileSuitGundam Gundam]]'' series pick up mangled names on the way to production, most of which get more reasonable conversions overseas. Which, depending on where in the translation process one starts watching, can make it nearly impossible for the fandom to agree on which is the "correct" spelling.
** Over the years, the Japanese version has also tweaked its official spellings, and even official ''translations'' of basic terms. The Earth Federation (Chikyuu Renpou) stared out as "U.N.T.", with its military as the "U.N.T. Spacy" ("spacy" being a [[RecycledINSPACE space analogue]] to "navy"), but after English versions of things started getting released, they changed over to "Earth Federation" and "Earth Federation Space Force".
*** Their enemies aren't immune, either. Officially the "Principality of Zeon", they've been given as the "Duchy of Zeon", "Duchy/Principality of Zion", "Archduchy of Jion"...and so on and so forth. There's also some contention between "SIEG ZEON" and "JIIKU JION".
** Even the English version has had a rough time with this at points. In just one example, Federation Headquarters on Earth started out as "Jabrow" (pronounced "Jab-brow") in early dubs, but was later transitioned to the now-official "Jaburo".
** As an example, ''Mobile Suit GundamSEED'' and ''GundamSEEDDestiny'': Raww le Klueze/Rau le Creuset, Mwu la Fllaga/Mu La Flaga, Fllay/Flay, Ssigh/Sai, Stellar/Stella, and Neo Lorrnoke/Roanoke. And those are just the official Japanese and English versions; [[FanDumb some holdouts in the fandom]] still prefer "Asuran" or "Aslan" for Athrun, "Frey" for Flay, and "Mia" for Meer (the last a particularly egregious example since Meer's name is shown clearly written on a note she sends to Lacus late in ''Destiny'').
*** This is further complicated by inconsistencies in the anime itself: in SEED you can see "Kagari" on a screen in one episode, and later on "Cagalli" in the back of a photo.
*** ''Aslan'' or ''Arslan'' is a perfectly legitimate name of Persian origin, meaning "Lion" (that's where CSLewis stole if for ''Narnia'', BTW), which is still wildly popular in Central Asia and environments. And it [[RuleOfCool surely beats]] [[TheUnpronounceable the jumble of letters]] the official romanization is.
**** Thus perfectly demonstrating the above point, since, like it or not, the official spelling is still "Athrun Zala" in both versions.
*** Lux/Lacus Clyne. Doesn't help that the Japanese pronounce it more as Lux while the English pronounce it as La-cus. Though they pronounce it like that because that's its official spelling and thats apparently how its suppose to be pronounce according to what she's named after.
**** Sometimes names beginning with "R"s are also used for her.
** Don't forget 00, which might be the worst of the lot because of the downright bizarre names some of the characters have (I'm convinced most of them were picked by a dartboard covered in random English words)
*** One of the Innovators, for example, is either Bring Stability, or Bring ''Stabbity''
* ''AhMyGoddess'': the names of Urd, Belldandy and Skuld come from three Norse goddesses: Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld.
** Also: Mara/Marller.
*** In this case, it's justified. The name is written as Marā, and the pronounciation for it is indeed closer to Marller than to Mara. The blunder, if anything, is on the official translation's part, because her name is most definitely NOT spelled the same way it's written.
** And Lind/Rind.
* ''{{Hellsing}}'' is famous for this. "Alucard" is a classic SdrawkcabName, but subtitles (Arucard) seem to say otherwise. Some even go with "Arcard". Walter C. Dollneaz/Dollners/Dornez (this one being the Dark Horse-used one) and Pip Bernadotte/Bernadette/Vernedead have more conventional name problems, while British woman Integra/Integral has the knightly title "Sir"; in real life, female British knights use the title "Dame". Meanwhile, Ceres/Seras Victoria ''has'' no [[WordOfGod official spelling]] (although in chapter 6 the writing on the wall looks suspiciously like "Serase"), and her name sounds like it's in reversed (i.e., Japanese) order. And the name of the show itself is supposed to refer to Bram Stoker's Dr. Van Helsing.
** As far as the "sir" thing goes, while it may not be realistic, Integra is portrayed as [[{{Bifauxnen}} an extremely masculine character]] to the point where it's not implausible that she would be given a masculine title instead of a feminine one.
*** ItsAllThereInTheManual. Integra is called ''Sir'' because of legal fiction of her being officially male. Apparently, RoundTable rules exclude females from the membership, so she was declared a man so she could inherit Arthur Hellsing's position.
* Kururu (Kululu), Angol Moa (Angolmois), and Rabie (Lavie) in ''KeroroGunsou''.
* In ''OnePiece'', the official transliteration of the name ルフィ is "Luffy". The double "f" is especially peculiar, since it will change the preceeding vowel. A strict reading of the kana would produce a word that rhymes with "goofy;" whereas in English "Luffy" would rhyme with "stuffy" instead.
** Ironically enough, the German dub insists on Ruffy, pronouncing it in a perfectly English way. This is explained in a translator Q&A in the manga -- Ruffy (as in "rough") sounds more like a pirate name than Luffy.
** There's also the dispute over Roguetown vs. Loguetown (as in "prologue" and "epilogue"); the guy that makes the series spells it in the series as "Loguetown", but it got changed in the dub.
** There are lots of characters in this series that have their names weirded up by fans, [[ExecutiveMeddling other people in the publication process]], or [[Discontinuity/{{Anime}} the thankfully-soon-to-be-forgotten]] [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] {{Macekre}}: [[http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/372/01/ Mr. 2 Bon Kurei]] (Bon Clay), [[http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/96/06/ Don Krieg]] (Don Creek), Nefertari Vivi (Nefeltari Vivi, Nefertari Bibi), Portgas D Ace (Porgaz D Trace, Puma D Ace). The first ones are the correct versions used in the actual manga, or stated by WordOfGod from Oda himself.
** The English dub has no choice with Zoro/Zolo
**In the first volume of the English manga they used Zoro, but in vol. 2 they changed it to Zolo.
** There's also "Navy" vs. "Marines." While in etymology (''kaigun'') and role it is VERY obviously a Navy, pretty much everything they own has "[[GratuitousEnglish MARINE]]" printed on it in big block letters. Though "Navy" is probably the correct term, it's often criticized in a kneejerk reaction to the [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] {{Macekre}}, which digitally erased all instances of "MARINE" and replaced them with "NAVY".
*** And don't forget that "Marine" is, in several languages, a direct translation of the English "Navy".
**** Also don't forget that, even in English, the civilian shipping capacity of a nation is often called its Merchant Marine. The two words shared a meaning at some point in the past, which sort of muddles the issue.
** There also seems to be some confusion on if it's Blueno or Bruno. Though "Bleuno" appears on the sign of his tavern in Water Seven.
** There's also the interesting case of Zoro's surname. Oda has admitted he's named, just like several other characters, after a real-life pirate, in this case François l'Olonnois. The Wanted posters still write his name Roronoa.
** Most recent perhaps is the giant Luffy-powered zombie Ouzu/Oz/Odz. Oz is the most obvious spelling off "Ouzu", but a strong theory is that the name is meant to refer to Odr, a god of the Norse Pantheon. Some translators have thus mixed Oz and Odr together to make the spelling "Odz." Some fans have [[TakeAThirdOption taken a third option]] and just use "Odr."
*** Chapter 551 shows [[spoiler:a ship with the word Oars III.]] Chapter 554 reveals [[spoiler:that the descendant of the giant zombie is one of Whitebeard's allies.]] So now some think "Oars" is the official spelling.
** OnePiece suffers greatly from this trope. Juracule/Dracule Mihawk is a weird case, since "Dracule" is a logical MeaningfulName but not really supported by the way it's written.
*** In Japanese katakana, "ju" is the closest basic equivalent to the "du" that could be used. Though in katakana it is possible to write "du", Oda opted for "ju."
** Then there's Chew/Chuu/Choo.
** Vivi's duck also suffers from this trope, as the name Karoo has been spelled as Karu, Carue, and Kaloo.
** Not to mention the fact that fans tend to spell even the names of the main characters in vastly different ways. This may be caused by the horrid HK (Honk Kong) subs. Ex: Sanji = Sunkist/Haingis, Usopp = Liar Bu/King Bu/Crock Bu, Zoro = Sauron/Churk Lok, etc
* The English releases of the series that made up ''{{Robotech}}'' -- ''[[SuperDimensionFortressMacross Macross]]'', ''Southern Cross'', and ''Genesis Climber Mospeada'' -- deliberately used different spellings for the characters and races whose names weren't changed. For example, Roy Fokker instead of Roy ''Focker'', or the Invid instead of ''Inbit''.
** ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross'''s secondary character Millia was a notable offender. Her first name has been spelled Millia, Milliya, Milia, Miliya, Miria, and Miriya. Then there's her Zentraedi surname, which has been translated most often as variants of "Fallyna", though some subtitles inexplicably translate it as "Parino"; this could be taken from the one time it was used in ''Robotech'', where it was given as "Parina"
*** Almost none of the Zentradi characters escape this. Mostly because the eventual official spellings of their names are completely impossible to reproduce in Japanese. (the only ones that did were the three spies Warera, Rori, and Konda, because the portmanteau of their names is a [[PunnyName pun]] in Japanese).
**** On the flipside, we have their leader, Gorg/Golg Dolza/Bodolza/Bodolzer/Bodolzar/Bodol Za/Boddole Zer. Official translation: Boddole Zer.
***** or his subordinates, Breetai Kridanik/Britai Kridaniku/Vhrlitwhai Kridaniku and Exedore Formo/Exsedol Folmo. THEN, the movies dump the surnames altogether and assign each Zentradi a number... SoYeah....
** Then there's Lynn/Linn Minmay/Minmei. Episode 5 spells her given name "Minmei" on the door sign, but spells it "Minmay" on the letter. Also, the pinyin spelling is Líng Míngměi.
** ''Macross 7'''s BigBad, Geppelnich, is one of the worst. Potential spellings include Gepplenitch, Geppernitch, Geppernich, Geperuniti, or Geperunitchi. TheDragon for the second half of the series, Gavil, and his monstrous minion Gravil similarly have their names sometimes translated as Gabil and Grabil.
** And continuing the proud tradition, one character name in ''MacrossFrontier'' is an enigma wrapped in a mystery for spelling. There has been ''absolutely no consensus'' exists as to how the name should be pronounced in English, without any obvious pattern of ThemeNaming. Besides a literal transliteration of the katakana ("Kuran Kuran"), Klan Klein, Klein Klan, Klan Klan, Klein Klein have all been offered. It's officially, according to a magazine article, "Clan Clang". WHAT THE HELL?!
* "Anshii" vs. "Anthy" from ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'', even though "Anthy" is a genuine name in Greek with a [[ThemeNaming story-relevant meaning]], while "Anshii" is nonsense generated from the transliteration.
* The name of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'''s signature weapon is レイジングハート, which can be transliterated as either ''reijing haato'', "Raging Heart", or as ''reizing haato'', "Raising Heart. The WordOfGod is that the latter is correct. However, the pronunciation by the Japanese actors seems more like "raging" than "raising."
** For added confusion, the English dub switches from "Raging" to "Raising" at the beginning of the second season-- and the subtitles for the first season switch back and forth!
** The names of ''characters'' are even less clear. Their spellings aren't even consistent in the various different official sources, even though the dialogue makes the automobile ThemeNaming obvious. On the other hand, this hasn't stopped fansubbers from using ''Yuuno'' instead of the more likely ''Euno''... The official site tries to clear up a lot of confusion (stating that Yuuno is indeed spelled Yuuno, for example), however, fans are still hesitant to use the official spelling for some of the other names, the most popular example being Zafila, whom many still prefer to call Zafira. Understandable as, given the aforementioned ThemeNaming, "Zafira" makes much more sense.
***Zafira who?
** It doesn't help that the English dub cycles through the names Arf, Alph and Aruf depending on which volume you're watching.
*** Hell, they use the first two spellings ''in the same conversation''. It's a shame, as the dub is otherwise pretty good.
** Caro presents an odd example, as she's clearly named after her tribe, so they should be spelled the same; instead, her surname is always written "ru Lushe" or "Ru Lushe", yet the tribe itself is called "Lu-Lushe". Even her employee card uses both spellings.
*** In the early days before [=StrikerS=] aired, Caro's full name, romaji'ed "kyaro ru rushe", was transliterated into Carole le Loussier. That is, until after [[WordOfGod canon materials state the otherwise]]. Hey, it makes sense...
** Don't forget the name of the ship, which is officially "Arthra", but The Triad used "Asura".
*** RuleOfCool, my friends. Asura is just a much cooler name.
** Most people tend to refer to Teana as "Tia".
*** Though this may be because "Tea" [[SpotOfTea could be confusing]].
*** Such people often refer to her full name as "Tiana", although that doesn't fit in the ThemeNaming with many characters being named after cars.
** There's also Fate's assistant Shario Finenio, who more often goes by the nickname Shari. There are some alternate romanizations, like [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=1592232&postcount=1210 Shirley]] or [[http://www.onemanga.com/Magical_Girl_Lyrical_Nanoha_StrikerS/4/05/ Sally Fenino]].
** Signum's sword is usually either Laevatein or Levantine.
** Even the two Numbers whose names are not literal Italian numbers- Wendi/Wendy and Deed/Dido- occasionally fall into this.
* Tokyopop seems to like these.
** ''[[DotHack .hack//]]'' has them in droves. Characters' names are phonetically spelled (Lios/"Ryos"), spelling idiosyncrasies are inconsistently used ("[=BlackRose=]"/"Black Rose"/"Blackrose"), character names are switched around...
** Besides not being able to decide which romanization system to use in ''KidouTenshiAngelicLayer'', they also referred to Ranga as "Lanka", despite the fact that her name can't even be ''written'' that way.
** The translators had to correct the name "Blanche" - they intended to use "Branchir". This was because the translator had completely missed the point that the angel is ALL WHITE.
** Tokyopop gave the name of the main character of the ''MobileSuitGundam'' spinoff manga ''G-Unit'' (''[[MarketBasedTitle Last Outpost]]'' in America) as "Odin Bernett", despite the fact that it appears as "Adin Barnett" in both merchandise and in the manga itself.
** The ultimate offender under their label has to be ''TokyoMewMew''. The girls' ThemeNaming presented a problem that the translators dealt with by calling, say, Minto/Mew Mint simply "Mint", Retasu/Mew Lettuce "Lettuce", et cetera. The ChineseGirl, Hwang Bu-ling, found herself as both "Pudding Fong" (to match her super callsign, Mew Pudding) and "Fon Purin" (the katakana of her loan-word name; although most of her friends call her that, she refers to herself as Bu-ling, as does everyone capable of pronouncing Chinese names). The StalkerWithACrush, Quiche, whose name is actually ''supposed'' to be written in English, got "Kish" instead for no apparent reason. And don't even get me started on the ''weapons''; they had a different name every time they were used. (For the record, they're [[GratuitousEnglish quasi-English]] puns: Strawberbell [or Strawbellbell], Mintonarrow, Lettastanets, Puringrings, Zakuross.)
** One of Tokyo Pop's early and most egregious errors was during their translation of ''MagicKnightRayearth'' in which one particular character's name was romanized (rather than translated properly) TWO DIFFERENT WAYS in the SAME ISSUE of the magazine.
** Tokyopop's release of ''RozenMaiden'' can't seem to keep Suigintou's name straight, changing the romanization sometimes multiple times within a single volume and sometimes just plain getting it wrong (what romanization system would call her Suiguintoh?). Her owner's name changes from Megu to Meg and back, and in a finishing touch of incompetence, when the dolls in the last volume begin to refer to each other by the colors of the roses they are associated with (Black Rose, etc.), Tokyopop chose to leave these untranslated. In case you wondered who the hell Kurobara, Shirobara, etc. are and what they have got to do with anything.
** The original version of ''MiraiNikki'' has Yuno's nickname for Yukiteru written as ユッキ (Yukki), but the official localization romanizes it to "Yuki" (which in katakana would be ユキ, without the consonant-delaying ッ).
* ''SailorMoon'' deserves its own mention, because thanks to how many different people handled the series and how long fans relied on each other for translations, the ThemeNaming causes a lot of difficulties. The vast amount of minerology puns meant most of the villains had their names wrong in one version or another. Then there were also numerous villains who drew their names from foreign loan words, meaning that the names could have already be mistranslated into Japanese and required a discerning translator to pick up the reference. Since ''Sailor Moon'' pretty much *never* had discerning translators, you can imagine how well the names came out.
** "Zoisite" was actually changed to "Zoycite" in the dub, but many fans still screw his ([[ShesAManInJapan yes, his]]) name up when talking about the Japanese version. The same problem affects Jadeite, who was changed to "Jedite", and Nephrite, who was changed to "Neflyte". Not to mention Kunzite, who got his name ''completely'' swapped out to Malachite, the only name change that at least kept to the "minerals" ThemeNaming.
** How about poor Queen Metaria? WordOfGod from Naoko Takeuchi says "Metaria", and no other official source has rendered it at all; she's been called Metallia, Metalia, and her proper name. Most of the argument has to do with whether the name is a play on "Metal" or actually a Latin word, "Metaria", that also fits the character's history. Since the last reprints of the manga fixed all of the English spelling errors and left "Metaria" intact, it's obviously supposed to be the latter (and "metaria" is actually a word while "metalia" isn't). The dub didn't even *bother* with a name.
** The two {{Filler Villain}}s from ''Sailor Moon R'' are supposed to have a name that's a pun on "Alien". However, it's based on the katakana reading of the word and not the actual English pronunciation, which gives us "Eiru" and "An". A lot of fans who never read the names or even watched the Japanese show have used the names "Ail" and "Ann" because they read it on the internet. However, the pronunciation of "ail" in particular is completely off using Japanese phonetics (it sounds like "aisle") and romanizing it that way is nonsensical because it ignores the pun. ADVFilms, who subtitled the arc, used "Ali" and "En" to try and keep the pun intact even though it is not a literal translation. A ''literal'' translation is "Al" and "En", though it's not pronounced that way.
** Oh, the poor Black Moon Clan. Even without the confusion dub names cause, the only spellings the entire fandom seem to agree on are Rubeus and Petz. There have been Esmeraude/Esmeroode/Esmerelda, Demando/Demand, Cooan/Kooan, Calaveras/Karaberas, Berthier/Beruche, and of course, Saffir/Saphiru/Safiru/Saphir. Oh, and "The Black Moon Clan" has often been mistranslated as "The Black Moon Family," which gives the mistaken idea that they're all related to each other, which is obviously not the case.
*** The fandom seems to have settled down on the etymologically correct Berthier, mainly because ADVFilms caught what "Beruche" was supposed to stand for and subtitled it correctly. Calaveras is also settled on because her name comes from a mineral named after an American location - Calaveras County, California.
*** The dub itself didn't seem to remember what Berthier's English name was. Officially, it was supposed to be "Bertie", but the dialogue from the other characters indicates that actors thought it was "Birdy" and the script made many bird references to her, which only further confused things. The dub also sometimes added an extra 'b' to "Rubeus" and couldn't decide whether Petz' new name should be "Prisma" or "Prizma".
** The Death Busters were mangled left and right. {{Geneon}}'s subtitles for Sailormoon S gave "Eugeal" and "Yujial" to "Eudial", Telulu to Tellu, Byruit to Viluy, Cyprin to Cyprine, Ptilol to Petirol, and Kaorinite to Kaolinite. Tokyopop somehow mangled "Ptilol" into Petite Roll, and amusingly changed Kaolinite's latin title, Magus (mage), to Mag'''n'''us (large). They also called her "Kaori Night". A US doll box kept that name, though a popular fan mistranslation mixed it up as "Kaori Knight", as they did a completely unrelated TokyoPop translation of an animanga. The English dub spelled Mimete's name as "Mimet", but pronounced it the same way as her Japanese name. It's also notable that many fans had trouble with Ptilol's name because it's not pronounced or spelled like that in Japanese, leading to such mutations as "Pikurol" or "Puchirol" that ignored the etymology.
*** Well, there even was Petriol in some translations... Would make a bit of sense to the whole mineral stuff, but yet...
***Mixx/ToykoPop Manga called her Petite Roll. That makes even less sense.
*** The fans weren't much better with them, honestly.
** The Lemures were "Remless" in the English subtitles by {{Geneon}}, even though Lemures actually is a type of mythical creature with metaphorical significance to the plotline. Some fans have theorized that Geneon thought it was a play on "REM-less," a reference to REM sleep, as the Lemures were [[spoiler: human beings whose Dream Mirrors had been eaten by Queen Nehellenia.]]
** The Dead Moon Circus has its own problems. For starters, Queen Nehellenia is a [[http://www.genvid.com/diesgaudii/mythology/deadmoon/nehellenia.html mythological reference]] which many people mistook for another mineral reference to "nephrite", thus giving "Queen Nepherenia" (or "Queen Nephelenia" for the mineral "nepheline"). And three of the Amazoness Quartet keep running into this problem - [=CereCere=] became "Cele Cele" in the dub (pronounced "seal seal", for whatever reason), [=PallaPalla=] became "Para Para", and [=VesVes=] became "Besu Besu" in the dub and "[=BethBeth=]" in the subtitles (because the "su" character can also be used to stand in for "th", a sound that doesn't exist in Japanese). All four girls are named for asteroids, which themselves were all named for Roman goddesses (Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Juno), which you'd *think* would be a hint as to how to spell their names right.
*** And speaking of that subject, there is a lot of InternetBackdraft related to the Amazones Quartetto/Amazoness Quartet. "Amazoness Quartet" makes no logical sense, since an Amazon is female and therefore does not need a feminine modifier added to it. The Greek pluralization is "Amazones" and would still gives us "Amazons Quartet" when translated, which is grammatically off but logically consistent. However, one single piece of Japanese merchandise romanized it to "Amazoness" (though that isn't canonical and the same doll line made numerous other errors of accepted names) and that spelling had been accepted for years (especially on TheOtherWiki) and WordOfGod has said nothing about the correct spelling. It could just be an example of Engrish (Gleek?). {{Geneon}} used it when they didn't ignore it entirely and replace it with "Amazon." The dub always called them the Amazon Quartet. "Quartetto" is either meant as the Italian word for "Quartet," or it's a literal romanization of "Quartet". People get very passionate about this name.
*** Though it could just be [[DidNotDoTheResearch that Takeuchi Naoko doesn't actually know better]]. Considering that the male group was named "Amazon Trio", it's clear that she probably thought "Amazon" was the male version and "Amazoness" was the female version. The usage of the English word "trio" would seem to suggest that "quartet" would fit in the other group's name, since it's also an English word. So even though it's technically wrong, [[TwilightLord I]] think the name is probably supposed to be Amazoness Quartet.
****Their not Amazons as in the group of warrior woman, their Amazons in the fact that they crom from the Amazon Jungle. If you view it this way Amazoness is a silly but possibly correct version as well as explaining the Nameing for the Amazon Trio.
** The Super S movie has several characters that are named after French pastries. However, because of the Engrish (Flench?), the official translation by {{Geneon}} botched most of them and the fans botched all of the rest. For the record, the QuirkyMinibossSquad is composed of Perle, Poupelin, Banane, and Orangeat, the BigBad is Madame Badiane, the little minions that come from Papillotte Candy are the Bonbon Babies, and the fortress is the Marzipannu Castle.
** Tokyopop changed "Sailor Lead Crow" to "Sailor Red Crow", missing the metal ThemeNaming present in the Sailor Animamates. And fans still argue over Aluminum Seiren/Siren. She pronounces it the first way, which is appropriate to the Greek spelling, but apparently, since it translates to "Siren", some people figure that it's easier to just call her that. The Tokyopop manga used "Siren", but considering their glowing record, this is not a shining example of veracity.
** Then there's the fans who call Princess Serenity and Queen Serenity "Selenity" despite Serenity being a word and reference to an actual lunar landmark and Selenity being gobbledygook. Queen Serenity says at one point that she is an incarnation of the Greek goddess Selene, but there are enough "Serenity" references in the series (not the least of which is the actual appearance of the Sea of ''Serenity'' in the manga) to make it clear that that is their name.
** And by the way, is "Sailormoon" (and Sailormercury, etc.) one word or two? Not all of the Japanese sources seem to agree. Given that spaces between words are inconsistent throughout various Japanese media that uses loan words, most people try to separate them into two words - because things like "Supersailormoon" or "Sailorstarmaker" are a pain to read. Some die-hard fans will still spell them as one word. And for that matter, is it Chibiusa and Chibimoon, Chibi Usa and Chibi Moon, or Chibi-Usa and Chibi-Moon? Same problem.
** And that's just the characters' ''names''. When you start getting into the items and magic powers, it gets even murkier because a lot of them used loan words that sound strange when romanized literally and could well have been spelled wrong just from converting them from, say, French to Japanese to English. Then consider that none of the companies involved were consistent about what name goes where and its enough to make you cross-eyed. ''SailorMoon'' fans have it rough.
***Most of the time it seems they didn't even bother paying attention to the attack names as half of them were renamed despite the majority of them being in English.
***Another attack name, is it Sharbo Spray (Base on the Portuguese word for soap or Sharbon Spray (based on the Japanese word for Bubble)
*** All right, one item. Chibimoon has an item in [=SuperS=] called the "Stallion Reve". "Reve" is French for "dream", which makes sense considering what the power does and the whole dream theme in [=SuperS=]. Some fans actually translated it to "Stallion Lav". "Lav" is French for "Bath." Note the utter lack of monsters getting showers from Chibimoon.
* ''MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch'', according to entry-level fans that only saw the fansubs, is the story of "Luchia" and her love for "Kaitou". Her friend "Lina" is depressed about the loss of "Nuil", which "Karen" blames her for. Need we go on?
** Even in the series itself, there were problems. The main antagonist of the first arc of the manga is named Gakuto. His name is written in katakana for most of the series, and is meant to evoke the singer Gackt, leaving his name as Gackto. However, once and only once, he uses kanji for his name that can only be read as Gakuto. And on top of that, the anime called him Gaito to distance the character from the singer and play up the connection to Kaito.
** And the prototype for Lucia, Lyre, is called "Riiru", a nonsense name, by the usually-accurate manga translation.
** Heck, when it comes to fansubs, it seems that the only names kept consistent by subbers are those of Hanon, Hippo, and Maria.
*** Nope, the first release of the first episode fansubbed called the penguin Hip.
* Intentionally done in the American releases of ''TenchiMuyo'': the character Aeka is spelled as Ayeka, so the audience knows the vowels are pronounced separately. This has the unfortunate result that the name became even more badly mangled than it would have been if the original Romanisation had been used: ah-eh-ka became eye-yay-ka.
* Many Japanese ''{{Transformers}}'' names suffer from this, and it's a running gag within the fandom. Deathsaurus/Deszaras/Deathsanras/[[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Deathsaurus Debt Source (if you're in a particularly snarky mood)]] is a key example, as is Minerva/Minelba/[[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Minerva jailbait]]. The fact that Transformers tend to have entirely different names altogether outside of Japan is actually a blessing: There is no way any transliteration of Bardigus/Vuldigus/Barudigasu would look as good on a box as [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ruination Ruination]] does. Of course, the Japanese name is an Engrish-ification of "Bruticus," the TransformersGeneration1 character Ruination is basically a PalletteSwap of.
** Also, Violen Jygar/Violent Jaguar/Violenjiga/Violent Jigga/Violent Chigger/Bio Ranger Iga/Vio Lenja Igar/Violin Juggler.
** Beating them all is Rartorata/Rartorarta/Rartalarta/Rapp[[DoctorWho akaffalatta]]''/''[[TransformersArmada Red Alert]]''/''Roto-Rooter''/''Lartarartolarltorartlroar/Lertlerta/Ratatouille''/''[[YoutubePoop Ratatoing]]''/''[[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Rartorata Throatwarbler Mangrove]], who has the drawback that his name is a "nonsense word" to begin with. (It ''may'' be from the scientific name for a lionfish.)
*** Leave it to Injector to get a Japanese name as wierd as the rest of him!
** Not to mention Tarantul'''u'''s/Tarantul'''a'''s from ''BeastWars''. The fact that the computer "Teletraan-1" was sometimes known as "Tele''tron''-1" was lampshaded in [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Nemesis_Part_2#Quotes the series finale]].
* ''{{Karin}}'' and her two siblings use the last name "Maaka", yet their parents, Henry and Carrera, have elected to use the surname "Marker". This is entirely intentional, though. The series explains from the very beginning that the family moved from Europe to Japan. The kids, having been raised in Japanese society, adopted the Japanese spelling, while the old-timey parents retained the original European spelling.
* From ''FullMetalAlchemist'', some names that appear in different forms depending on the translator are Gracia/Glacier, Lan Fan/Ran Fan/Ranfun, Riza/Liza, Halcrow/Hakuro, Olivia/Olivier and Lyra/Lyla/Ryla.
** The {{Funimation}} dub uses place names like Lior and Ishbal, while the creator, Hiromu Arakawa, uses Reole and Ishval. The English manga can't seem to make up its mind which versions to use; for instance, fluctuating between "Ishbal" and "Ishvarla", "Xerxes" and "Cserksess", etc.
*** The Funimation sub of ''Brotherhood'' uses Ishbal for the first five episodes, then switches to Ishval in the sixth (likely due to a map in the fifth episode that clearly says "Ishval").
** Almost all the names in ''FullmetalAlchemist'' have been disputed at one point or another, from Winry/Winly to Huey/Fury/Fuery to Marta/Martyl/Martel [[strike:Resembool]] [[strike:Risembool]] [[strike:Rizenbul]] [[strike:Rizembool]] [[strike:Rizembul]] [[strike:Rizenbool]] [[strike:Risempool]] ...the Elric brothers' hometown.
*** Add another one to the list: Liesenburgh. Found in a {{scanlation}} of chapter 8.
*** The Spanish official translation of the manga has it Riesenburg (German for Castle of Giants or Giantville).
**** Riesenburg, a real town in Germany, was the birthplace of the Von Hohenheim family, and thus has a family connection to the Elric brothers through their father Hohenheim of Light(in the anime) or Van Hohenheim (in the manga).
*** One cannot forget Liesenbough, either.
** With the characters Lin/Ling Yao and Mei/May Chan/Chang, a G was added top their names within one or two volumes for no apparent reason than the translators forgot their own name choice.
*** In one image, there is a closeup of a prisoner identification bracelet given to Ling, with English lettering on it, rendering his name as "Ling Yao". This was particularly hilarious with the Official Viz translation. The dialogue bubble in the SAME PANEL has another character going "So your name is Lin Yao?". ''''
**** This should be blamed on Hiromu Arakawa, in all other official english translation (such as the Character guides, and calenders) it's always Lin Yao, it's only Ling in that one panel.
*** Fun examples like those, as well as spelling Xerxes (Persian king whose consort was Amestris) as 'Cserksess,' Gracia as 'Glacier,' and Ishvar (spelled with the Japanese character for 'v') as 'Ishbal,' seem to provide compelling examples of Official Is Not Always Right.
*** Viz also ping-ponged between "Van" and "Von" for Hohenheim's first name for a while, until they were forced to settle on Von when the Paracelsus reference came up.
** Not to mention the [[FanDumb fans who insist]] on calling Ed and Al "Edo" and "Aru"... although the fact that their names should be rendered in English is painfully obvious.
** There's argument over whether the librarian should be "Scieszka" or "Sheska". There's not much agreement between the English releases either. Even Funimation's subtitles differ from their own liner notes on this one.
** The strangest is Lan Fan's grandfather, who the fans refer to as Fu; the official perfect guide for the manga refers to him as "Who". Apparently, Arakawa likes baseball.
** ''FullmetalAlchemist: Brotherhood'' does solve this issue in one respect: the {{eyecatch}}es, even in the raw Japanese version, spell the names of the featured characters in English. Funimation, naturally, has chosen to use the same spellings in the subtitles.
** The official ''Viz'' translation of the manga called Mustang's bodyguard Riza, and Elizabeth by [[spoiler: Madame Christmas]].
*** The OFFICIAL translation also has Winry calling her "Ms. Lisa". Oy.
* Virtually all of the character and place names from the ''{{Bastard}}!'' anime are taken from the names of 80's Heavy Metal bands. In the dubbed version, most of these are warped into unrecognizable variants. This was mostly to avoid getting sued by the bands for trademark infringement when the anime was released in the U.S. We know how touchy some metal bands can be when it comes to their legal rights (I'm looking at you, [[strike:Metallica]] Meta-rikana).
** ''[=~Jojo's Bizarre Adventure~=]'' had a similar problem, with characters such as [[strike:Enya]] N-ya/Enyabba and [[strike:Vanilla Ice]] Iced.
* ''[=~D.Gray-Man~=]'' has a character who the Japanese have already romanized as "Arystar Krory", but to English speakers, the name is obviously a reference to Aleister Crowley. Still, Krory is officially Arystar Krory. The author specifically wanted a name that sounded like the infamous Crowley but wasn't.
** Not to mention the million different spellings of [[strike:Rinali]] [[strike:Linali]] [[strike:Linalee]] [[strike:Lenalee]] ... that one Chinese girl's name. Plus, her surname can be romanized as either Lee or Li. And then there's Rabi vs. Lavi and Tyki Mikk vs. Ticky Mick and... basically 90% of the characters in the series are subject to this.
*** Worse than any of the others, some of the names for one of the Noah twins: Devit, Debit, Debitt, David, Debitto, Devitto, Debbit.
** Luckily, [[WordOfGod the author]] added a nice chart with all the characters's names, in English, to one of the volumes. A similar chart (also English) followed one of the anime episodes. Most of the spellings were different.
** Though one of the names on the author's list is spelled "Jeryy," so some fans choose to ignore the list.
* Intentionally done with Bulma's family in ''DragonBall'' to hide the fact that [[ThemeNaming all of them are named after underwear]]. While "Briefs" (ブリーフ, ''buriifu'') and "Trunks" (トランクス, ''torankusu'') are kept, "Bloomers" (ブルマ ''buruma'', via a GratuitousEnglish brand name) becomes "Bulma" and "Bra" (ブラ ''bura'') becomes "Bulla."
** To be perfectly fair, while intended to be a pun on bloomers/buruma, the character's very first appearance (and several subsequent ones) has her wearing a shirt with 'Bulma' printed right across her chest. Her creator messed up his L/Rs and it stuck. The spelling itself is consistent, if the characters still always call her 'Buruma.' Calling Bra "Bulla" is pure [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerisation]], though.
***The UK dubs of the movies call her Bloomer, incidentally.
** As if that's the only example in ''DragonBall'' (maybe the only ''intentional'' one). While names like Kulilin/Krillin/Kuririn (クリリン) or Yamcha/Yamucha (ヤムチャ) can be hotly debated for hours, one has to wonder why anyone would think that words of blatantly non-Japanese origins such as "Piccolo" or "Garlic Jr." could ever be taken at face value as "Pikkoro" or "Gaariku Juniya.", or "Red Ribbon" as "Red Ribon" for that matter.
***Yamcha's name is actually supposed to be ''Yum''cha, referencing Yum cha, Cantonese for "tea drinking". This is backed up by the fact that his partner is named Puar, a reference to pǔ'ěr tea.
** The biggest offender is the character "Rikuumu" (リクーム), whose name is an anagram of Cream or "Kuriimu" (クリーム) in Japanese . Due to the extended vowel being its own character, this is a simple matter of switching the two first characters, ku and ri, in the base word, but the result is completely impossible to spell out in English while keeping the pun. The official subtitles settled on "[=ReaCoom=]", which no one would ever see as a pun on the word "cream" unless actually told so.
***Adding to the confusion, the dub uses "Reccoome".
***It should be Recam anyway.
*** Don't forget some of his buddies. iirc, there are at least two or three different names each for the little red guy and the tall blue one (whose names are something like "Jayce" and "Burter" in the dub, respectively)
** "Vegeta" might be the biggest offender. The series is full of name puns, every Saiyan is named after a vegetable, and it has been recently revealed that this character's younger brother is named "Table/Tarble." And yet, there are still some people who will violently insist that the character is named "Bejiter."
** The name "Vegetto" (ベジット, "Bejitto" in Japanese writing), the combined alter-ego of Goku and Vegeta whose name is a portmanteau of their Saiyan birth names, only makes sense if you romanize the name "Kakarotto" (カカロット) as if instead of using "Kakarot". Because of this, Viz renamed him "Vegerot" in the English manga. On the other hand, the Funimation dub used the spelling "Vegito", which was originally from the French dub and makes no sense in the context of the English dub.
*** Not to mention the whole Goku/Gokuu/Gokou issue
** Don't forget Lunch (ランチ, ''Ranchi''), which the dub calls "Launch" for some reason. Because schizophrenic girls named after meals is bad?
** And Bardock, whose name is probably supposed to be Burdock (in keeping with the plant/vegetable ThemeNaming). Some dubs also call him "Bard'''a'''ck".
** and Frieza/Freezer
* Cz/Shiizu and Celia/Sillia/Seria Mauser in ''ScrappedPrincess''. This being despite the running theme of naming characters after firearms (and related terms).
* ''{{Mai-Otome}}'', which includes LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters with Western-sounding names, is literally full of this despite the fact that ''official romanizations are available on the official website''... except, for some reason, for Lena Sayers, leading to her name being consistently and incorrectly spelled "Rena" in fandom (and the credits for the English version). And that's not even taking into account GEM or country names...
* The lead character of ''GunsmithCats'' was given the official English name of Rally Vincent, but WordOfGod is that her name is actually ''Larry'' Vincent.
* ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' suffers an interesting case of this: one of the show's characters is an MysteriousWaif whose name was probably intended to be "Isis", in a nod to the Egyptian goddess. Trouble is, the word "Isis" is particularly difficult to recreate in Japanese; the closest they could come was "Ishizu" ('''Aishisu'''). Presumably this could've been changed back to "Isis" for the English release, but then the lip movements would no longer have matched, so she had to keep being Ishizu.
** Meanwhile, the big bad of the Battle City story arc has his named rendered as "Marik", rather than "Malik" (which is an Arabic word meaning "ruler").
*** In Yu-Gi-Oh's {{fanfic}}-writing fanbase, this transliteration discrepancy [[FanNickname is conventionally dealt with]] by calling Yami Ma(r/l)ik "Marik" and normal Ma(r/l)ik "Malik."
** Also, Jonouchi/Jounouchi/Jyonouchi/Jyonochi/etc.
* On the ''{{Yu-Gi-OhGX}}'' side of things, there are at least two people in the world who think that Yubel's name is actually supposed to be Juwel, as in the German word for jewel. (Remember that in German, J's sound like Y's and W's sound like V's.) Considering that [[GratuitousGerman ALL of her alternate forms also have German names]], this might not be too far off base.
* RealRobot series often experience a dissonance between official names and Romaji, as a result of their heavy use of foreign names. In particular, ''MobileSuitGundam'' has examples such as Char/Shar/Shaa, Judau Ashita/Judo/Ashta, and the rather embarassing Quattro Bajeena, often rendered in Japanese sources as... Quattro Vagina.
** ''GundamWing'' in particular has a [[FanDumb surprising number of fans]] who insist upon using phonetic versions of the cast's names (eg. Hiiro Yui, Kyatora), despite the fact that official English spellings have existed almost since Day 1 (Heero Yuy, Quatre).
** A play on this occurs with ''GundamSEED'', wherein major character Athrun Zala has been given the FanNickname "Assram", reflecting the attitude some viewers have for his [[HeterosexualLifePartners special friendship]] with protagonist Kira Yamato.
** ''GundamZZ'' never had an official English sub or dub, and so debate rages as to whether "Elpeo Puru" or "Elpeo Ple" is more correct.
** Unlike many examples here that ignore ThemeNaming, the ''SoukouNoStrain'' fansubs initially ignored on-screen references to "Sara Cruz", calling her "Sara Crewe" ''because'' of the theme. There's also Ermy, who is supposed to be named after Ermengarde St. John, but whose name was on the fansubs as "Amy". And the fact that everyone's last name is a variation on that of their Hodgson Burnett counterpart (usually a SignificantAnagram) makes them somewhat clumsy and difficult to pronounce, so "Gelh", "Johannits", "Reberth" and "Shoebbeypower" had a lot of alternatives before they were written onscreen.
** ''FullMetalPanic!'' has captain Teletha Testarossa (which, considering she is supposedly Italian, should probably have been "Teresa" or, if her parents went for the GratutiousEnglish, "Theresa", especially given that she goes by the nickname "Tessa"). In addition, there is lieutenant Belfangan Grouseaux/Closeaux/Clouseau (French), and the Urzu/Uruz/Uluz mecha strike team.
* Similar to ''Gundam'', ''CodeGeass'' uses Western names heavily. The most prominent example is Kallen Stadtfelt, who some fans '''still''' call "Karen" despite WordOfGod reinforcing "Kallen" as official. Since she's biracial and passing as Britannian, a lot of people settle for "Kallen Stadtfeld" as her public name and "Kouzuki Karen" as her real name.((Except when you consider that KAREN is a typical Western name and thus would make no sense for Kallen to use a Britannia-style name for her Japanese identity)) In a similar but stranger fashion, there seems to be heavy disagreement over whether female lead C.C.'s name should be pronounced "C-Two" or "Cici" (the former is official). One fansub referenced Rivalz as Leval, which would certainly make sense for a citizen of the somewhat Gallic Britannia. Just to add to it, the American actors render the name as sounding something like "Rivvle" in an attempt to preserve the original pronunciation.
** It even extends to organizations; the fan-preferred name for LaResistance is "The Order of the Black Knights", which is a slightly mangled translation of "Kuro no Kishidan". The official translation is simply "The Black Knights", but most fans continue to use the longer name, presumably because [[RuleOfCool it just sounds cooler]].
*** Similarly, the secret organization that appears in early ''R2''; referred to as the Order, [[spoiler:the Geass Cult]], or [[spoiler:the Geass Directorate]]. In-series documents give the name of the group as "[[spoiler:The Followers of Geass]]".
** He's not particularly important, but there seems to have been some confusion regarding Carares/Carales/Calares (the latter is apparently the official version).
** The soup of disputed spellings continues to thicken as R2 continues its run in America, with even the Emperor's name now coming into question (before they simply side-stepped the issue by only crediting him as "Emperor of Brittania"). Originally, fans generally accepted "Charles di Britannia" as the spelling, but now both the show and the first light novel spell it "Charles ''zi'' Britannia".
*** The confusion here stems from the fact that Japanese sometimes uses the same characters for words beginning with G, D, and Z; this lead to a debate over whether Britannia's Knight the Third was named "Gino Weinberg" or "Zino Weinberg", both of which were used in magazines and official sources. For the record, "Gino" is used in the American dub.
***It's the result of the fact that the initial consonant sounds of two different katakana, ジ and ヂ, are used to represent an unfortunate number of English sounds, (including d, z, zh, and j, possibly among others), and their sounds have converged to be almost identical in modern Japanese to the point where the kana themselves are almost entirely interchangable. Compare the Japanese borrowing of "radio", ''rajio'' (ラジオ). Ask any beginning student of Japanese about those two kana, and you're likely to get an exasperated sigh in return.
** Many fansubs refer to Nunnally as Nanaly.
** What about Lelouch's nickname? Is it Lelou, or Lulu?
** All official media spells Milly Ashford's first name as "Milly", but some fans continue to insist on "Millay".
* The official translation of ''SerialExperimentsLain'' lost something in calling the protagonist's [[HeterosexualLifePartners best friend forever]] Arisu. Since much of the series' plot hangs on themes of disconnect and dissociation (sometimes to the levels of [[MindScrew schizophrenic psychosis]]), an opportunity was missed to emphasize them in a subtle way. Consider, if you will, the whole l/r thing and think about what their names are. Lain. Alice. "Arisu" isn't any weirder than any other Japanese name to American ears, so why should she say "Isn't that weird?" whe she introduces herself. Everyone around the two of them has nice normal Japanese names, but they've got English names. They're ''different.'' It's just one more reason they're fated friends (and possible (([[HideYourLesbians but never explicit]])) SchoolgirlLesbians). [[GoAskAlice Not to mention all the times Arisu/Alice gets thrown down the metaphorical rabbit hole]].
* Makubex/[=MakubeX=]/Makube X from ''GetBackers''.
* In ''{{Naruto}}'', Rock Lee's mentor has had ''both'' of his names vary in spelling: Might/Mighty/Maito Guy/Gai (official translation: [[http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1144/152153ow9.jpg Might Guy]]). Despite there being an official spelling, there's still too many fans who insist on one of the other spellings.
** In the first databook, his name was romanized as [[http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/4598/056057.jpg Gai]].
** To be fair, almost every translation prior to the official one had his name as Gai, and that is a more common transliteration. Also, the official translation of the manga [[InconsistentDub originally used "Mighty Guy"]].
** As a side note, the dub had Kisame mock his name by calling him "Mighty Stupid-looking Guy."
** Pain's name was originally frequently romanized as "Pein," but this was before he mentioned why he adopted that name.
* ''{{Simoun}}'' had its main character's name generally rendered as Aaeru, with some groups of fans insisting that this was a Japanization of 'Aelle' until the official romanization turned out to be 'Aer'.
* ''Beet the Vandel Buster'' suffers from this several times. The first Vandel enemy of the series is identified as Mugine when characters are talking, but written as Mugain. The hometown of the heroes varies from Ankles to Uncruz and everywhere in between.
* Some of the Espada from ''{{Bleach}}'' have two or three different spellings for their names. Is it Noitora or Nnoitra? Is Grimmjow's last name Jeagerjaques or Jaggerjack? The world may never know.
** Through official manga title pages and official CDs, some characters' spellings have already been established. Examples: Nnoitra, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques, Nel, brothers Yylfordt and Szayel Aporro Granz, Aaroniero....but one we may never be sure of is that kid Arrancar: is it Wanderweiss or Wonderwice?
*** Due to the time required to dub the anime, The manga revealed that Hallibel's name is officially spelled as "Harribel." However, The dub's official pronunciation now and forever is "Hallibel" as many fan translations decided sounded better and easier to pronounce in English. Technically, both are officially correct. Her name is spelled with the R, but spoken (even in Japanese) with the L.
** Even before the Espadas, Bleach translations had this. For example, Zaraki Kenpachi was formerly known as Giraki Kenbachi, and before that Saraki Tsugurihachi (oy). Benihime (Urahara's zanpakuto) was Kurenaihime, believe me, the list goes on.
*** Mayuri Kurotsuchi's surname was once rendered "Kumetsumo". Even '''Zangetsu''' is not immune to this- its name was rendered as "Kitsuki" in one translation.
**** This was probably because it was translated from Chinese. In the Japanese version the reading is always given in furigana.
** The Bleach Wiki insists that "Starrk"'s name (Sutaaku) is "mostly incorrectly romanized as '''[[BoldInflation Stark]]'''".
** Cuulhorne's another example, as his name's proper spelling was only revealed on a cover page [[spoiler:just after he died]].
* To the irritation of most of its Western fans, the beautifully dubbed ''Heroic Legend of Arislan'' switched horses in mid-stream and changed pronunciation for all major characters and cities after the first two films were released, turning Arislan, Daryoon, Narsus, Pharangese, and Gieve into Arslan, Darun, Narcasse, Farangis, and Guibu.
** To make it more complex, all the names come from Persian legend -- the English dub doesn't reflect this because the original English translator doesn't seem to have done the research.
* The {{hentai}} OVA ''{{Urotsukidouji}}'' features a German villain whose name is probably supposed to be "Münchhausen", but when the Japanese try to pronounce it it comes out as "Myunihausen" (which does not sound German at all), and this pronunciation carried over into the American dub.
* ''[[RuneSoldierLouie Mahou Senshi Ryui]]'', where the name of the main character, a sorcerer who acts like a brawler, can be translated as Ryui or Louie.
* In ''{{Gungrave}}'', minor character Blood War frequently had his name translated as Brad Wong by dubbers thrown off by the unusual pronunciation.
* ''{{Fist of the North Star}}'' has a major antagonist whose name is written サウザー (''Sauzaa'') in Japanese. The romanization of his name varies between official Japanese media, with spellings such as "Souther" (used in the ''Kyukyoku Kaisetsusho'' book), "Thouzer" (used in the ''All About The Man'' magazine), "Thouther" (used in the Sega fighting game), and even "Thoutoher" (in the ''Ten no Haou'' manga).
** The name Yuda　(ユダ) is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Biblical traitor Judas Iscariot, which comes from the Hebrew form Judah. Most official sources use either, "Yuda" or "Juda".
** The short-lived English adaptation of the manga by Viz anglicized many of the characters' names. Lin/Rin (リン) became Lynn, Rei (レイ) became Ray, Airi　(アイリ) became Iris, and Mamiya (マミヤ) became Mamia.
** In the English dub of the anime, the name Yuria　(ユリア) was anglicized to Julia and for some reason Bat (バット, ''Batto'') became Bart　(which would actually be バート or ''Baato'' in Japanese).
*** "Julia" is pronounced "Yulia" in German, so that romanization might make sense... not that it excuses the ''dub'' pronouncing it wrong.
** Even Raoh (ラオウ) is not immune to this, with some sources using "Rao", "Raou", "Laoh", or even the sicilianized "Raoul". The first two, at least, are acceptable under different romanization schemes, and the third is borderline.
* In ''DigimonTamers'', Lee Jianliang and Xiaochang are [[ButNotTooForeign half-Chinese]] [[ChinesePeople and have Chinese names]]. Apparently, much of the fandom didn't get the memo, and continue to call them Jenrya and Shiuchon (or ''Shuichon'', after an early translator's typo caught on).
** In their defense, it's extremely unusual for someone living permanently in Japan to use a non-Japanese spelling or punctuation (hell, it used to be outright illegal for citizens) and 90% of resident Chinese would use Jenrya and Shiuchon, just because that’s what everyone reading your name would call you.
*** The ''Jenrya'' and ''Shiuchon'' pronounciations would still be considered foreign. The natural Japanese pronounciation of their names would be ''Ri Kenryou'' and ''Ri Shoushun''. Even then though, the structure of their names would still mark them as foreign.
** That's also the question surrounding ''any'' anime characters of a Hong Kong heritage: their name should be romanized as Canetonese or Mandarin? In that case, it'd be more realistic to call Lee as Lee Kin-leung.
* The same thing happens to the male lead in ''CardCaptorSakura'' and ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle''. Some translations give his name as the romanized Li Syaoran or Shaoran, others the Chinese name Li Xiaolang.
** His name can be romanized as either ''Li Xiaolang'' or ''Li Hsiao Lang''. On the other hand, since Xiaolong is from Hong Kong, his name ''really'' should be pronounced ''Lei Siulong''.
** The ''Cardcaptors'' dub, however, actually switched his name so that Li was his given name, his surname then becoming Showron. This admittedly isn't as bad as what was done to most characters, who got completely new names.
*** Some fans think ''Cardcaptors'' did this to {{Bowdlerise}} incest. Li Meiling is his cousin and also his fiancée (until this is {{Retcon}}ned). Shifting around his name, while not shifting around Meiling's name (and romanizing "Li" as "Rae" for her) hides this.
** ''CardCaptor Sakura'' unfortunally is littered with these, mostly due the dub and Geneon's subs as well. As mentioned before, Syaoran (小狼, ''Xiǎoláng'' in Pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Shaoran or Shaolan. Meiling (苺鈴, ''Méilín'' in pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Meilin or with a dash in her name (Mei-Ling). Cerberus is almost always mispelled as Keroberos. The offical Bilingual manga (which is more accuratly translated then the Tokyopop version) brings up several different spellings including Touya as Toya and Kero as Cero. According to CLAMP's offical website, it should be Cerberus, Kero, Touya and Syaoran. There is no offical consensus on Meiling's correct spelling.
* Also from ''Tsubasa'', Fye became Fai became Fay. Interestingly, Fay is pronounced how Fye and Fai would normally be. The official spelling is actually Fay D Flourite. His last name was previously also interpreted "Flowright", even being spelled as such in the official English manga. In fact, the WordOfGod spelling is erroneous, as the name refers to the mineral ''fluorite'', the sacred crystal in his wizard's staff. And there is no need for a period after the "D" because it's not an initial but a infixed title. Fay causes a great many translator migraines.
* ''DigimonDataSquad'' (a.k.a. the dub of ''DigimonSavers'') gave us the oddly romanized "[=BioRotosmon=]", "[=BioSupinomon=]", and "Eldradimon," instead of the more logical "[=BioLotusmon=]", "[=BioSpinomon=]", and "[=ElDoradimon=]." (After El Dorado; he's a [[TurtlePower turtle]] with a city on his back.) There's also the Royal Knights' [=LoadKnightmon=]. Bandai of America previously called him "[=LordKnightmon=]," while most of the fandom seemed to prefer "[=RhodoKnightmon=]," as a pun on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodonite rhodonite]], which matches his color scheme. Adding to the fun, the dub of ''DigimonFrontier'' took the ShesAManInJapan route and just called her Crusadermon.
** An earlier example: Wendimon/{{Wendigo}}mon/Endigomon, from the [[{{Macekre}} something]]th movie. A champion level that eventually became the Mega Kerpymon, which was then changed when it reappeared in ''[[DigimonFrontier Frontier]]'' to become Cherubimon.
* Almost every name in ''HunterXHunter'' comes with several alternate spellings (Kurapika/Curapica/Clapika, Ging/Gin/Jin, Freaks/Freecs, Zoldyck/Zaoldyeck, Uvogin/Ubougin, Ponds/Ponzu, Kaito/Kite, Kuroro/Quoll/Chrollo, etc.). There are a set of "official" spellings, but no one, not even the official English translation, uses them. Honestly, would you call a character Curarpikt, Hyskoa, Chzzok, Phalcnothdk, or Quwrof Wrlccywrlir when you could use something that makes phonetic sense?
** Yes, because unpronounceable-looking words are awesome. I'd actually love to read those names along with hearing the Japanese VAs pronounce them.
* ''DiGiCharat'': One character is usually transliterated as "Rabi~en~Rose" -- when it really ought to be "La Vie En Rose", a French saying meaning "Life in Pink", or rather, "seeing through rose-colored glasses'.
* The ''PrettyCure''/''Precure'' franchise can't even decide what it's ''called''. The English text in the original logo ("PRETTY CURE") doesn't actually match the Japanese text ("purikyua," i.e. "Precure"). [[YesPrecure5 For one universe]], the English text was dropped from the logo, seemingly making it officially Precure, except that merchandise continued to romanize it as Pretty Cure, and the various theme songs very clearly pronounce it ''both'' ways, depending on what best fits the meter. Even the characters themselves don't seem to be able to decide, as demonstrated early in ''[[YesPrecure5 Yes! Whichever 5]]'', where Nozomi first tells Karen about "purikyua," and Karen immediately respons "Puritikyua?". Finally, it gets explicitly spelled out "P-R-E-C-U-R-E" in the second ending of ''FreshPrettyCure''... the series which ''also'' restored the English text to the logo, now spelling out the entire title as "FRESH PRETTY CURE." '''''Aaaaaaaargh!'''''
** Past that, despite the miracle of official websites with consistently-spelled names in the [=URLs=], you'll occasionally see references to "Lynn", "Ulala" or even "Oolala" (though oddly not "[[CodeGeass Kallen]]" or "[[MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch Caren]]"). And some sites insist on turning Rin into the flat-out wrong "Karin" for some reason ([[PortmanteauCoupleName shipping?]]).
** It's extremely common in Japanese to shorten long, clumsy romanized words into 3 or 4 syllable "native" words. (e.g. ''waapuro'' for word processor, "jipan" for jean pants, "sutamen" for starting member, etc.) Shortening ''Pretty Cure'' to "purikyua" is merely following that tradition.
** There's also the question of whether [[FutariWaPrettyCureSplashStar Mai]] becomes Cure Egret or Cure Eaglet... and in response, some fans have jokingly said that Saki becomes Cure Broom. Well, [[AnimeHair her hair does look like a broom]].
** Also, [[FreshPrettyCure Tart]] or Tarte? Wester or Westar? Souler or Soular? Love as Lovey?
* Viz Comics used the name "Tetsusaiga" for the sword in ''{{Inuyasha}}''. This is a mistake resulting from a misinterpretation of the small 'tsu' character (which acts as consonant doubler for the next syllable) in the name; the correct spelling is "Tessaiga". TheOtherWiki spread the error even further because its rules have been interpreted to use Viz's version, and to ignore the mistake.
** It doesn't help that the dub pronounces it "Te'''t'''saiga".
** While on the subject of Inuyasha, while all title cards and subtitles refer to a "Kirara", all characters pronounce the name "Kilala". Of course, in Japanese these are the same thing.
* All the character names from ''PrincessTutu'' suffered from this in some of the subtitle releases, from going from Mytho to Mute and to the strange insistence to keep romanizations from Lillie to Ririe.
* Even ''SamuraiPizzaCats'' has this, mostly because there's very little official sources to use for spelling the names. "Speedy Cerviche" is officially the title character's name. It's based on "ceviche", which is a kind of seafood salad. For years, many fans adopted the name "Service", using Italian phonetics, because it made the tidy pun of "Speedy Service". It's strange that this should happen in the ''English dub'' of a franchise, but there you go.
* ''ChronoCrusade'' has this happen at least once in ''the official translation'' of the manga: Satella's name is sometimes given as "Stella". Then there's others like Aion/Ion, Chrono/Chrno, Azumaria/Azmaria...
* The Joketsuzoku of ''[=~Ranma ½~=]'' have had their names spelled all kinds of ways by the fandom beside their obvious PunnyName, particularly in fanfiction (Mousse and Cologne often become Mu Tsu and Kuh Lon, for example). Shampoo's had it the worst, with Shan Po, Shan Pu, Xian Pu, and other such interpretations.
** In the first Ranma video game, Cologne was spelt Colon.
* In ''[[ZeroNoTsukaima Zero No Tsukaima]]'', fansubs often mistakenly subbed Agnés' name as Anies or something similar. The long French names are confusing too. Fansubs switched between Valliel, Vallielle, and finally Valliére for Louise's last name. Some fansubs even subbed Tabitha, who has a Western name, as Tabasa.
** The dub has also decided that the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Europe counterpart continent]], referred to as Halkeginia by fans, is really Harkeginia.
* In ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', the official translation refers to the HumongousMecha as "Gunmen", confusing fans that had long since been calling them "Ganmen". Then there's the pronunciation of "Simon" (which is Romanized that way despite not being pronounced like the name Simon). The original uses "she-moan", while the dub uses "see-moan" (which both [[{{Narm}} lead to humor]] as they both sound pretty dirty and like the girl's name "Simone"). There's also Rossiu/Rosshiu. Anothering thing is that the last word in the "[[CallingYourAttacks Giga Drill Break(er)]]" is [[GratuitousEnglish pronounced "Breakah"]], leading to confusion as to whether it's suppose to be "Breaker" or just "Break". The difference between Gunmen and Ganmen may be a case of Wooleyism, "Ganmen" is japanese for "Face", a reference to the fact that all of them have faces(some have two) while Gunmen is an english pun.
** Later on, the [[spoiler: mass-produced mecha built from Gurren Lagann's schematics]] are translated as Grappal by one segment of the fandom, and as Gulaparl in another. Strangely, it has never been translated as the obvious "Grapple". It makes perfect sense with the katakana, and--bonus!--it's actually a word, like Gunmen, Drill Breaker, and the majority of the rest of the TTGL Engrish. Regardlessly, the official name is "Grapearl".
*** The name of the mecha is sometimes given as an abbreviation of it's status as a [[spoiler:"Gu"rren "La"gann "Pr"ototype]].
** It doesn't help that a lot of the names were romanized ''very'' differently then how they are pronounced, often to keep with ThemeNaming. For example Viral is the official Romanization even though it's pronounced "VEE-AH-riil", and "Thymilph" (after "thymine") even though it's pronounced "TEE-Mil".
*** That sounds more a case of wrong pronunciation than wrong spelling, really.
** Then there's Yoko's village's name. Based on an in-universe alphabet and a bit of television footage of her winning a beauty contest of some sort, some concluded it was Rittonar; the official translation has gone with Littner.
** Lordgenome/Lord Genome is something between this and IAmNotShazam.
* In ''{{Crest of the Stars}}'' and its sequels, the Abh have their own language, Baronh. Despite its Japanese roots, it has an alphabet, many sounds not in Japanese, and pronunciation rules almost as bizarre as English. In the English version, most Baronh words are transliterated from Japanese, ignoring the official romanization and pronunciation guides. For example, the name of the female protagonist "Ablïarsec Lamhirh" becomes "Aburiaru Rafiiru" in Japanese and "Abriel Lafiel" in English. The proper pronunciation is closer to "Ablyars Lafirh".
* Most of the characters in ''{{Rose of Versailles}} have fairly easily recognisable French names -- except for one, who is variously referred to as Gerodere, Girodelle, Girondelle, Girodel, Girodet, Giradel and Jiroderu. It's not just a fan thing, either -- most of those variants have appeared in official translations of the manga or anime.
* The names of demons/mamodo in ''GashBell'' is a frequent source of frustration since the creator rarely gives them straight up English names, but an especially infuriating one is the guy who hangs out with a movie director and sings a garbled "Ode to Joy", which has been rendered as Kisu, Kiees, Keith, Kiss or Kiith.
* ''DirtyPair'' has Mugi/Mughi. (The latter spelling comes from the first episode of the OVA series [[RetCon retconning]] his name to be an acronym for "Military Utility Genetic Hiper (sic) Intelligence".)
** ''DirtyPair Flash'' has Lady Flair/Flare/Freya.
* ''{{Mahoromatic}}'' has Mashu/Masshu/Mash/Mathew/Matthew. ({{Geneon}} uses "Matthew", and Tokyopop uses all of them at different times.)
* In the French translation of ''YoureUnderArrest'' by Pika Édition, in chapter 2, the woman in the Mercedes 300SL tries to avoid getting a ticket by claiming that her father is a member of parliament. Natsumi jokingly responds that her father is "the great wrestler Haruku Hogan" (should be Hulk Hogan).
* Del Rey has made an attempt to avert this with ''FairyTail'' by asking the author Hiro Mashima himself for a list of English-translated names. An act that should help cut down on the possible mistakes/debates since the names are WordOfGod.
** Unofficial translations of chapters not yet published by Del Rey make names fun though. To start, their's Jeral/Gerald/Gerard/Gérard, and now Brain/Blane.
* ''DarkerThanBlack'' has a possible example with Decade, British spymaster [[spoiler: and member of TheSyndicate]]. While the name is a perfectly reasonable CodeName, given that his agents use month-based code names, one fan-sub translated the name as Richards.
* The FantasticChildren fandom is terrible about this. Even thought an English dub was officially released, no one seems to agree whether he's Sess or Sesu or Seth, or if it's Toma or Thoma or Tomas, or if you should spell it Duma or Dumas. Even Soran and Solan get interchanged sometimes too.
* Much like the ThemeNaming in ''TokyoMewMew'', ''[[RosarioToVampire Rosario + Vampire]]'' has a main character consistently labelled "Moka" on merchandise and in the show, and, as she's been passing as a human, she ''should'' have a Japanese-sounding name - still, her name is supposed to evoke "mocha", so some people just call her that.\
** Given that her sisters are named "Cocoa" and "Kahlua", [[ThemeNaming "Mocha"]] would clearly seem to be the intended name here...
* In ''{{Gundam 00}}'' there was much confusion over [[FanNickname Evil Amuro's]] true name, since "Ribbons Almarck" sounded just too stupid too be true. Many thought it instead was "Livonse Almack", but were proven wrong.
* Canada's human name in ''AxisPowersHetalia'' is romanized as both "Matthew" and "Mathieu"; fitting, considering the strife between Anglophones and Francophones in the country.
** Possibly due to a mistake in transliteration, Hungary's human name, "Elizabeta" is widely spelled as "Elizaveta" in the fandom. Hungarian fans are not impressed.
* In ''[[KatekyoHitmanReborn Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' there is a character who's name is either Jill, Raziel, or Rasiel. [[spoiler: Given that his brother's name is Belphegore, Rasiel is the most probable.]]
** Not to mention Colon(n)ello, Ma(r/m)mon, L(u/i)ssuria, etc., etc.
*** And now that we've got the new chapter, we've obtained (Y)Uni as well...
* ''UruseiYatsura'' has a single-appearance character with the name ベリアル (Beriaru). This is based on the Hebrew term "Belial", but in the story where this character appears, he considers Ataru's VSign to be his initial, because of the B / V ambiguity in transcription of Latin characters to kana. Animeigo's subtitles render the name as "Velial", whereas Viz's translation of the manga used the completely different name "Virility".
* ''KyoKaraMaoh'' is painfully full of these. The dub spelled the main character's name as "Yuri" while most subs and fans had used "Yuuri". The spelling of several last names is argued upon, such as Kleist/Christ or Bielfeld/Bielfelt, and a sub that used "Forngrantz" and "Fornchrist" and such, apparently having missed the German ThemeNaming where the correct translations were "von Grantz" and "von Christ". Saralegui's name is still sometimes written as "Sarareigi", and no one can agree on whether his retainers name is Belias or Berias or Beries. The worst by far is poor Geneus/Janus/Jeanus/Jyanuss/however million other ways his name has been writing.
* In ''[[ViolinistOfHameln The Violinist of Hamelin]]''... or is it "Hameln"? Perhaps just "Hamel"? In the anime, the fansubs can never decide. This is because in the manga, the hero ''Hamel'' is heading north to the demon capitol ''Hamelin'', in reference to the fairy tale ''The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The anime, however, left the northern capitol out almost entirely, never calling it by name. This lead the fansubbers to call Hamel "Hameln" in the subtitles because they have no idea what the title is referring to, and the main character is their best bet. The word in the title is spelled "hamerun", but the character's name is clearly pronounced "hameru" without the "n". Because of the overall musical theme with some mythology mixed in, there was a lot of theme naming, so the franchise didn't suffer much otherwise, except for a few things: Trom Bone (or is it one word, Trombone? The world may never really know, though it seems to be two officially) has a sword attack that's called the "Scissor Slash" at times and (hilariously) "Jesus Slash" at others. The BigBad of the series suffers at times too: his Japanese name, Maou Kesutora, is a pun on "orchestra," as "maou" is the word for the ruler of the demons (essentially, Satan) and "oukesutora" is the Japanese transliteration of "orchestra." The pun is lost to the English-speaking audience, however, so which is it: Chestra or Kestra? Most people seem to agree on "Chestra," but it hops all over the place.
* In SoulEater, though it's mainly Eruka, Americanizing (or Germanizing it, if you're picky about name origins) it could make variants like Elke or Elka, both being pronounced the same way.
** There shouldn't be any problem on this one, since it's meant to be an anagram of ''kaeru'', which means frog.
* And then... there's ''{{Legend of Galactic Heroes}}'', in which everyone on the Imperial side has a German name, and the Alliance side is a kind of multicultural potluck, all rendered in katakana pronunciation. The people that made the anime version (wherein the characters' names appear onscreen when they are introduced) didn't even know where to begin with this mess, and the resulting roman spellings are often bizarre. The later DVD release features revised spellings. Add a handful of different fansub romanizations into the mix and the result is almost as complicated as the actual ''show''.
* The ''{{Planetes}}'' manga (Tokyopop) and anime (Bandai USA) have different romanization schemas for two important names: the Von Braun's experimental drive is called "Tandem Miller" engine (presumably named after its creator) in the latter, while the former calls it "Tandem-Mirror" (on account of its design depending on mirrors). There's also the character Hakim/Hakimu (both versions used in the manga) as well as Hakeem (anime).
* The third Astrea school in ''StrawberryPanic'' was, in fan translations, translated as [=LeRim=], [=LeLim=], and the official Lulim.
* In the Yen Press release of ''{{Kuroshitsuji}}'' (Now called Black Butler), two servants of the household were given names that didn't match up with the vast majority of scanlations and subbed episodes. The maid, usually called Maylene, was dubbed May-Rin, and the cook, usually called Bard or some variation thereof, was christened Baldo.
** One fan translation uses Baron Gelwin in one chapter and Baron Kelvin in another.
* Names in ''{{Slayers}}'' often differ among the translations of the various parts of the franchise, and among translations into different languages. Some examples:
** Characters: Zelgadis / Zelgadiss, Ceipheed / Sweefede, Zanaffar / Zanafer, Shabranigdu / Shabranigdo, Gaav / Garve, Rodimus / Lodimas
** Places: Saillune / Seyruun, Sairaag / Sylarg
** Spells: Ragna Blade / Laguna Blade, Ra Tilt / La Tilt, Dill Brand / Dale Brando
* The sequel to ''{{Chirality}}'' is titled ''Ragnarock City'', and it is spelled this way on the cover of the original version. Despite this, when Central Park Media included an about-the-author page for Satoshi Urushihara in the final volume of ''Chirality'', they spelled it '''''Laguna''' Rock City''.
* [[InspectorJavert Lunge/Runge]] from ''{{Monster}}''.
* The English dub of ''HauroNoUgokuShiro / HowlsMovingCastle'' mostly manages to re-translate the names in accordance with the original book, with one notable exception: "Markl"? You don't think the L is a hint that his name could be, say, ''Michael''?
* Done with the official translations of ''DNAngel''. What's the name of Daisuke's pet? The anime dub went with "With", but the manga translation decided on "Wiz".
* ''GunslingerGirl'' has a lot of names transliterated completely differently in the anime and the manga (Jose vs. Giuseppe and Hirscher vs. Hillshire, for example), and when you add in fan translations it only gets more confusing.
* The official translation of the ''SakuraTaisen'' OAVs renders the names usually romanized "Reni" and "Ratchet" as "Leni" and "Lachette." To this day, many fans are angry about this (despite the fact that "Leni" is an actual German name whereas "Reni" is not).
* Most fansubs of ''SpiceAndWolf'' have rendered the main characters' names as "Craft" and "Horo," but it looks like [[http://yenpress.us/?page_id=560 the official English release of the light novels]], at least, is going to go with "Holo" and "''Kraft''" ... like the macaroni and cheese.
* Layla/Reira Serizawa from ''{{Nana}}''.
* {{Zoids}} has ''tons'' of this in pretty much every series.
** Van/Ban, Fiona/Feene, and Zeek/Zeke/Zeeg are just off the top of my head (and I'm sure that Zeek has more names than that, including some starting with a "J").
*** Judging by the dialogue in one episode (and the katakana spelling), Fiona's name is actually meant to be 'Fine' (the Italian word for "end").
*** The Schubaltz/Schuvaltz brothers should apparently be named "Schwartz".
*** Reese has at least ''half a dozen'' different names (''without'' taking ones starting with an "L" into account, mind you!), and no two sources seem to use the same one.
**** There appears to be about ''thirty four'' different ways people spell "Rease", including Reeise, Liese, Riis and Rysse. The "official" spelling is Rease (it appears in the game Zoids Legacy, as well as on the box of a Japanese figurine), but nobody seems to use that one.
** There's also Leena/Rinon (the former is used in English in the show) and Brad/Ballad
** Nobody seems to be sure how to spell Re Mii's name in Genesis. The subbed version never quite decided between Garaga/Galaga.
** It even happens occasionally with Zoids themselves (despite their names being written in English on the model kit boxes).
*** Is it Heldigunner or Hel Digunner, and is there supposed to be a second "l" there?
**** It's spelled 'Heldigunner' for the 1989 model, but 'Hel Digunner' for the 1999 model. {{So Yeah}}.
*** Possibly the most ridiculous is 'Sabre Tiger' (1986) versus 'Saber Tiger' (1999), which are spelled differently in both English and katakana. And don't even get me started on Gojulas The Ogre versus Godzullas G Orga...
* The SaberMarionetteJ manga refers to the third Saber doll as "Lynx", the anime uses "Luchs". Despite Tokyopop's questionable record with this sort of thing, given the ThemeNaming of the other two Saber dolls "Lynx" is probably the correct name.
* [[HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi Satoko and Satoshi's]] last names are sometimes spelled "Hojo" and "Houjou". The first arc has also been referred to as "Onikakushi" and "Onigafuchi".
* An in-universe example occurs in {{Negima}}, any time a character gets a Pactio card, their name is printed on it, but with a "latinized" spelling; some of the letters are replaced with others ("Y" with "J" and "K" with "C", for example), so "Yue" turns into "Jue", "Nodoka" becomes "Nodoca", etc.
** Some scanlations have trouble deciding if the WeaselMascot is named "Chamo" or "Kamo". The first is more widely accepted (and used in the official translation).
* People in and outside of the ''{{Pokemon}}'' fandom tend to spell Musashi's english name, Jessie, as "Jesse".
** And then there's the issue with ''PokemonSpecial''. In the original Japanese, Red's rival was called Green and the girl who swindled Red's badges was called Blue. In all other translations, because Pokémon Green Version was [[NoExportForYou never released in other countries]], with Red and Blue being released as a pair, the rival was called Blue and the girl was called Green. Many scanlations retain their Japanese names, which leads to both characters being called both Green and Blue, depending on the particular translation that one has read.
* There are a few cases of this in ''KiddyGrade'' - most notably Armbrust, who is "Armblast" both in the dub and accompanying subtitles on the English [=DVDs=], but spelt correcting in the subtitles accompanying the Japanese audio on the same discs (they caught the error before release, but not after it had already been enshrined in the dub). The English [=DVDs=] are mostly correct apart from that due to WordOfGod material that accompanied the Japanese [=DVDs=], but the fansubs were full of errors and inconsistencies. The fansubs for sequel ''{{Kiddy Girl-and}}'' are similar despite English spellings for most characters being available via the official website - e.g. Himatsubushi insists on subtitling Sommer as "Zoma".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films]]
* Practically ''any'' monster from a ''{{Godzilla}}'' movie -- including Godzilla (originaly Gojira) himself.
** Angirasu/Angilas/Angurus/Anguirus (the last finally being registered as a trademark in the 90s).
** Kingu Gidora/Ghidrah/Ghidorah; also Death Ghidorah/Desgidora.
** In almost all English versions except ''Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla'' (1993), the monster Radon (from "pteranodon") is called Rodan. Speculation as to why it was changed includes confusion with the element radon and a conflict with the name of a British brand of soap; nobody's exactly sure why.
** Kingu Shiisaa/King Seesar/King Caesar -- especially problematic because it implies a false MeaningfulName (Caesar = Roman emperors) while clouding its real one (Shiisaa = Okinawan mythic lion-dog).
** In ''Godzilla vs. Destroyah'', the monster's name was deliberately changed from "Destroyer" because a descriptive name like that is hard to trademark.
*** Also, Destroyah has been called Destoroyah.
** Don't forget about Minya/Minilla/Minira/Milla.
** Likewise there's Kamacuras/Gimantis and Kumonga/Spiega.
** It is {{Lampshaded}} in the American remake.
--->"It's 'Gojira', you moron!"
*** And referred to exclusively as "Gojira" in the accompanying novelization.
* In RalphBakshi's ''Lord of the Rings'', Saruman's name was changed to Aruman, probably to [[ViewersAreMorons avoid confusion]] between him and Sauron. However they only used the new name about half the time, making everything that much more confusing.
* In ''[[MarxBrothers Animal Crackers]]'', Captain Spaulding has the first name of "Jeffrey" in the film credits and in the script of the play, but "Geoffrey" in a newspaper headline also displayed at the start of the film. (Spaulding's name originally lacked the U, but was changed to avoid coincidental resemblance to persons living or dead.)
* [[CouplesRetreat "Hello, my name is Stanley... spelled with a C."]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The ''StarWars'' ExpandedUniverse is known for being remarkably consistent and continuous, as EUs go. However, there are plenty of times, particularly early on, when authors don't bother looking up things like whether characters have already had first/last names or specific spellings. This is usually retconned by giving some characters either two first names or a middle name. Derek "Hobbie" Klivian, whose name was frequently misspelled "Klivan", lampshades this in [[XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]] by telling a reporter this.
-->'''Derek:''' Everyone calls me Hobbie. And I'll get back to you on my last name. Lots of people misspell it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* There are multiple possible ways to spell the surnames of the [[DoctorWho Second Doctor's]] companions Jamie and Zoe (the credits only show their first names). Jamie's surname has largely stabilised as "[=McCrimmon=]", but Zoe's has swung back and forth between "Heriot" and "Herriot" over the years. The BBC's own DoctorWho episode guide uses [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/companions/page12.shtml both]] [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/wheelinspace/detail.shtml spellings]] on different pages.
* In the American version of ''TheOffice'', Pam's last name has had several different spellings.
* In ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', Colonel O'Neill has very specifically stated that his name is spelled with two Ls on several occasions. At one point he specifically addressed why he was so concerned about it. Apparently, there's another Colonel Jack O'Neil in the fictional version of the USAF, one with "no sense of humor". This is an in-joke and lampshading of the fact that Kurt Russell's version of the character in the movie (spelled with one L in the credits) was significantly less funny.
* The latest SuperSentai series, ''Go-Onger'', has some possible variations on the name of the species of biomechanical creatures that act as the rangers' familiars/HumongousMecha. Most commonly rendered simply as Engines, the name is actually a bilingual pun on the English word & the Japanese En-Jin, roughly meaning Fire God. Another possible rendering is Endjinn or N-Djinn, which arguably conveys the pun better to a western audience.
* Lizzi in ''{{Greek}}'' is one the producers always get right. The fans, critics, and non-''Greek'' personnel, however, usually add the "e" at the end.
** "That's Lizzi with two Zeta Beta Z's...and no 'e'"
* It's either [[{{Angel}} Wesley Wyndam-Pryce]] or Wesley Wyndham-Price... or possibly Wesley Wyndam-Price. Just take your pick...
* Godric from ''{{True Blood}}'' has been given every spelling possible: Godrick, Godrich, Godrik, Goderic, Goderick, Goderich, etc.
* Demetri Noh on ''[[FlashForward2009 FlashForward]]'' gets this a lot (even on TVTropes): Dimitri, Demitri, Dmitri, Dimetri, etc. Good thing his last name's pretty easy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The Japanese band ''Bow Wow'' later switched the Latin spelling of their name to ''Vow Wow''. This might have been to avoid confusion with another band named ''Bow Wow Wow''.
* It's [[LizaMinnelli Liza]] with a Z, not Lisa with an S.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology]]
* Nobody seems to know whether "Xenu" or "Xemu" is the correct spelling. At least, nobody who's willing to talk about it.
* The name of Odin/Oden/Woden/Wotan is spelled differently in basically every Germanic language. This is in part due to Norse having a distinct letter ð for the voiced "th" sound, transliterated in modern English sometimes as th and sometimes as d, and in most Scandinavian languages as dh or d. [[{{Woolseyism}} And the Romans called him Mercury]]
* Anubis is also a Hellenization of the name of the Egyptian god of death. In fact, his name was probably closer to "Anpu."
**This goes for pretty much every god in EgyptianMythology.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stand-up Comedy]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go Achmed the Dead Terrorist]], spell his name with A-C-*Phlegm*...
* Brian Regan: "Anyway I met his woman, her name was ah, Amy, you know, so I go 'Oh, A-M-Y?' She goes 'No, A-Y-M-I-E'. 'Ughhh... I have to take a nap! I'm Brian, B-R-I-V-O-L-B-N, the number 7, the letter Q, -- 'Brennemenahgah!!!' Look at my name tag, it's, it's big."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* The play "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" had audience members spell words. Sometimes audience members would be given the arabic word "cumis", fermented goat milk. If the audience member spelled the word c-u-m-i-s, the announcer would say the correct spelling was k-u-m-i-s (both spellings are correct).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Some names of ''{{Tales of Symphonia}}'' characters were changed or spelled differently for the western release. Examples: Collet Brunel (became Collette in the translation) and Shihna Fujibayashi (who became Sheena). Genius Sage and Refill Sage got their names changed to Genis and Raine respectively. Also, the place names Asgard, Palmacosta, Luin and Hima were Ascard, Parumacosta, Ruin and Haima in the original.
** The FanTranslation names from ''{{Tales of Phantasia}}'' are still in use, with fans outright rejecting the English names after waiting a decade for an English release. There are some legitimate objections to parts of them, in particular "Kangaroo" instead of "Ragnarok," and also that spellings like "Cless" and "Klarth" are used in all the Japanese source, such as manual graphics and even in the credits to the PS remake of the game.
*** It doesn't help that the fan translation got their original names for the main characters from an article in Nintendo Power in the 90s that was profiling the Japanese version, back when the game was brand new. Apparently Nintendo completely changed their minds on their romanizations a decade after release.
** This is a recurring thing in the ''TalesSeries'', really. Namco usually changes names in the American version of a game; sometimes they do it for no reason (as any [[TalesOfDestiny Destiny]] fan could tell you), but mostly they do it because the original names were just "Western-sounding", not genuinely western. For example (but definetly not limited to), [[TalesOfDestiny Leon Magnus]], whose Japanese name was ''Lion'' Magnus; while Lion sounds silly when read in English, in Japanese it is read the exact same way "Leon" is read here. The same applied to many, many games. It has been toned down in recent installments (for example, ''TalesOfVesperia''), probably because the writers started doing some research.
* Aeris / Aerith from ''FinalFantasyVII'' is a canonical example that can spawn enough InternetBackdraft to melt the polar icecaps. It is always romanized as "Aerith" in Japan and used internationally in more current works, and some fans even use ''Earisu'' (the phonetic transliteration of the Japanese writing, エアリス). Aerith was subsequently chosen as a romanization because it sounds like "earth" when romanized (though not in katakana, contrary to popular belief), something that WordOfGod [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerith_Gainsborough#cite_note-kaitai-8]] confirmed at the time of the game's release in Japan. "Aeris" was chosen for the first English release becaus Sony handled the English release and their team felt it sounded better. Things got complicated by Square once they took over localization of their own titles again - by the time of ''KingdomHearts'', Square had switched it back to "Aerith" outside of Japan. Some fans (including the ones editing TheOtherWiki) have struck a sort of compromise and use "Aeris" in regards to the game ''FinalFantasyVII'' and as "Aerith" when referring to all other games she appears in. If the game ever ''is'' remade, one can only guess how Square and their long-suffering fanbase will handle it.
** It doesn't help that "Aeris" is a latin word with many other connotations that could be reasonably applied to the character, though these were unintentional since even the Japanese developers intended to get the "earth" homophone (and early concept art shows other spellings such as "Erith")
** It also doesn't help that someone people claim "Aerith" makes you sound like you have a lisp (But not, say, Elizabeth, Meredith, Lilith, etc.) and therefore changing it to "Aeris" make it less "stupid". You'd have to deliberately over-pronounce the "th" to get this sound though and no reasonable person does this.
* Because ''FinalFantasyV'' went a long time without an official translation, the {{fan translation}}s tended to disagree on what the English equivalent of "Kururu" was, the most popular alternative being "Cara". Square eventually translated it as "Krile".
** And then, of course, there's Butz/Bartz. It is ''still'' romanized as "Butz" in Japan, though most English speakers call him "Bartz" considering the alternative (that and his name has always been translated as such officially).
*** Butz from the town of Lix? What could ''possibly'' be wrong with that?
** The villain's name being Exdeath or Exodus ''seems'' to be an issue, but it should be noted that everything that's "Exdeath" in English is ''Ekusudesu'' (エクスデス) in Japanese; meanwhile, everything that's "Exodus" is ''Ekusedesu'' (エクセデス).
** Lenna/Lena/Reina has ''two'' official English names and one fan name. Square was rather indecisive about her.
* ''FinalFantasyIV'' has a character named "Rydia". Some fans have thought this was a mistranslation of Lydia. Square Enix has never used any other English spelling, though.
** Rinoa from ''FinalFantasyVIII'' is a similar case, in that some fans have argued her name should be Lenore. A few fan-run websites initially translated her name as "Lenore" before an official romanization was released. Again, [[http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff8/art/ff8chars.jpg Square Enix]] artwork from before the US release contradicts this.
** Finally, the ''FinalFantasyVI'' character known as "Sabin" in the English version is called "Mash" (マッシュ, ''Masshu'') in the Japanese version. Some fans have insisted that Mash is a mistranslation of "Matthew", but this is incorrect since transliterating "Matthew" to Japanese ends up as ''Mashuu'' (マシュー). The point is moot, since "Mash" is actually his ''nickname'' in Japan, the character's real name being Macias (マシアス, ''Mashiasu'').
* One of the best examples of [[{{Woolseyism}} Ted Woolsey's videogame translations]] is the [[GoldfishPoopGang comic recurring enemy]] Ultros from ''FinalFantasyVI'', who was originally named Orthros. Square seems to go back and forth on whether to keep it or not. A reference to him as a mark in ''FinalFantasyXII'' uses "Orthros", but when the GBA version of ''FinalFantasyVI'' came out in America with a fresh script, they went back to "Ultros."
** For extra confusion, in the German translation he's called Ultros.
** Another name issue in FFVI is the Atma / Ultima weapon. While Ultima makes sense for all the future games and is therefore now the standard, Atma actually still works because it refers to the soul in Hindi. Therefore, a boss that has its lifeforce entirely in magic would make sense being a soul weapon. However, AtmaWeapon was obviously only chosen for space considerations, and only appeared in FFVI. It doesn't match the katakana. It's even lampooned in ''FinalFantasyX2'', where the bestiary entry for Ultima Weapon chides the player, "But don't call him Atma!".
** Another FFVI example was lampshaded in the GBA enhanced port: at a certain point in the game, one of the guards in Figaro Castle will talk about how a certain group of people in the world argue about whether to spell Kefka's name with K's (as in Kefka) or C's (as in Cefca).
*** Specifically, a portion of the people in the Cult of Kekfa.
* The ''FinalFantasy'' games [[FinalFantasyTactics set in]] [[FinalFantasyXII Ivalice]] started out with a ''lot'' of this, sometimes in the same game. As of the re-translations it's mostly cleared up, generally for the better.
** The most famous example being the original release of Final Fantasy Tactics. The queen is most frequently referred to as Ruvelia, but occasionally the pronounciation is inverted to Luveria. The latter is chosen for the rerelease, but spelt Louveria. And don't get the fanbase started on Tietra/Teta, Orran/Olan, Zalbaag/Zalbag, Isilud/Izlude...
** There has long been debate over Gilgamesh's "bad" sword equivilant of "Excalibur". The first game it appeared in was ''FinalFantasyV'', and the most common translation for a long time was "Exca'''il'''bur", taken from a fan translation done before the game was finally localized in the U.S. Square's first translation of this was in ''FinalFantasyVIII'', in which they chose "Excalipoor", a name that made sense considering the horrible quality of the weapon. They later flipped back and forth on using "Excalipoor" and "Excalipur", though they appear to have finally settled on the former.
* In the original ''{{Legend of Zelda}}'', there was an armored knight enemy called a "Darknut" by the instruction book. It was likely intended to be "Dark Knight"; nevertheless, it is such an iconic enemy that Western fans (and later sequels) have simply accepted "Darknut" as its name.
** Actually, the original name for Darknut is ''taatonakku'', which translates as "Dark Knuckle". Compare this with ''Zelda II'''s ''aiannakku'' which became "Iron Knuckle". There's also a boss enemy named ''rebonakku'' that rides a horse. This has simply been translated as "Rebonack" in the recent ''Zelda: Collectors Edition'' Player's Guide.
*** Also, the number of people who call Sheik "Shiek" is saddening. However, it ''is'' "Shiek" in Germany, because "Sheik" would be pronounced "shike", not "sheek" like it should be.
*** Oh, it gets worse: The official English release of ''Ocarina of Time'' misspells "Sheikah" as "Shiekah" in one Kakariko resident's dialogue.
** And then we have Zoras vs. Zolas. This worked, though, because they look and behave like two separate species (Zora = tail-headed/nice; Zola = scaly and crested/AlwaysChaoticEvil [though the Zola King in ''A Link to the Past'' isn't so bad]). In ''Oracle of Ages,'' both types are referred to as Zoras; according to an NPC in the Zora village, they're the same species, with "Ocean Zoras" being the friendly variety, and "River Zoras" being the enemy type.
** The whole "Ganon vs. Gannon" mess from the original ''Zelda'' spawned [[GannonBanned its own meme]].
** Before ''Phantom Hourglass'' came out, some websites were translating Link's fairy companion Ciela's name as "Sierra", another L/R issue. "Ciela" is correct due to ThemeNaming between the fairies; her name refers to air, and the others refer to earth and water.
** The ''Zelda'' series makes a point of giving normal Anglo names strange Romanizations--for example, Renado from ''Twilight Princess'' could've easily been "Leonard".
* Dr. Light (ライト) from the ''MegaMan'' series had his name variously rendered as Light, Right, or Wright in the early games; it wasn't until ''MegaMan III'' that it was standardized as Dr. Light in the English games. Similarly, Dr. Wily (ワイリー) was sometimes referred to as Dr. Wiley (or even Dr. Willy) in the early games.
** In Japan, Dr. Light is officially spelled Dr. Right, with the logo of his lab being a capital "R" in the Famicom game ''Rockboard''. When the Light's Lab logo appeared officially appeared in the English version of the series with ''Mega Man 9'', it became a capital "L".
** ''Mega Man II'' had Crash/Clash Man.
** The ''Battle Network'' games address the Light/Right mixup: the main protagonist's grandfather is called Tadashi Hikari, which pretty much translates to "Right Light" in English. Apparently Capcom thinks either version is fine for them at this point.
** Averted with MegaManZero's BigBad, Dr. Weil (Vile in Jpan). Before he was unveiled in part 3, fans thought this was Capcom USA's worst translation botch ever, that they somehow got Dr. Wily's name wrong. Further more, his Japanese pronunciation is actually ''Bairu'' (バイル), which sounds like While/Bile/Vile so there was plenty of naming issues to FanWank over before [=MMZ3=] was released and revealed...Dr. Weil as a completely separate person.
** In a Mega Man X manga adaption there's a mermaid character named Marty, however people find this either stupid or a translation error as the character it question is female, causing quite a few variations to the name: Marti, Martei, Mary, Marit, and Merit.
* The protagonist of the original ''FireEmblem'' appears to have been named for Mars (The god of war), however the ''SuperSmashBros.''' series localized his name as Marth. The Japanese aren't any help in this -- the debug menu for ''Melee'' has "Mars" in English, but [[http://serenesforest.net/media/complete/Marth.jpg the artbooks]] put out for ''Monshou no Nazo'', as well as the [[http://serenesforest.net/media/tcg/6/fe6-001.jpg official]] [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v139/VincentASM/TCG/P037_Marth.jpg trading card]] [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v139/VincentASM/TCG/5001_Marth_L.jpg game]] clearly have "Marth" written in English.
** Nintendo also likes to completely change names for no apparent reason. This usually leads to mass confusion when new titles come out because there's always been enough delay for fans to have translated the names themselves. To be fair, Nintendo does have reasons for it occasionally, usually to eliminate names that sound strange in English (like Beeze) or to try and get them all to sound consistent in one universe. However, changing "Soanevalke" to "Stefan" came back to bite them when his Japanese name was actually a hint to the character's origins in ''Radiant Dawn''.
*** Nintendo also screwed up with the name of the Dragon King. It's spelled "Deghinsea" in ''Path Of Radiance'', then spelled "Dheginsea" in ''Radiant Dawn''.
** Now that ''Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon'' is out in the U.S. and Europe, it's even more obvious that one hand was not talking to the other. Since the original "Marth" games were not officially translated until late 2008/early 2009, fans had accepted certain spellings years ago out of necessity, so you can also add "changes" that may not have deliberately been changes at all. While you can find a much more extensive list of names [[http://serenesforest.net/fe11/name.html elsewhere]], certain changes deserve special mention here.
*** First off, the legendary paladain of suck [[JeiganCharacter Jeigan]] is now "Jagen" worldwide, but his Japanese name will forever be used for the archetype he spawned.
*** Marth's Pegasus Knight friend/lover is "Sheeda" in Japan, "Shiida" in Europe, and "Caeda" in North America (though likely pronounced the same - the name is Gaelic).
*** Navarre has the most variations thanks to fans, companies, and Nintendo refusing to pick one name and stay with it. So officially, in English, he's both "Navarre" (US) ''and'' "Nabarl (PAL)". Other official spellings in the past were ADV's translation of "Navahl" for the anime, and ''SuperSmashBros Brawl'' translation of "Nabaaru" (a straight transliteration of the name's katakana), as well as some alternative fan names used for fan translations. Meaningful names don't help here either, Nabal is a character in the bible, Navarre is a region in Spain.
*** The character romanized with "Cheini" and fan dubbed as "Chainy" became "Xane" in both English versions.
*** Marth's homeland is "Akaneia" and ''SmashBros Melee'' translated it as that (a debug menu also showed "Akaneia" as a stage). The American release uses "Archanea".
** The fourth game, ''Seisen no Keifu'' (or ''Genealogy of Holy War''), was never released outside Japan, which results in the usual fan translation weirdness. Like Yurius and Yuria versus Julius and Julia, and the Gayborg spear (should be Gae Bolg).
*** Gayborg is actually the official Japanese-English spelling; it was replaced with Gae Bolg in the fan translation years ago anyway. A more topical example would be the legendary thunder magic Tor Hammer, which numerous people consider to be a mistranslation of Thor Hammer when it is actually theme naming along with the other legendary magic.
** As mentioned, even official translations can be a bit dodgy. The seventh game, ''Rekka no Ken'' ("Sword of Flame"), or just plain ''Fire Emblem'' outside Japan, has a serious [[ChivalricRomance Matter of France]] theme to its names (Roland, Durandal, and so on) but for some reason Turpin and Almace became Durban and Armads. Then again, the original Turpin was an archbishop who followed his emperor to war and Durban is a bloodthirsty berserker.
** Even the official Japanese subtitle of the original Famicom game has been subject to variation due to the different readings for the kanji for "sword". Some official sources use ''Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no '''Ken''','' while other sources uses ''Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no '''Tsurugi'''.''
* The ''PhantasyStar'' series has several examples, the most {{egregious}} of which involve the complete name change of a character present in the first two games, [[spoiler:Noah in the first game, Lutz in the second]]. While the name used in the second game is the correct one, it was so long before the change was identified that many fans of the series are convinced the character is actually two separate people who look alike. A large body of [[{{Fanon}} fanon]] was created to support the idea. Note also: Dark Force/Darkfalz/Dark Phallus.
** In [=PSO=], there is a weapon named Rika's Claw. [=PSU=] has a weapon named Falclaw. Both weapons look identical...because they reference the same character, a Newman named Rika in English versions of Phantasy Star IV, and Fal in Japanese versions. Similar, but less severe, violations include the weapon named Sato in [=PSO=] which is named Shato in [=PSU=], and the enemy named Gigobooma in [=PSO=] and Jigo Booma in [=PSU=].
** Related, ''Phantasy Star Online'' quests would have a trader character as "Garon" or "Gallon", while both are literally "Garon" in Japanese. As such, many would not relate the person dealt with in "Gallon's Shop" to the man who appears in the offline / single player quests. So, as above, some players remain convinced that there are two large men dressed in purple who want more money and hate you when you don't do perfect work.
* Amazingly the American ''Command & Conquer'' series suffers from this. Character names are often not consistently spelled in the manuals, credits and ingame tooltips. Shephard/Sheppard, Slavik/Slavic and even the incorrect spelling of CABAL as KABAL in the credits of Tiberian Sun, even though it's an acronym.
* ''{{Castlevania}}'' can beat you over the head with this one if you're not careful. For simplicity's sake, lets just focus on the North American/European games:
** The Belnades clan have their name spelled in several ways thorough the ''Castlevania'' series. Belnades, the most common spelling in the English games, was originally used only in the manual for ''Castlevania III''; the game itself actually spelled it as Velnumdes, and for some reason it was castilianised to Fernandez in ''Castlevania 64''. The closest romanization is ''Verunandesu'' (ヴェルナンデス), since the Japanese tend to use the "V" sound only when they mean it to spell that way too. Best to just split the difference and say Velnandes, thus making noone happy.
** A new timeline has identified Sypha as "Cipher", and Harmony of Dissonance translated Sypha's Charm as "Cipher's Charm". Only to fix her name back to 'Sypha' in ''Castlevania Judgment''.
*** The same timeline also gave Maria Renard's surname as "Larnett", though the recent PSP remake/port of the games she appeared in went back to Renard, casting doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the timeline's (numerous) spelling changes.
*** If the Japanese site for ''Castlevania Judgment'' is any indication, it's spelled Renard. And the other character is called Sypha... Belnades. (Aside from Ralph and Belmondo, that appears to be the only difference.)
*** Meh, 3 minutes ago, the Japanese sites were saying her name was Learned. Apparently it's from a Japanese university named after a gaijin biologist or something.
** Others that are translation issues but haven't caused inconsistencies (yet): Maria Renard/Learned/Larnett, Soleiyu/Soleil Belmont, Christopher/Christophe Belmont, Eric Lecard/Ricardo, Grant [=DaNasty=]/Dinesti/Dynasty, and of course Belmont/Belmondo/Beaumont.
*** Dynasty and Beaumont were single-instance print media typos. And Grant's last name would be "Danesti" were that not a case of DidNotDoTheResearch, if he is meant to be a descendant of Dan II.
** Rover/Lauber Mansion from ''Simon's Quest'', and Garuga/Gallagher (Bloodlines?).
* Angol Moa/Angolmois from ''WildArms''.
** There are debates over whether "Zeikfried" in the first game is supposed to be "Siegfried." The fact that [[spoiler:his appearance in the third game spells it Siegfried]] appears to be nullified by [[TheRemake Alter Code F's]] BlindIdiotTranslation that reverts it back to Zeikfried.
** ''FinalFantasyVI'' had the same problem. Then [[spoiler:Ultros becomes a receptionist]] at the cavalcade of misspellings that is the Colosseum/Coliseum and the circle is complete.
* Happens each time UDE decides to transliterate the Konami names for ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' cards instead of renaming them, and sometimes even when fans try to translate OCG-only cards themselves. Some memorable ones include Gors/Gorz/Gooz/Goes and Goggle Golem/Google Golem/Giant Ogre Golem.
* Rolento (ロレント) from ''FinalFight'' and ''StreetFighter Alpha 2'' had his name spelled as "Rolent" in ''Final Fight 2'', which is closer to the actual pronunciation of the name.
** There's also Guy, whose name should be closer to "Gai", but was changed because they didn't want any AccidentalInnuendo caused by pronunciation problems.
* Prier/Priere from the ''{{Disgaea}}'' and ''LaPucelle'' games. Her name is only spelled with the last "e" in the former, where she appears as a BonusBoss. Not helping the situation at all is that ''both'' versions work within the ThemeNaming of the series {Prier = "To Pray", Priere = "Prayer").
** Also in ''Disgaea'', the overlord Laharl's name is a subject of debate. Though Laharl is the official spelling in all of the games, "Lahar" would make more sense; it is a term related to volcanoes and would be in keeping with the other volcano-related names, like Etna and Vulcanus.
* Not a character name, but ''FatalFury'' (and ''TheKingOfFighters'' after it) has Geese Howard's first Desperation Move. Because of how he [[CallingYourAttacks yells the name]], translators have spent ages trying to work out if it's "Raging Storm" or "Raising Storm". ''Fatal Fury Battle Archives'' says "Raging"; ''Capcom vs. SNK'' says "Raising". Most move lists go with "Raising Storm". Fans, on the other hand, universally go with "Raging Storm". Or a [[ClusterFBomb long string of profanities]], but that's almost certainly not the official name.
** For that matter, a LOT of attacks used by FatalFury characters have this problem. In large part because for most of them no one's even sure what they're ''saying'', let alone how to spell it.
*** Terry Bogard is especially bad about this.
* This can become a hot issue in ''[=~Pokémon~=]'' fandom in the run-up to a new generation as the romanisations used by the most popular fansite are techically correct but not always the best. (A big one was Rukario for Lucario, which is a direct transliteration of how Lucario is written in katakana.)
* Fanon of ''SuperRobotWars'' is big on this, with Ibis Douglas often being spelled "Ivis" even though, the first time you see her in-game, it's outright written in English as Ibis. Examples of names that are supposed to be real foreign-language words getting fan-romanized into {{Engrish}} abound, including "Geshpenst," (Gespenst, German for "ghost"), "Sladegelmir" (Thrudgelmir, a Norse giant), and one from the official translation, "Alfimi" ("Alchemie," German for "alchemy").
** The kicker is another character's possible names, Levi Tolar, Rebi Torah, and Rabbi Torah, as all of them fit the character in terms of language and meaningfulness... and all three are spelled the same in Japanese.
** Zengar Zombolt gets a little pass, since it was first spelled in katakana that way, as the Japanese pronunciation of the actual spelling, ''Sanger'' Zonvolt. Silly German.
*** Unfortunately the Japanese don't help and this gets even more confusing with [[strike:Zengar's]]''Sanger's'' mech, as the joke is that he shortens "Dynamic General Guardian" in Japanese to "Dai-Zen-Gar"... Big Zengar. However, in English the joke doesn't work at all (you can't squeeze "Sanger" out of "Gen-Guard" unless you're reading it with a German accent, and even then it's a stretch) and fell flat in Atlus' translation of OGs.
*** The FanTranslation of ''Alpha Gaiden'' choose "Sombold", because that was the closest thing that was an actual German name.
** Oh, and there's Sleigh/Surei/Srey/Slaye Presty/Presti.
** And let's not forget poor Latouni/Latooni/Ratouni Subota/Zuvota. To make matters worse, she doesn't even have an official Romanization (before the English version was released, at least), since her name in Japanese material, when it's not in katakana, is always rendered in ''Cyrillic'' as "Латунь Суббота".
** ''Original Generation Gaiden'' makes fun of Banpresto's own mistake by having the boss of ''R'', Duminuss finds out that her name is actually Dynamis (greek for power), Banpresto has simply mispelled it while making ''R''.
** There's also Tootie/Tytti/Tutti Noorbuck/Norback/Nolbach... Since she's supposed to be Finnish, the most likely correct version would be Tytti Norrback (with two R's).
*** Speaking of that, even her mecha's name is an example of SpellMyNameWithAnS. Some call it Gaddeath, but some also call it Goddess even though it's not one, since it adds up a ShoutOut to [[AhMyGoddess a certain goddess]] Tytti was almost similar with.
** The newest and probably most ridiculous one would be the new {{Loli}} protagonist of ''SuperRobotWars Z''. Most formal people call her 'Mel Peter', but some just go on ahead and call her ''Male Beater''...
** And after all the above, the confusion over Psybuster and Cybuster seems downright tame...
*** People render it as Cyberstar, despite that not matching the kana unless you kind of squint and are '''really''' drunk.
**** And ''then'' there's the official Japanese translation of Cyb''a''ster.
** Speaking of ''Z'', how about "[[SpellMyNameWithAThe The Edel]]," who takes the time in-game to explain that he calls himself ''The'' Edel to make it clear that he's more important and more powerful than any of his AlternateUniverse incarnations. This doesn't stop some people from spelling it "Ji Edel."
* As an example of this trope occurring even when transliteration is not involved, the [[SoBadItsHorrible infamously bad]] [[http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/index.php/Main_Page.html OHRRPGCE]] game ''Magnus'' can't decide on whether its SquishyWizard is named "Quio" or "Ouio."
* ''EarthBound'' features a villain named Pokey in the U.S. version, who threatens to come back for revenge in the ending. He makes good on his promise in ''{{Mother 3}}'', and this incarnation makes a cameo as a boss in ''SuperSmashBros. Brawl''. Problem? His name was originally meant to be Porky, referring to his bloated belly and pig-like nose, and the pig theme continues with his army in ''Mother 3''. ''Brawl'' uses the name Porky, obscuring the connection to the ''EarthBound'' villain.
** The series's final boss is a great example. It has been transliterated as "Gyiyg" or "Geeg", but the localizers for ''Earthbound Zero'' used "Giegue". Early promotional material for ''Earthbound'' actually referred to him as "Geek" before it was modified/finalized into "Giygas".
*** And that's "Giygas", not "Gigyas", ''everybody.''
**** [[DungeonsAndDragons Gygax]]?
** The ''Mother 3'' examples don't end there, either -- there's the name of the village itself (Tazmily vs. Tatsumairi, and so on) and the seven Magypsies, whose names are confusing even ''with'' the correct spelling.
*** The Magypsies are easy: Lydia, Ionia, Mixolydia, Doria, Aeolia, Phrygia, and Locria - the classic Greek musical modes. The only hard part would be recognizing this.
** Then there's the party member Lloyd/Loid/Roid from the first game in the series. An older official encyclopedia writes it as "Roid", while "Loid" relates to a potential Japanese pun on his NerdGlasses, and "Lloyd" seems the most natural for an American character. Brawl officially writes his name as "Lloyd". A less-debated example is Ana/Anna from the same game. It turns out to be "Ana" according to Brawl, though.
* Protagonist Roid/Lloyd Clive in the first ''FrontMission'' game. Roid being the original Japanese spelling, Lloyd being the fan-translated version. Proponents of either version were surprised when his name was officially translated as ''Royd''.
* Some people insist on saying "Katamari Tamashii" instead of ''KatamariDamacy'' because the former is how the kanji making the game are properly pronounced (despite the fact that WordOfGod states that the latter is the game's name).
** Not so much an embodiment of this trope, but rather [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku a property of the Japanese language]]. The choice to romanize "damashii" as "damacy" may count, though.
* Clark Still, Ralf Jones' partner from the ''Ikari Warriors'' and ''{{King of Fighters}}'' games, has had his surname misromanized by fans as "Steel", even though the Japanese spelling of his surname (スティル) doesn't have a long vowel mark, which would be the case if his surname was truly "Steel" (スティール). There's a [[UrbanLegendOfZelda popular misconception]] that his surname was originally "Steel" as a {{shout out}} to {{Superman}}, but was changed to "Still" to [[{{writing around trademarks}} avoid any potential copyright infringement]]. However, the "Still" surname has been used for the character since the Japanese version of the first ''Ikari'' game ([[http://www.interq.or.jp/sun/watohu/ura/s_ikari15.html see here]]). All of this didn't prevent Terminal Realities from [[DidNotDoTheResearch misspelling]] his surname as "Steel" in ''The Orochi Saga Collection''.
* Kevin R'''i'''an from ''Garou: Mark of the Wolves'', is supposedly a distant relative of Blue Mary of ''FatalFury'' and ''KOF'' fame, even though Mary's surname is romanized differently in the ''KOF'' series (R'''y'''an).
* Gantz/Guntz from ''Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament'' and ''Klonoa: Beach Volleyball'' respectively. His name was romanized differently in each game.
** The character who is known as "Joka" in the original game is changed to "Joker" in the Wii remake.
* The ''{{Atelier}}'' series gets a whole helping of a ton of the above issues, featuring both a character with the katakana of "Norudisu" (leading our friends at Tokyopop to spell it as ''both'' "Nordith" and "Nordis" during the print run of the ''Atelier Marie & Elie'' spinoff manga) and the fact that the setting for the first three games (if not many of the others) is a variation on Renaissance Germany, with many words being pronounced in a kind of pseudo-GratuitousGerman fashion. Gust Inc., makers of the games, like to call the principality "Salburg" (and even [[http://www.salburg.com run a website]] with that name); several fan translators and Tokyopop go with "Zarlburg" due to the katakana used to represent the German pronunciation of "s". Latter games, especially those still unreleased in the West, have a host of other pronunciation issues.
* ''RivalSchools''' Shoma has his name romanized as "Syoma" in the arcade version of the first game, which is from a non-Hepburn romanization system used by the Japanese. It was changed to "Shoma" in the [=PlayStation=] version.
** The sequel, ''Project Justice'', cleverly uses this trope to diferentiate between similar characters. In the story, the hero Batsu is plauged by a look-a-like [[spoiler:who is actually by BigBad Kurow]] going around ruining his good reputation. The fake Batsu can be fought against and eventually can be a playable character, so to differentiate him from the real Batsu, Capcom took advantage of the ambigutity in B and V sounds in Japanese and named the fake hero "Vatsu".
* While not a mistranslation per se, Blizzard has recently decided that all names should be translated to the respective language in ''WorldOfWarcraft'', while the initial release, ''WarCraft 3'' and all novels simply used the English names. Thankfully, it's possible to download a language pack to play it in English altogether. If only the same could be said about the novels...
* The male lead of ''[=~Star Ocean: The Second Story~=]'' has the official name of "Claude" in the US, but his name is officially romanized as "Crawd" in Japanese. No English speakers actually use the name "Crawd", though, because it doesn't sound anything like an actual name -- it's generally accepted that tri-Ace really ''did'' mean for him to be named Claude, and just messed up the romanization.
** To make things more confusing, the game uses voice acting during battles. Sometimes his name is pronounced "Crawd," and sometimes "Claude."
*** And for whatever reason, they went and changed every single name in the PSP remake of the first game so that none of them match up with the sequel anymore. Even though the original game has perfectily legible English names for every single major character in its end credits.
* ''SilhouetteMirage'' is heavy on the Judeo-Christian ThemeNaming of its characters, but the names of the protagonist's seven weapons got lost in translation. They are named after the SevenDeadlySins using the Japanese equivalent of8 the English words. The names were taken literally from the transliterations, leading to the following: Surosa (Sloth), Priday (Pride), Angara (Anger), Rasti (Lust), Cavitas (Covetry or Greed), Grattoni (Gluttony), and Envia (Envy).
* ''{{Kirby}}'s Dream Land'' had a blimp-like boss named Kaboola, which was absent in the ''Kirby Super Star'' sub-game Spring Breeze, which was mostly a remake of ''Kirby's Dream Land'' (some other features were also absent). The [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of ''Kirby Super Star'' for the Nintendo DS, ''Kirby Super Star Ultra'', added the sub-game Revenge of the King, which is basically a harder version of Spring Breeze. In it the formerly missing boss returned with an altered appearance, as well as an altered name: Kabula.
** The Combo Cannon (which recently had appeared in ''SuperSmashBros Brawl'') was renamed Main Cannon #2 in ''Super Star Ultra.'' Not too many fans were happy about that.
** Before the Kaboola/Kabula incident was the case of Mr. Frosty, who was inexplicably named "[[BlindIdiotTranslation Mr. Flosty]]" in ''Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.''
* ''{{Leisure Suit Larry}} 7: Love For Sail'' includes a character named [[TheUnpronounceable Xqwzts]]. The writer of the game intended for it to be pronounced "X-squats," but the actor that plays Larry couldn't get it right. That gave the writer the idea to have every character intentionally mispronounce the name any crazy way they could think of. In fact, throughout the whole game, only one character (not Larry) says it "correctly".
* A recurring villain in the ''{{Bomberman}}'' series is Bagular/Bauglar/Buggler. While all are legitimate translations of the name "Bagura," Hudson Soft seems to have a hard time picking which one to go with. The confusion only gets worse when 2 games were released at the same time (''Bomberman Hero'' and ''Bomberman World''), each one referring to the character by a different name...or two (''Hero'' had both of the first two spellings).
* The [[http://www.tetrisconcept.com/wiki/index.php/Tetris_Guideline official]] word for a ''{{Tetris}}'' block is "tetromino," which can be easily misspelled as "tetramino" or "tetrimono", which the Tetris Company also use.
* ''Bubble Symphony'' aka ''BubbleBobble [[NonLinearSequel II]]'': Its [[AllThereInTheManual flyer]] stated the name for the orange female bubble dragon as [[http://www.taitolegends2.com/images/flyers/bubble_symphony_03.jpg "Cururun"]]. The game itself says it's [[http://www.vazcomics.org/mamend/png/bubl0059.png "Kululun"]]. Chalk one up to C/K and R/L confusion.
* In ''{{Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga}}'' and ''SuperSmashBros. Brawl'', you might notice that the starfish character appearing in both goes by the name of "Stafy". Well, his game series is finally being brought overseas as... ''TheLegendaryStarfy'' (ie: Sta'''r'''fy). His cameo in ''Mario & Luigi'' called it ''The Legend of Stafy''. Make of that what you will.
* Nobody can seem to decide whether the Amazon princess of ''[[WorldOfMana Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' is supposed to be called "Lise", "Riese", or "Riesz".
* In the ''Castlevania'' series, or at least the ones with explicitly named enemies, a certain type of agile, dual-dagger-wielding enemy was given the name "Skeleton Blaze", starting with ''Symphony of the Night''. Although it is fairly obvious to all involved (except the translators) that this should be "Skeleton '''Blades'''", the localization teams have kept this the same throughout the entire series, presumably for continuity.
* Gray Fox from the ''MetalGear'' series has had his real name (フランク・イエーガー) translated as Frank Jaeger or Yeager, depending on the game. Incidentally, Yeager is an Americanized form of the German surname Jaeger. His codename also varies between "Gray Fox" and Grey Fox".
** But that's just a matter of American spelling versus British spelling.
** The [=MSX2=] versions of ''Metal Gear'' and ''Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake'' had a few romanizations for some of the characters' names that are different from the ones used in the later ''Metal Gear Solid'' games. Roy Campbell was originally called "Roy Kyanbel", Holly White was "Horry White", George Kasler in the PS2 version is known as George Kesler. Gustava Heffner and Johan Jacobsen were originally called Natasha Marcova and Yozef Norden respectively, which were legitimate name changes to the characters and not different romanizations of the same name.
** The names of the bosses in the first two ''Metal Gear'' games for the [=MSX2=] were mostly [[WritingAroundTrademarks mangled]] pop-culture references: there's "Arnold" the cyborg (as in Schwarzenegger), "Coward Duck" ({{Howard the Duck}}), "Black Color" (from Blackcollar, an obscure Timothy Zahn novel about space ninjas), "Ultra Box" ({{Ultravox}}) and the "{{Predator}}". Not surprisingly, almost of them (with the exception of RunningMan) were changed in the later cellphone and [=PS2=] rereleases.
* That guy with the pointy hat in ''MortalKombat'': is he Raiden or Rayden? [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that "Raiden" is a legitimate Japanese name, but the developers were forced to alter the spelling to avoid confusion with [[FatalFury the other Raiden]].
* An example born out of [[TheAnimeOfTheGame the game's TV adaptation]] slightly changing the name of the character in question: [[TakAndThePowerOfJuju Tlaloc/Traloc]].
* In an interesting aversion to the common trouble Romanizing "Kururu" as mentioned previously, WorkingDesigns, when translating ''ArcTheLad Collection'' for the PlayStation, just left her name the hell alone: she's "Kururu" in the US, as well.
* Lord Raptor's name from ''{{Darkstalkers}}'' is spelled "Lord Rapter" in the third game, ''Vampire Savior''. This is not a cast of inconsistent romanization, as his name in Japan is "Zabel Zarock".
* In ''[[CapcomVsWhatever SNK VS Capcom: SVC Chaos]]'', [[SamuraiShodown Genjuro Kibagami]] gets his name spelled as "Genjyuro Kibagami", while "[[StreetFighter Juli]]" becomes "Juri".
** Speaking of ''Samurai Shodown'', there's also Rimururu/Rimnerel. Curiously, Nakoruru doesn't seem to suffer from this.
* ''{{The King of Fighters}} 2001'' mistakenly refers to "Chang" as "Chan".
* In ''StreetFighter'', there's Shadaloo/Shadowlaw, Urien/Julian, and Rolento/Rolent/Lawrence/Laurent. Much more minor; Fei Long and Chun-Li have been spelled with spaces, dashes, or as one word.
** and this is when you consider that "Rolento" and "Urien" are clearly spelt out on their lifebars.
* The NES version of ''DoubleDragon'' has an enemy character whose name is "Rowper" in the game and "Lopar" in the manual. His name is actually intended to be a [[ShoutOutThemeNaming nod]] to Roper from ''{{Enter the Dragon}}'', considering his partner's name happens to be call Williams. To make matters even more confusing, the names "Roper" and "Lopar" are used for two enemy characters in ''Battletoads & Double Dragon'', neither who resemble the actual Rowper/Lopar/Roper from the original game (one of them being a misnamed Machine Gun Willy).
** The name of Billy's girlfriend also seems to vary between "Marian" and "Marion" depending on the game. The manual for the Master System version actually calls her "Mary-Ann"
* Langrisser II and Der Langrisser never had official translations, so some names are completely inconsistent, not just between translations, but within translations themselves. Is it Kalxath, Kalzas or Karzas? Liana or Riana? Lana or Larna? Boser, Bozel, or Bosel?
* In ''ThunderForce III'', the upgraded version of the Twin Shot has been spelled out as both "Sever" and "Saber." The latter spelling is a bit [[HilariousInHindsight funny]] because the upgraded Back Shot is called [[FateStayNight "Lancer"]].
* In ''{{Valis}} II'' for the Turbografx CD, Valis is sometimes pronounced "Varis", thanks to BlindIdiotTranslation.
* In the Sega Master System version of the first ''{{Ghostbusters}}'' game, Gozer is transliterated "Gorza".
* While not a mistransliteration, Lisa from ''BackyardSports'' has a last name that has been said to be either Crocket or Crocket'''t'''. Neither of which are meaningful. Even the developers aren't sure.
* ''{{Tekken}}'': Dr. Bosconovitch's name is sometimes spelled "Vasconovich".
* The {{Zoids}} games suffer from all the misspellings the anime series do, and dozens more besides. Including the occasional screwup of an anime character's official English name...
* Averted (mostly) by the characters in {{Touhou}}. Everyone who appears in the games have their names in Japanese, then a handy English Romanization next to it. This has helped quite a lot over time with names, even the ones that are actually Japanese. For example, the second kanji in [[TooKinkyToTorture Tenshi]]'s name is more commonly read as "ko;" the Romanization cleared up quite a lot of confusion (although "Tenko" is still a popular FanNickname for her).
** There are exceptions occasionally though, when ZUN starts using foreign names. Is "Parsee" was pronounced "par-sii," or "par-seh-eh" (the former is the correct based on the katakana).
** And ZUN doesn't even stay consistent with naming. For example, [[AmateurPhotographer Aya]]'s last name is Romanized as "Syameimaru" in games 9 and 10, but turns to "Shameimaru" in [[{{Spinoff}} 10.5]] and 11.
** Special notice must be given to foreigner Maribel/Mariber/Maeriberii Hearn/Haarn/Haan (mix and match as you will). As she only appears in the music [=CDs=], not the games, there is no official Romanization of her name. This is even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by her (most definitely Japanese) friend Renko Usami, who can't even pronounce her full name, and always calls her "Mary."
*** Even ''that'' can be Romanized as "Merri," "Merii," or "Merry" instead. The poor girl just can't get a break.
*** A certain [[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] about Maribel being a dreaming [[SuperpowerLottery Yukari Yakumo]] does not help. Lafcadio Hearn, a Western author in Japan, changed his name upon becoming a Japanese citizen. His chosen name? Koizumi '''Yakumo'''.
* When PacMan was first released in Japan, it was known as "Puckman". However, the name had to be changed for its U.S. release because the "P" could be vandalized making the name offensive to people. "Pac-Man" has since become the official English spelling of the name in Japan. What's interesting about this is that whenever it's rendered using Japanese characters, it becomes "Pakkuman", which can be romanized into either spelling.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* A minor character in ''MenInHats}}'' was called [[http://www.meninhats.com/d/20020828.html Ramath]] the first and only time he appeared, and called [[http://www.meninhats.com/d/20020830.html Ramas]] in the only other strip to refer to him.
* ''{{The Order of the Stick}}'''s prequel book, ''Start of Darkness'', revolves around the villains and often has the main villain, Xykon, correcting other people's misspelling of his name (most commonly as Zykon). It's unclear how he can recognize this, since both names are pronounced the same way, which is also [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]]. Also, a group of adventurers attempting to hunt Xykon down wind up stumbling into the lair of a completely different villain with a similarly-spelled name. It is believed that this was author Rich Burlew's way of poking fun at the constant misspelling of Xykon's name in the comic's fan forums.
* ''Nothing Nice To Say'' has a character refered to by the comic strip's creator as outside the comic as a variation of "Chris or Charlie or whatever" due to the interchangability of his names within the strip.
* The above mentioned Aeris/Aerith controversy is mentioned in [[http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/102 this]] ''{{Loserz}}'' strip.
* In the webcomic ''Blue and Blond'', Blond is able to tell when people refer to him as "Blond'''e'''". Whenever this happens, it always annoys him.
* The {{Blob}}by minion in ''{{Building 12}}'' has had his name written as both Slauf and Slough.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* The FiveManBand's resident computer geek in ''CodeLyoko'' is Jeremy Belpois. Or was it... ''Jérémie'' Belpois? Apparently, either spelling is acceptable, and fans of the series accept either spelling equally.
** It doesn't help that within the show itself, in his specific EyeCatch it is spelled "JEREMIE" in Season 1 and "JEREMY" starting Season 2.
* The name of a character from the underrated movie ''Help! I'm a Fish''... Is it [[MeaningfulName Fly]] or Kai?
** Yes, the first one is meaningful. He turns into a flyfish once he drinks the fish potion.
* From ''TheFairlyOddparents'': Juandissimo Magnifico's first name begins with either "Ju" or "W", but even the end credits and the people making the merchandise aren't sure.
** [[http://frederatorblogs.com/odd/2009/04/16/juandissimo/ Official production art]] from the Frederator Blog, as well as a [[http://frederatorblogs.com/odd/2009/05/18/howd-they-do-that/ draft script]] for "Wishology" refer to him as Juandissimo. Maybe that will clear things up.
* ''{{Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers}}'' fans can't seem to decide on one spelling for the name of Gadget's Hawaiian lookalike. Apparrently, the official spelling is "Lahwhinie", but several variations are in common use amongst fans of the show.
* Jason's surname from ''HomeMovies''. Is it Penopolis, Panopolis, Popodopolis, or Penopopolis?
* ''SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperforceGo!'' fans have several spellings for their red monkey's name, both his full name and the nickname. SPRX-77, SPRX77, Sprx, Sparks, Sparx, and there are probably a few more spellings if one looked around the fanfic archives long enough.
* Fievel in ''AnAmericanTail'', who is listed as "Feivel" in the beginning credits of the first movie, which is the actual yiddish spelling. The spelling was changed to "Fievel" to avoid confusing American audiences who might otherwise pronounce it as "Fay-vel", but in other countries where the movie was released the "Feivel" spelling was left intact.
* ''WinxClub'': Would you believe that some people [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks made a fuss]] about 4Kids changing the name of the S3 big bad from Valtor to Baltor? To be fair, his mark of evil ''does'' have a big "V" in it...
* After two seasons, [[MetalocalypseCharles Foster Offdensen's]] name was revealed by Word of God to be spelled with TWO f's instead of one, rendering most spellings of his name in fanworks (and on this very wiki) incorrect.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The internationally renowned Copola producer Fred [[strike:[[TheAngryVideoGameNerd Fucks]]]] Fuchs.
** Technically "Fuchs" is German for "Fox" and is prononced more like "Fooks" than "Fucks".
* Bombay/Mumbai in India. This one is complicated because it's not clear whether or not the two names really have the same origin.
** Mumbai is derived from the name of the Koli Goddess Mumbadevi, while Bombay is the Anglicized version of the portugese name for the city
* During the 2006 Winter Olympics, certain English language broadcasts referred to the host city of Turin by its Italian name Torino.
** This is a somewhat interesting case, as the original spelling was Turin, in the Piedmontese language (the local language to that area). It's only since Italy has been unified that the Italian name Torino has been used.
* The city of Gdansk, [[PleaseSelectNewCityName also known by its German name Danzig,]] has caused numerous {{flame war}}s on {{Wikipedia}} between people who support one name over the other. Other cities in western Poland such as Szczecin/Stettin, Poznan/Posen and Wroclaw/Breslau have mostly escaped the controversy, because English speakers nowadays tend to use the Polish names exclusively but a lot still do know Gdansk as Danzig.
* "Trivandrum" (English) vs. "Thiruvananthapuram" (Malayalam). Beat ''that''!
*Burma/Myanmar. Weirdly, because of differing Romanizations, non-rhotic dialects and regional variants in pronunciation, these are in fact the ''same word'' in the country to which they refer.
** Same with Beijing/Peking. In theory they're both ponounced something like be-GING.
*** Sort of - ''Peking'' was borrowed into English from the local dialect a few centuries ago, ''Beijing'' is the modern (Putonghua) pinyin representation. The distinction in Mandarin between ''b'' and ''p'' is aspiration (spoken with or without a puff of air) not voicing as in English ''b''/''p''. As for the second syllable, that's the result of sound change; the character (京 "capital") was pronounced ''king'' with a velar consonant when English borrowed the name of the city as ''Peking'' (and even further back when the Japanese borrowed it and pronounced it ''kyou'') but underwent sound change to become an affricate like the consonant in Japanese ち (romanised as ''chi'', but the English ''ch'' is different).
** The ruling junta passed the Adaptation of Expression Law in 1989 establishing Myanmar as the official Westernised version of the country's name. Many countries, including the UK, continue to call it Burma as a way of showing they do not recognise the junta's right to rule. TheBBC refers to Burma on its domestic programming and Myanmar on the World Service. This is probably why the country is consistently referred to as "Myanmar (Burma)" on maps.
*** Specifically, ''Burma'' is an approximation of the country's name in the colloquial dialect, ''Myanmar'' in the formal dialect. (Neither dialect bears a great deal of resemblance to how it's written, ''mranma'' - Burmese spelling hasn't really changed since the fourth century. By comparison, English spelling hasn't changed drastically since the sixteenth century.)
* This was parodied in DubThis with an anime concerning Bridge. The main character was named Lucky Susie, but the die hard otaku insisted that her name was properly spelled "Suzi" and that the official dub/sub was ruining it. This was dispite the fact that the picture of the manga clearly shows her spelling her name Susie.
* For those of you who aren't familiar with the Miami Heat superstar, we can forgive you if you misspell his first name, but seriously, it's on his birth certificate and driver's license as Dwyane Wade.
* The city of Moncton, NB, Canada, was supposed to be named after a General Monkton. However, when the paper was released to announce the name, it was misspelled as Moncton, and apparently everyone was too embarrassed to fix it, and thus it stayed.
* [[{{Shakespeare}} Willam Chakspere]]. He's known to have spelled his own name at least a dozen different ways; other people have provided even more.
** Similar things could be said about the name of Georg/George Friedrich/Frideric/Frederick/Frederic Haendel/Handel.
* A particular variety of this is different Romanization: the currently popular system to translate Mandarin into English is Pinyin, whereas the formerly popular (but less phonetically accurate) Wade-Giles system had been used before. This results in having to learn that Chiang Kai-shek was also Jiǎng Jièshí and Chiang Chieh-Shih. Also, Chiang Kai-shek is the [[ChineseDialectsAndAccents Cantonese pronunciation]] of the man's courtesy name (basically, a name he adopted later in life).
** More "government-mandated" than "popular".
* A Fleming (well, Hainaulter, but who remembers where that is?) writing in French, Froissart uses some truly odd spellings of English, Scottish, and Spanish place names in his ''Chronicles.'' Like 'Asquessufort' for 'Oxford.' These are usually fixed in translation, though many are still indecipherable. Some might just be copyists' errors made while taking dictation.
* One guy from 'NotAlwaysRight' obviously doesn't know the other spellings of his name, we call him [[http://notalwaysright.com/why-hello-pheven/1501 Pheven]]


* '''Arabic''': As a general rule, Arabic transliteration sucks. Even the name Muhammad has almost a dozen different forms, ranging from simple transliteration differences (Muhammad vs Muhamm'''e'''d) to, um, "Mehmet" (the standard Turkish form). Yeah.
** For this reason, most Westerners know Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, one of the most famous Muslim leaders of the Middle Ages, as Saladin.
** ''SouthPark'' makes a point of always pronouncing it "''Moo''-hammed".
*** That would actually be the equivalent of calling a certain ''Yehoshua of Nazareth'' Josh. Or Iesus, if you're one of those damn Romans...
** Colonel Muammar/Muamar/Moammar Khadafi/Quaddafi/Gaddafi/Gadhafi/etc. of Libya. (Some sites jokingly add "may his spellings be many" to most attempts at translitering his name.) A 1986 [[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_264b.html article]] in ''The Straight Dope'' showed that the Library of Congress had identified ''32'' different spellings in use. The G's are an especially odd Romanization, as in Arabic, that sound only exists as a J with an Egyptian accent. For the record, in Arabic it's spelled qaaf-daad-alif-faa-yaa, so Qaddafi or Qadhafi would be the most accurate representations.
*** Upper Egypt and Sudan tend to pronounce the Arabic qāf as a "g" sound. If this happens in Libyan dialectal Arabic as well, or you have translators who DidNotDoTheResearch, it's actually reasonable to spell the "q" as a "g."
*** The correct spelling is قذافي -- qaaf-''dhaal''-alif-faa-yaa. The qaaf is pronounced as a hard G in quite a few dialects, and likewise, the dhaal is often pronounced as a daal.
*** If you look up "Qaddafi, Muammar" in the [[http://authorities.loc.gov/ Library of Congress Authorities database]], you can currently see fifty-four variants in the Latin script, and nine in the Arabic.
** Usama/Osama/Oussama bin/ibn/ben Laden/Ladin, as well as Al Qaeda/Al Qaida. The latter can also vary the capitalisation of "Al", whether or not it's hyphenated and whether or not there's an apostrophe (or a backtick) after the "Qa" syllable. By way of illustration, TheBBC uses "al-Qaeda", CNN uses "al Qaeda", the Guardian uses "al-Qaeda" and "al-Qaida" interchangeably and the Times uses "al-Qaeda" and "Al-Qaeda" interchangeably.
*** For that matter, there's the issue of whether he should be referred to as "bin Laden" or as "Osama", since his second name is, technically, a patronymic and not a surname in the western sense.
*** And then there's the Qu'ran/Kuran/Koran. You'd think that, if anything, the title of the most important book in the Arabic language would have a consistent Romanization, or even one that was more common or popular than the others...but no.
*** Likewise, Muslim/Moslem (the latter, though being a legitimate and older transliteration, is nowadays disliked by Muslims due to its similarity with a word meaning "oppressor").
** T.E.Lawrence explicitly made a point of rendering Arabic names as inconsistently as possible in his writings, to emphasize that there's really no good way to do it.
**Qatar is pronounced as though it should be spelled Kuttur.
*** A similar example of transliteration not matching how the word sounds in Arabic is the way "Jafar" is pronounced in {{Disney/Aladdin}}. In the correct pronunctiation, the first A is the 'ayn, a sound that doesn't exist in English, and the second one is a short A. In the Aladdin pronunciation, the ''first'' A is short, and the second A is practically an alif. Then again, it's not like [[DidNotDoTheResearch they did the research about anything else, either.]]

* '''Japanese''':
** Prior to and during World War II, Tokyo was Romanized as "Tokio" as often as not (this is still considered correct in German, Spanish, Italian and Finnish). The word doesn't even ''work'' that way, because the correct pronunciation has two syllables, "toe-kyo", while the "Tokio" spelling implies three, "toe-kee-oh".
*** Or occasionally [[AustinPowers Toyko]].
*** In the original Japanese, it has four ''morae'': "toh-oh-kyo-oh". The number of ''syllables'' is a different matter, and not as straightforward as one might think.
** Antique maps go completely mad trying to work out transliterations of Japanese. Edo (the former name of Tokyo) shows up as Yedo, Yedso, Jedo, Jyedso, Edzo... Shikoku, the southern island, fares even worse.
*** Also, to further the confusion, Ezo (or Edzo) is the old name of Hokkaido
** The name of a certain ethnically Korean voice actress from Japan can be romanized as either "RomiPaku" (her name transliterated from Korean to Japanese to English) or "Romi Pak" or "Park" (her name in Korean transliterated directly to English).
* '''Hebrew''' and Aramaic: Various names in religious works and other ancient literary sources often end up with multiple English equivalents:
** The transliteration of the name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible is a matter of some controversy; "Jehovah", "YHVH", "YHWH", "Yahweh", and many more versions have been used throughout history. It doesn't help that there ''is no correct pronunciation'' in the original Hebrew.
*** This is actually a little bit more complicated. The Hebrew in the Bible had no vowels, as older Semitic languages tended to either not have or not be written with vowels. Thus the truest name of god is simply yud-yud (two letters that look like apostrophes right next to eachother). There is a correct pronunciation, and it is even given in the 'proper' vowels in modern Hebrew. But you never /say/ it, because to do so will cause God to smite you. The only person supposed to say it straight out is the High Priest, once a year, in the Holy of Holies. Yeah. This is one of the reasons why Judaism has multiple names for God, so you can use the appropriate one and not get smited. Adonai during prayer, Hashem when just talking, and yud-yud if you want to get nuked. Hell, there's even the theory that the true name of God is made up of breath sounds.
**** Except for the part about saying His name straight causing Him to smite you being {{Jossed}} by [[TheBible Word Of God]], having been said many times by both priests and non-priests, inside and outside the Holy of Holies, Yom HaKippurim or not, without punishment for it. Want a particularly striking example? Check out Ruth 2:4, where Boaz and the reapers (normal ones, not grim ones) ''greet each other'' with phrases including it. Apparently, God does not consider this making His name ''shav'''; it's only ''humans'' who have decided that the prohibition is what it's commonly believed to be.
*** Yahweh is particularly odd because Hebrew does not have a "w" sound.
**** The Hebrew letter vav, pronounced "v" in Modern Israeli Hebrew, was pronounced as "w" in Biblical Hebrew, and even now there are some dialects of Hebrew that pronounce it as "w".
** The Jewish holiday of [=[CcKk]?[Hh]an{1,2}uk{1,2}ah?=] (Chanukkah and variations, for those not familiar with regular expressions.)
*** The matter of whether or not to double the n and/or k is still up for debate (it's pretty much a matter of preference), but starting it with an H is ''wrong''. The H on its own is a completely different letter. ''{{Rugrats}}'' said it best: "''Ch''anukah! You have to (makes phlegmy noise) when you say it!" Incidentally, the "kh" sound (yeah, that's how it's generally transliterated in America, to differentiate it from the English "ch" even though the actual spelling is always "ch") is also present in "Pesach", the Hebrew word for the holiday better known as Passover.
**** [[TheKhan KHAAAANNNUUKKKKAAAA!!!!!!!]]
**Jesus appears as Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs) in the Gospels (Koine Greek); this derives from either the Hebrew יהושע (Yehoshua) or Hebrew-Aramaic Hebrew-Aramaic ישוע (Yeshua). Both mean "Yahweh/Jehovah rescues". Most languages derive his name from the Latinised form of Ἰησοῦς, which is Iesus.
** Basically, anything with a "j" in it is a result of the fact that "j" ''used'' to sound like "i" or "y". When that changed, they didn't change the ''romanization'', they changed the ''pronunciation''. Usually.
** If the original Hebrew has a "chet" in it, expect it to have been modified, as English doesn't have a letter or diphthong that accurately represents it. "ch" is one way, but that risks it being pronounced as an English "ch". "h" is also used, but that ambiguates it with the "hey", resulting in things like two "Noah"s, one of which (the ark dude) actually has a "chet" at the end of his name instead of a "hey". Sometimes, it even gets discarded. Thankfully, a few versions use the "h" with some sort of marking to distinguish it.
* '''Greek''':
** The vast majority of Greek historical and mythological names have come to us in their Latinized form (partially due to the Romans being completely obsessed with Greek culture). So the actual Greek forms of such names as Alexander, Ulysses, Achilles, and Ajax are Alexandros, Odysseus, Akhilleus, and Aias. There are also the occasional pairs of Greek and Latin versions that are completely different or only somewhat similar, like Mars for Ares or Hercules for Herakles.
*** A fairly reliable system for backtracking into Greek from Latin is to replace all c's with k's (ch > kh too), replace final -us with -os or final -a with -e (though that's not always right), and change all ae's and oe's to ai and oi.

* '''Cyrillic''':
** Nina Myer's CodeName from ''24'' can be variously transliterated as Elena, Yelena (what the show went for), Yelana, Jelena (the more correct Serbian spelling) and Jelana.
** In English-language figure skating fandom, more hardcore fans will use the standardized ''German'' transliterations for Russian names, despite the fact that all the skaters use the standardized English transliterations professionally.
** The Russian translation of ''Ethan of Athos'' transliterates the names in the title (which are respectively Hebrew and Greek) from English, rather than use the standard Russian forms.
** The translation of Cyrillic to English led to a rather embarrassing situation for ice hockey player Semyon Varlamov -- his first name can also be transliterated as [[UnfortunateNames Semen]], which was used as his name by most media outlets when he was drafted by the Washington Capitals in 2006. The Capitals were quick to correct his name to "Simeon" (another valid transliteration), which stuck until his breakout season with the team in 2009. Following that season, Varlamov changed the spelling to its current form, this time to get the media to pronounce his name correctly.
*** That's due to some spelling peculiarity in ''Russian''. The letter "ё" (iotized "o"), used in his name, is for some inexplicable reason discouraged from appearance in print, to be replaced by the letter "e", whose respective sount isn't even close. Fluent speakers could infer it from context, but a person unfamiliar with Russian would never guess that it's Semyon, and not Semen.
** For some reason, in English, we use the ''French'' transliteration of Tchaikovsky's name. We could've use Tschaikowski, Chajkovskij or Chaikovsky, if we wanted. Maybe the "Tch" just looked better.
*** The same is done with the title of the ''Lieutenant Kijé'' Suite by Prokofiev. This seems to be part of an old tradition of Russian things reaching English-speaking countries by way of France.
**Similarly, when referring to the Russian rulers, the decidedly non-Russian Romanization "czar" is used much more often in American English than the more obvious "tsar" - the only explanation being that [[RuleOfCool Czech spelling is awesome]].
*** Or because it comes from the title Caesar, and they wished to preserve the C.
**** Note that "cz" is not Czech but Polish spelling, and it represents a sound like English "ch", not "ts". Polish (and Czech) spelling uses "c" for the "ts" sound, so Poles and Czechs spell it "car". Hungarian also uses "c" for the "ts" sound (so spells the word "cár"), but in older spellings "cz" does represent the "ts" sound.
** Sergei/Sergey Korolev/Korolyov the rocketeer.
** The many spellings of [[strike:Chebychev]] [[strike:Chebyshov]] [[strike:Tchebycheff]] [[strike:Tschebyscheff]] Chebyshev are a running joke in mathematical circles.
* '''Chinese''': See the article WhyMaoChangedHisName. There are multiple romanization systems and the language uses many sounds simply not found in English and other major European languages, and vice versa. Chinese people who do business with foreigners or study abroad also have a habit of taking foreign names that have no relation to their original names. True examples of this trope may occur when someone decides to use an unofficial romanization of his/her name (i.e., makes something up).
** In Singapore, most ethnic Chinese people have names taking the following order: either Western name(s) - surname - Chinese name, or surname - Chinese name - Western name(s), with the order inverted depending on whether the circumstances are formal or informal. Mainland Chinese and most overseas Chinese can be differentiated in certain ways, such as the Chinese diaspora using dialect names where PRC Chinese would use Mandarin names (Tan/Chan for Chen, Lieu/Liew/Leow for Liao, Ko/Koh for Xu, etc.), and also overseas Chinese sometimes preferring to split two-syllable Chinese names into two words where the romanised PRC Chinese name would be given as one word (Ai Li where a mainland Chinese would use Aili, etc.).
** In case anyone was wondering, rendering foreign names into Chinese is at least as difficult. Country names are all over the place, ranging from attempts to replicate the sound (''Shi ban ya'' for Espana/Spain or ''Jiang na da'' for Canada), to copying one syllable (''Ing Guo'' for England; ''Guo'' meaning 'country'), to just making something up (''Mei Guo'' for America, literally 'The Beautiful Country'). People and cities typically get called something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the original name.
*** Meiguo isn't made up as mei is the second syllable in translitteration. They probably just took the most positive character to make a shortened name.
** Studying Chinese history is a major pain due to this - Jiang Jieshie and Chiang Kai-Shek are two spellings of the same person. For the most part, modern media uses the Pinyin romanisation (i.e. "Jiang Jieshie") because it's ''way'' more accurate to what the names sound like in present-day standard Mandarin, which simplifies things. Unfortunately, either you get some historians keeping the Wade-Giles (i.e. Chiang Kai-Shek) spellings out of tradition, or you have to read old history texts. ''Uh''...
*'''Thai'''
** Thai Parents will often pick English nicknames for their kids, and they don't relate to the Thai name necessarily. For example a student named Jirawan whose nickname is Ploy.
** Families are also fond of making the English names into a set. Almond, Alfie and Alice are three girls; Pimnara and Pattarin are Punch and Pear.
*'''Mongolian'''
** Ghengis/Genghis/Chinggis/Cinggis/Chingis/Jengis/Jhengis/Zingis/Zhingis/Shingis/Dshingis and above all Dschinghis Khan!
*** It should be noted that Chinggis is the closest the the Mongolian spelling and pronunciation, and is generally what Mongolists use. It should also be noted that despite what English people say, "Khan" is not pronounced "Kaan", but with the Russian "x", which kind of like your expelling a popcorn from your throat. Or you could just say "Haan".
*** Period-correct Mongolian would be Chinggis Khagan, with the g pronounced as a farther-back version of the voiced equivalent of the kh.
*'''Latin'''
** A fair amount of Roman names fall into this trap. As archaic Latin used G instead of C and classical latin didn't have the letters U or J. The common Roman names Gnaeus or Gaius were abriviated Cn and C respectivly and some helpful Latin transliterations replace I used as a concinent with J, Gnaeus/Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus or Caius/Gaius Julius/Iulius Caesar are just two examples of the C-G and J-I confusion.
*** The English weren't helpful about this back in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thinking that names like "Marcus Tullius Cicero" and "Gnaeu--Cnaeu--(whatever) Pompeius Magnus" were too much in the way of mouthfuls, they "helpfully" reduced a number of famous names to short nicknames. Which have, in the main stuck. That's why we talk about "Pompey" instead of Pompeus Magnus, or "Vergil" instead of Publius Vergillius Maro. Cicero seems to have escaped relatively unscathed -- nobody talks of "Tully" anymore.
*** And even pronounciation is a hassle -- Gaius Julius Caesar, whose name we pronounce roughly like "Guy us (or Gay us) Julie us Siezer", would have been pronounced by him and his contemporaries as Ka-I-oos Yu-li-oos Kai-sar. V's were pronounced with a "w" sound, giving a humorous "real" pronounciation to the Roman general (and failed rebel against Nero) Vindex -- who did ''not'' "[[IncrediblyLamePun clean up]]." And then don't even get into Ecclesiastical Latin which is pronounced more like Italian.
* '''Inuktitut'''
** This one gets complicated: in the Canadian Arctic, aside from dialect differences from west to east, you also have different foreign influences. When Inuktitut is transliterated using the Roman alphabet, you get a situation where spelling in the Eastern Arctic, influenced by Scandinavian whalers and the presence of the Danes in Greenland, uses things like "j" and "u" where the same words in the west, influenced by English and Scottish traders, use "y" and "o". Then it gets even more complicated because Protestant missionaries in the east then introduced the syllabic alphabet, while Catholic missionaries in the west kept the Roman alphabet. Then when the syllabics gets transformed into the Roman alphabet, you get an even different spelling.
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