History Main / InconsistentDub

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'': The English dub of the original series is horribly inconsistent when it comes to the pronounciation of the characters' names. It isn't until episode four or five that this stops, and thankfully it stays consistent for the rest of the show, the {{OVA}}s, and the film.
* The 4Kids dub of ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'' often cut any reference to Japanese culture, to the point of removing an entire episode taking place at a Buddhist temple and changing sushi into cheesecake, even though most American kids in the target audience would know what sushi is... But left an episode focusing on TabletopGame/{{Shogi}} completely intact. Furthermore, numerous instances of characters wearing kimonos are kept intact in most of the dub, but one later episode airbrushes all kimonos into looking like winter coats. Hell, that same episode was also inconsistent with itself, as one character in that episode kept her kimono and even her Japanese name.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** Sometimes onigiri (rice balls) are changed into donuts, sometimes they're cookies, you never know. In one episode they actually called them rice balls, possibly experimenting to see if their target audience familiarises with them. Until 4Kids dropped the ''Pokémon'' license, they painted over them in later episodes so they looked like subs or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, even in an episode where a plot point involved a rice ball rolling away. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjphanrGEKQ Ever see a sandwich roll down a hill?]] How about vertically? And then jumping several inches? The "rolling down the hill" incident was the final episode of [[LongRunners season 7]], and it was also the first case of visually editing the onigiri. Before that the onigiri were left alone visually, but they were called sandwiches/cookies/donuts/popcorn balls/eclairs/etc. 4Kids continued this bizarre visual editing through season 8 until they lost the show (after which they've been left alone and consistently been called rice balls by TPCI).
** The Elite Four member Lorelei was renamed "Prima" in the dub. This didn't introduce inconsistencies to the anime itself since she only appeared once, but many viewers didn't realize she was the same character from the game. WordOfGod has it this was because [[LipLock a two-syllable name (she is called Kanna in Japanese) was required to match the lip-sync.]] Meanwhile, ''Pokémon VideoGame/PuzzleLeague'', a game which used characters from the anime, stuck with the name Lorelei.
** Similarly, the S.S. Anne is called by its Japanese name of "St. Anne" in the anime, likely because of the number of paint edits required to change it.
** In the MadeForTVMovie ''Anime/TheLegendOfThunder'', two of the main characters are named Eugene and Vincent. The problem is that when the same characters appeared earlier in the TV show's dub, they were called "Eusine" and "Jackson". Eusine's case was especially bad since he was a character from the games themselves, so the error was even more glaring.
** The Brazilian dub is particularly egregious. They almost never seem to keep the attack names the same, even getting to the point of ''mixing them up.''
** The same happens in the Latin American Spanish dub, especially since season 10. Attack names switch back and forth between literal translations of the English names to the names used in the [European] Spanish games. It is worse with cities, which change from literal translations to made up names to [[UsefulNotes/SpanishDubbing European Spanish]] names to unaltered English names. And Pokémon pronunciations change from one episode to another, and even during the same episode, Pokémon names are pronounced differently depending on the character.
** The Norwegian dub started out by translating all terms and attacks from English into Norwegian. While the recurring terms were generally translated consistently, attack names that only popped up every 20 episodes or so were all over the place, and words that have no direct parallel in Norwegian, like "Gym" and "badge" tended to jump between equally correct translations constantly. By season 9 they started keeping most terms in English, and aside from this sounding relatively dorky in the first place (with mispronunciations being common), the translators often had trouble differing between actual Pokémon terms (like "Flying Pokémon") and just generic descriptions (like "bird Pokémon" and "forest Pokémon"), keeping them all in English. Other times, they'd translate obvious game terms, like the names of the Battle Frontier facilities, while leaving terms like "nurse" in English.
** The French dub is high quality overall, consistently using the correct French names for everything (except for a few early episodes where Agent Jenny went by her Japanese name, K-you, making it sound like her name was Agent Caillou). However, there are two versions of the French dub: one for Europe, using the French names, and one for Canada, using the English names for characters and Pokémon. They're both the same dub, however, with the names replaced in the Canadian version. However, they forgot to change a name here and there in the Canadian version. Kinda weird having Ash or Misty suddenly being referred to as Sacha or Ondine out of nowhere.
** The Spanish dub did this [[Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad to fix a translation issue with the games]] -- most moves kept their game names, but "Counter" was correctly translated as "Contraataque" (counter attack), not "Contador" (something that counts), which the games would eventually fix in [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Gen VI]].
** The Italian dub:
*** In earlier seasons, Meowth's name was pronounced "Meh-o", while in later seasons it's pronounced as something like "Meow" because it's closer to the international pronunciation.
*** In earlier seasons, many moves were called with different names than the ones used in the Italian game translation. The most memorable were the ones for Thunderbolt, Water Gun and Vine Whip, whose game names are "Fulmine", "Pistolacqua" and "Frustata" but in the anime for years they went as "Superfulmine" ("Super Thunderbolt"), "Getto D'Acqua" ("Water Stream") and "Stretta con Liane" ("Vine Wrap"). Halfway through Season 7 most of these mistakes were corrected, but "Superfulmine" was kept around until Season 11.
*** A very particular case is the one about Swift. Sometimes it's "Comete" ("Comets", the name used in the games), but most of the time it is also called "Attacco Rapido" (the name of ''Quick Attack'', a completely different move) or "Velocità" ("Speed"), and in at least a pair of occasions they went with "Millestelle" ("Thousand Stars"). This problem was rampant in Season 10, when Ash's Aipom spammed Swift in most of the episodes.
*** When the first episodes of ''Black and White'' were aired as a preview, they mispronounced Snivy's name as "Sneevee". When the whole series aired later they redubbed the lines to give the correct pronunciation, but a pair of episodes after that use the "Sneevee" pronunciation again.
** The English dub has some of this due to the differences between 4Kids and PUSA. This is most blatant when Misty appeared in Alola. [[DubPersonalityChange 4Kids slightly changed Misty's personality]] but [[TruerToTheText PUSA follows the Japanese script]], not the 4Kids interpretation of the characters. As a result, Misty's character is rather off compared to how fans of the Original Series know her. She has {{Call Back}}s that make sense in Japanese but not in the dub, such as her bragging about her attractiveness or calling her Pokémon "beauties" and "steadies".
** When Vincent mentions Kenta and Marina in an episode, their names were localized as Yoshi and Dani respectively. However, they were called Jimmy and Marina in the dub of ''The Legend of Thunder!''
* ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'':
** Nobody can seem to remember their Pokémon's nicknames for the first three arcs.
** The translators can't decide whether or not (EN) Blue's sister is named May (as in ''Manga/TheElectricTaleOfPikachu'') or Daisy (as in the games). Especially bad since the English release was over a decade behind the Japanese at that point.
* The English dub of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' transforms Kira's calm character into a naïve and cocky person with some lines. In the original Japanese "I won't fight (ZAFT). Don't make me fight (ZAFT)." was changed to "I won't kill. Don't make me kill." even though he already made it clear he would shoot down anybody in his way in ''Gundam SEED''. The video games series ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' takes this to the extreme when he says "Thanks to this sword Lacus gave me, I can start kicking butt!"
* Examples from ''Manga/TokyoMewMew'':
** Mew Lettuce has one attack, Reborn Lettuce Rush. Mew Bridget from Creator/FourKidsEntertainment's ''Mew Mew Power'' was given two attacks; the second one just being the same attack flipped the other way.
** 4Kids made Pudding/Kiki a homeless girl in her first appearance, but when her house was shown, they had the characters say that they just thought she was homeless and then dropped the whole thing.
*** The Portuguese dub is anything but consistent. After episode 26, suddenly, all the voices changed, and the character names changed, all the attack names changed, etc to match the Japanese version more closely than the first half of the series (which was based off the 4Kids dub). The French, Hebrew, and Serbian dubs also continued past the point where 4Kids left off. They were mostly consistent on that regard, but the Serbian dub had other problems, such as the characters' attack names changing almost every episode!
*** The Tokyopop translation of the English manga is also bad with this. Ichigo's age changed from 11 to 12 to 13, and back to 11. Her weapon name also changed from "Sutoro Bell Bell" to the slightly more accurate "Strawberry Bell Bell" after the first ''chapter'' (the correct name is just ''Strawberry Bell''). Kimera animals were also called "Chimera animals" in the first volume and ''Kirema animas'' in all subsequent volumes.
* As noted in the page quote, TheNineties English dub of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' practically turned this into an art form. Expect any attack, villain organization, MacGuffin, etc to have multiple names. Most egregiously Moon Princess Halation from R was called Moon Scepter Elimination from its first appearance until dub episode 65, then after a 3 year hiatus that ended with the show {{Uncancelled}}, it was called Moon Scepter Activation for the final 17 episodes of the season, Moon Princess Elimination in the R movie and finally Moon Scepter Elimination once more in the first episode of S. Similarly, Moon Tiara Action was typically referred to as Moon Tiara Magic, and in one episode, Moon Tiara Vaporize. The only time the attack was named correctly was when it was used in S.
** The consistency problem got even worse in the last two seasons due to production of the show being rushed in order to get 77 episodes dubbed and aired within a 6 month time frame.
** Even the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] has its moments, most noticeably a page in the Dream Arc when it was first printed in Mixx[=/=]Creator/{{Tokyopop}}'s ''Smile''. The Outer Guardians kept their names - Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru. While Haruka is playing with Hotaru, she calls her ''Jenny''. This happens only on that one page and never happens again. Another page referred to Haruka as "Alex Haruka" and "Alex", which thankfully also got corrected in later printings.
** While we're on the subject of ''Sailor Moon'', the ByThePowerOfGreyskull and CallingYourAttacks phrases in the Russian dub are a complete mess. First, the fourth and fifth seasons were dubbed by a different team, which scrapped almost all previous established translations. And even in the first three, they were often translated inconsistently. More weirdness arises when you notice that all ''five'' transformation spells used by Usagi, after going through some translation variations, were set to ''exactly the same phrase''. Talk about logic.
** Pales in comparison to the Brazilian version. While later seasons were slightly (but only ''slightly'') more consistent, ''Anime/SailorMoon R'' was a total mess (done by a different studio than the first season) to the point that brazilian fans still make fun of it to this day. Nearly every single attack name had at least two variants, though mainly the "Moon Princess Halation" attack which had a different name per episode (one of them even had the same attack called by ''two different names''!!). A favorite was "By the Powers of the Moon Princess' Tiara!". Because her tiara has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IguHX3hQ4ZU everything to do with the attack]].
** In the first season of the Brazilian Dub, the term "Sailor Senshi" was usually translated as "Sailor Guerreiras" (Sailor Warriors). After the {{uncancell|ed}}ing and studio swap, suddenly they were... "the Sailor Moons" (which made the InTheNameOfTheMoon speech ridiculously {{Narm}}y, since Sailor Moon said her name ''three times'' [[note]]"I'm ''a'' Sailor Moon! Who fights for love and justice! I'm Sailor Moon! Sailor Moon will punish you in the name of the moon"[[/note]]). After 70% of the R season it was changed to sometimes-Sailor and sometimes-Sailor Guerreiras, and so it stayed for all subsequent seasons.
** The French [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] is terrible for this. Attack names are translated differently almost every time (or ''not'' translated as the case may be -- sometimes they're left in their original English form), and on a couple of occasions, even the characters' names are inconsistent. (For example, Setsuna, who is called Severine in French, is once referred to as "Setusna".)
** One especially bad English dub example is the Moon Gorgeous Meditation. When Sailor Moon gets a proper animation for it, it's named accurately. However the first two or three times she uses it before Pegasus gives her a power-up, it's referred to as "Super Moon Target." In the Japanese original, ''she didn't say anything.''
** And then there's the many different names for the Legendary Silver Crystal. ''WebVideo/SailorMoonAbridged'' had a field day with this in episodes 18 and 19.
** The Swedish dub had several examples of this, the most egregious of which was Sailor Moon's catchphrase when transforming in the first season, which in any given episode could be any one of "Moon prism, transform me!", "Moon prism!", "Moon prism power, transform me", "Moon prism power" or "Moon power, transform me".
** Although the Latin Spanish dub is mostly consistent, it still has some inconsistencies. The most notorious example is that between episodes 66 to 68 Chibiusa's name varied randomly between Rini and Chibiusa, but in the rest of the series her name stayed as Rini.
** The first Greek dub of ANT1 is known to have many translation errors, the most notorious being the fact that Sailor Mercury was called Sailor Kronos during the first two seasons. Because Kronos in Greek means Saturn, this caused problems when dubbing the third season due to Sailor Saturn's debut, so Mercury was renamed Sailor Ermis and Saturn adopted the name Sailor Kronos. Even after this, Mercury was still called "Kronos" in some scenes.
* In the English dub of ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'', the actors inconsistently pronounce the Japanese names of characters and techniques.
** Yahiko's name, the first time it was uttered, the character itself pronounced it as Yah-ee-co. Every subsequent use of his name is pronounced as Yah-he-co.
** In the Hispanic American Dub, the Sakabato has three names. the Correct but less used "Espada de filo invertido" (Inverted blade Sword), something just plain wrong "Espada de Doble Filo" (Doublle edge sword), and the one they decided to use the most "Espada sin filo" (Edgeless sword), not a true translation but it works. Kaoru in the first episode has one scene she has remorse for not having asked Kenshin his name before he left, yet in the next scene she calls him by name without he even telling her, and then latter she finally does ask him for his name.
** In the Brazilian dub, Kenshin's alias was translated at first as "Battousai, the Slasher", but later became "Battousai, the Killer". Interestingly, the Oniwabanshuu was first (consistently) adapted as "The Oni Gang", but in one of the later fillers it reverted back to "Oniwanbashuu" out of nowhere.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** In the English dub, Naruto says, after his battle with Neji, that he couldn't graduate because he couldn't master the shadow clone jutsu. What he was supposed to say was just 'clone jutsu': the shadow clone jutsu is a forbidden technique not taught to academy students.
** In the uncut English dub, Rock Lee takes a bottle of sake believing it to be his medicine, yet Guy and Tsunade call it "elixir" a couple times before correctly referring to it as sake. They called it "elixir" because the T.V. broadcast couldn't mention alcohol, so the mistake was most likely not caught before the episode was released.
** English dub: At first, the hero of Jiraiya's novel was translated as saying "Give up, huh? Yeah, about that..." instead of "Give up trying to make me give up!" When Naruto defeats Pain, he says the latter translation instead of how it was translated before. This, unfortunately lessens the emotional impact of the scene somewhat since you don't find out Naruto was quoting his master's novel until a later scene where Nagato reads the book, and the hero says the latter translation.
** English dub: During the first few episodes of the Wave Arc, "sharingan" was pronounced "sha''rin''gan", as in the original Japanese. It soon switched over to "''sha''ringan", where it remained for the rest of the show.
** When ANBU was first mentioned in the Swedish release, it was called ''LönnSpec'', short for ''Spec''ialstyrkan för ''Lönn''mordsteknik (The special force for assassination technique). In all subsequent mentions, it was changed to ''Hemliga falangen'', "The secret [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_formation phalanx]]."
** The English dub initially rendered Naruto's "dattebayo" verbal tic as "believe it," but [[AbandonedCatchphrase it was dropped]] after a few arcs because everyone agreed it got annoying real fast. This became a problem in ''Shippuden'', when it was revealed that Naruto unwittingly inherited the catchphrase from his mother, whose sometimes ended her sentences with "dattebane." The English dub rendered it as "you know?", and then had Naruto use the verbal tic sparingly afterwards to maintain consistency.
* Cannon chips in ''Anime/MegaManNTWarrior'' wavered between "Cannon" or "Laser Blast". They had a continuity for about three instances on whether the chip was used in "summon" mode or "weapon" mode, but that scarcely excuses it, especially when they neatly broke that. Oh, and "High Cannon" and "Mega Cannon" are called fairly consistently. They did that with the names of the characters too, with powers and character names diverging incredibly from the English translation of the very game series it's based on, leading to many characters having ''two'' completely different English names.
** The English dub of ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' was no better. Misora Hibiki became Sonia Strumm in the game and Sonia '''Sky''' in the anime dub. Harp was ''Lyra'' in the game but still combined with Sonia to become ''Harp'' Note, yet the dub changed the name to '''Lyra''' Note. Then there was a random moment where [=MegaMan=] called his attack as "Rock Buster."
** The 2nd game uses "Gospel" (After Bass's EvilCounterpart for Rush) for the villains and doesn't change it in the English version (where the original "Gospel" is known as "Treble" in the main series). The fact that their logo is a giant G and "Treble" not being a good name for an evil organization is believed to be behind this. In the anime dub, the name was changed to "Grave", since the censors probably didn't approve "Gospel".
* The ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' dubs quite a problem with this, with the names and attacks of characters alternating between the ones used in the show in Japanese and the ones used in the merchandise (or previous show appearances) in English. ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' is ''terrible'' about the same characters - not different Digimon of the same type, but the very same characters - using different names for the same attack. (Bonus points if the name was used for a different attack last time we heard it.) Since ''Digimon'' is big on CallingYourAttacks, to the point where it's often speculated that a Digimon cannot use an attack without saying it, it's very glaring when yesterday's Flaming Fist is today's Fire Rocket.
** Different attacks would also be called the same thing a lot as well. [=WarGreymon=]'s Terra Force is the giant fireball throw, Great Tornado is his spinning drill attack, Mega Claw is his hack-and-slash technique. The dub called ALL of those attacks Terra Force at some point or another, except when it called Great Tornado Mega Claw.
** In later dubbed series, this occurs ridiculously often between the dub of the television show and the US merchandise - for example, Dynasmon is referred to as Dunasmon in the card game, while Crusadermon retains his original name of [=LordKnightmon=]. As of ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', it's clear that Bandai of America simply stopped caring - of all the Digimon introduced in ''Frontier'', absolutely none of them are listed as having the same attacks in the merchandise as they do in the anime, or in the Japanese media for that matter! Then there are the name inconsistencies - aside from the aforementioned Dynasmon and Crusadermon, Bandai also makes mistakes about "Lanamon"[[note]]Ranamon in the dub anime and Japanese material[[/note]], "Sephirothmon"[[note]]Sakkakumon in the dub anime, Sefirotmon in Japanese material[[/note]], "Velgrmon"[[note]]Velgemon in the dub anime, Velgmon in Japanese material[[/note]] and most annoyingly of all, "Kerpymon"[[note]]Cherubimon literally everywhere else, [[{{Macekre}} and for good reason]]; this name is unfortunately as old as ''02''[[/note]]. The kicker here? According to ''Adventure'' dub director Jeff Nimoy, Bandai actually gave the dubbers what names to use for things, at least in the ''Adventure'' days, so either they stopped caring and doing that... or they were deliberately fucking with the dubbers by changing names after giving them.
** The Disney dubs of the various movies were made well after the original Saban dubs aired and contain a lot of inconsistencies in localization. For instance, in the ''Tamers'' movies, Japanese flags are removed and Okinawa is referred to as just "the island" in spite of the TV series having no issues with referencing Okinawa or the Japanese setting, and the [[BarbieDollAnatomy Barbie doll nudity]] is covered with glints of light in spite of the Saban dub of the TV series keeping it unchanged. Kai is also given a different voice than what he had in the series.
** In the first airing of a ''02'' dub episode, a bunch of [=YukimiBotamon=] were referred to by this name, but the on-screen text showed "[=SnowBotamon=]" (English name used in Bandai's merchandise). Later reruns corrected the text, but the confusion remained.
** In ''Tamers'' and ''Frontier,'' the show writers seemed to be much freer to go their own way with terminology. Characters often get new names and attacks, or retain their Japanese ones, when TheMerch was totally different. This is often seen as a good thing, though - the folks who'd made the trading cards had ''no'' idea what the animators would go on to make the attacks ''do'' when brought to television. Once things were left to the writers, we saw the end of the oddities that came from using the Bandai names sight unseen in season one, such as attacks that could not possibly have been named with the eventual onscreen actions in mind (Twin Fang = Saber Leomon firing ''his hair.'') and seemingly meaningless names that were actually direct Romanizations of straightforward GratuitousEnglish ones (Kurisarimon = Chrysalimon), or even keeping the Japanese ones where the Bandai merch ones were lackuster or [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks just different]].
** Meanwhile, in ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'', Falcomon's dub-Ultimate form, given the name Crowmon in the show, is inconsistent with the name it had been given in previous games: Yatagaramon. In addition, the aforementioned Crusadermon was - [[ExecutiveMeddling allegedly at the behest of]] Creator/ToeiAnimation - renamed [[{{Narm}} LoadKnightmon]] - not Lord, ''[[BlindIdiotTranslation Load.]]'' However, they actually [[ShesAManInJapan let him be a guy this time]].
** ''Data Squad'' also switched some of the Royal Knights' attack names to the Japanese ones, instead of ones established in previous American series; for example, what was Gallantmon's "Shield of the Just" in ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' became "Final Elysium" in ''Data Squad''. But at least they didn't suddenly start calling him Dukemon - something that would not have been out of character for that season.
** In ''Data Squad'', it's like ''nobody'' had watched the previous series. Monster-of-the-week Digimon are almost ''guaranteed'' to use the Bandai of America names and attacks in defiance of the long-established terms - often with {{Mons}} who were much more than monsters of the week in series past. By this point, Digimon who have appeared in most series and had their names ''and'' attacks kept consistent are ''very'' few and far between; [[{{Mascot}} Agumon]] is the only one which immediately comes to mind, and as the one in ''Savers'' is a different subspecies it would actually have had an excuse to have different attack names!
** The Brazilian dub has all the aforementioned flaws but is much worse. The dubbers can't decide whether to keep the Japanese names or the Bandai of America ones. One scene in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' is particularly egregious:
--->'''Kari:''' He is coming back!\\
'''T.K.:''' As Myotismon? Or Venom Myotismon?\\
'''[[BigBad Malo Myotismon]]:''' None of that. I am Belial Vamdemon!\\
'''[[EnemyScan Digimon Analyser]]:''' Malo Myotismon, the final form of Myotismon (...)
** ''Anime/DigimonFusion'', also suffered from this, namely when it comes to deciding which names they want to use for Digimon and the pronunciation of said names.
*** In one episode, Frigimon is dubbed as its original Japanese name, Yukidarumon, but it's changed right back to Frigimon in the next episode. Syakomon pronounces its name as SY-a-ko-mon, but the wording that appears right as it introduces itself spells it as Shakomon, not Syakomon. Most egregiously, when Mikey (Taiki in the Japanese version) uses Agumon's Digicard, Agumon's name ends up being spelled Augumon as soon as its name appears on the screen!
** The Italian dub of ''Fusion'', known as ''Digimon Fusion Battles'', is filled with issues when it comes to naming Digimon. Some of them keep their western names like in the earlier series (Puppetmon, Frigimon), others have their western names except pronounced differently than in the older series (Beelzemon pronounced BELL-zemon rather than BEEL-zemon, Deputymon pronounced De-POO-timon rather than DE-putymon), other keep their Japanese names even when they used the western names in earlier series (Vamdemon, Dukemon). And the ones who always kept the Japanese names? We have again some pronounce changes (Cyberdramon is Cy-BEAR-dramon rather than Cyber-DRA-mon, Submarimon is Subma-REE-mon rather than SOOB-marimon) or even get [[InconsistentSpelling misspelled from the original Japanese]] (Lilithmon is now Rirismon, Baalmon is now Barmon).
*** Another inconsistency in the Italian dub is how they treat the term "[=DigiXros=]". In casual dialogue it's localized as "Digifusione" ("Digifusion"), but when it's actually done they still say "[=DigiXros=]"
** For some reason, the German dub of ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' made all Holy Four Angel Digimon female and gave all of them female voice actors. But Patamon, the weaker and reborn version of Seraphimon, had the same male voice as the Patamon from ''Adventure''.
** The German dub of ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'' gave some of the Digimon their Japanese names, despite some of them having had the Western names from previous series. Most notable are the members of the Royal Knights.
* ''Anime/TransformersArmada'' referred to the giant battleship Decepticon as both Tidal Wave and Shockwave, depending on the episode.
** The show had more than its share of dub errors, though. Particularly, Megatron's partner Mini-Con is named Leader-1, in homage to ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots'', but the name "Leader-1" would be applied to almost ''every'' Mini-Con at least once. Also, many a Mini-Con reverted to the Japanese name (Swindle gets called Grid once, etc.).
** ''Energon'' couldn't even bother to keep things consistent between lines of ''dialogue'', let alone from episode to episode. In addition, for multiple episodes, no one could decide which Autobot was Cliffjumper or Downshift. It boggles the mind, really: production was rushed, and the translation that was incomplete, true, but an incomplete translation explains only times when a line didn't match the ''Super Link'' original. Here, there were times when the lines made ''no sense whatsoever'' as a response to what had just been said, or ''directly defied'' what we were witnessing onscreen at the same time. Worse, Cliffjumper even acquired Downshift's voice once.
** This mostly fell by the wayside by the time ''Cybertron'' rolled around, chalking this up to ScrewedByTheNetwork. However, ''Cybertron'' had a few inconsistencies with ''Energon'' due to ''not originally being a sequel'', which makes this particular example straddle the line between this trope and TooLongDidntDub. There is, however, a straight-up example in Crosswise, who was called Smokescreen in the first few episodes he was in, though this was fixed for later broadcasts of said episodes. He was ''going'' to be a new Smokescreen, you see, but once they decided ''Cybertron'' would be a sequel to ''Armada'' and ''Energon''... well, ''Armada'' Smokescreen looks nothing like Crosswise, acts nothing like Crosswise, and ''existed'' too much to have actually been frozen in Arctic ice for millennia prior to Professor Suzuki discovering him in ''Cybertron'', which is Crosswise's origin.
** In a subtitle example, one fansub group making ''Anime/TransformersHeadmasters'' English subtitles at first used the Japanese names for characters and factions. About halfway through, they switched to the American names.
** The Hungarian dubbing of ''Armada'' and ''Cybertron'' topped the faults of the English version by making absolutely sure that at least one character in each ''Armada'' episode would deliver a line in another character's voice, and confused the Mini-Con names even further (for instance, Sparkplug didn't get a name for 10+ episodes). ''Cybertron'' (dubbed years earlier and by completely different people) also kept changing its voices around a ''lot'', and handled the infamous [[ShesAManInJapan Override]] gender-switch by having the character be male at first, then suddenly changing "him" into a female with no explanation.
** An interesting inversion happened with regards to Unicron Trilogy Jetfire: In Japanese, he was called Jetfire in ''Armada'', Skyfire in ''Energon'', and Dreadrock in ''Cybertron'', but was called Jetfire in all three series in English.
* The English dub of ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'' suffered from this due to its fragmented episode run on Creator/KidsWB. Any cards that came from episodes not shown were explained through flashbacks that often portrayed the capture as happening differently from the actual episode. When the rest of the episodes were shown in other Anglophone countries, the flashbacks ended up making it look like Sakura was bad at remembering things.
* Examples from ''Anime/YuGiOh'':
** There were a few times where it took a while for them to figure out how to translate card names. Celtic Guardian's first appearance referred to it as "Elf Swordsman" (which is its original name), and Harpie Lady was referred to as "Harpie's Lady" a few times early on.
** In the Italian translation of [[Manga/YuGiOh the manga]], Celtic Guardian is randomly called "The Elf Warrior", "Elf Knight" or "Elvish Knight", and Harpie Lady became "Happy Lady".
** "Monster Reborn" was called "Reborn the Monster" for a large portion of the first series. ''Lampshaded'' in ''TheAbridgedSeries'' in which one episode Yami refers to the card as "Reborn the Monster", and both times a message is seen on screen showing "Monster Reborn".
** Again in the Italian version of the manga, In the first panel Ghost Kotsuzuka is named, the named is translated as "The funerary ashes ghost". In every other panel, it's just Ghost Kotsuzuka.
** The Latin American Spanish dub was considered one of [[SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing the best dubs]], but had the bad luck of changing dub studios and directors (fortunately, the main voice cast didn't change). Despite eventually correcting Reborn the Monster to Monster Reborn, the Latin American Spanish dub keep naming the card the same way ("Renace el Monstruo") for quite a time. Then, for some reason, they started to call the card "Resurrection of the Monster" (probably a garbled version of its Japanese name, "Resurrection of the Dead." Also, they used to name Obelisk the Tormentor using a literal translation (which, in this case, was okay), Obelisco el Atormentador, but the second time the card was named, it was called "Obelisk el Atormentador" for no reason. After a bit of time, they named the translated card "El atormentador Obelisk". And the Dark Magician Girl, who at first was called "Maga Oscura", which was okay, after some studio change, they started calling her "La dama del Mago Oscuro" (which can be translated as "Lady of the Dark Magician", and the way it sounds implies they are a couple). Probably the translators were Shippers.
** In the Italian dub Dark Magician Girl is usually called "Giovane Maga Nera" ("Young Dark Magician"), but in the ''Pyramid of Light'' movie she is instead called "Ragazza del Mago Nero" ("Dark Magician's girlfriend").
* The English translation of the ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' manga has quite a few cases of this. Perhaps the most notable example is that the subject Yukari-sensei teaches is initially changed to Spanish, but later on is kept as the original English (probably as the translators realized that the substitution would ruin some gags later on).
** The English dub of the show has it just as bad. Yukari becomes a "language" teacher. One of the foreigners becomes Spanish, while the one who sets up the BlahBlahBlah joke imitates the [[GratuitousEnglish Engrish]] of the Japanese version. All other instances of Engrish are mutated into generally easy French and Spanish phrases, with at least one instance where the characters [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign just add an "-o" to the ends of normal English words]] (though this was obviously intended to get by on the RuleOfFunny). It only actually really ruins one gag, though.
--->'''Yukari''': ''AI HABU NASHINGU MOA TSU TIICHI YUU!''[[note]]"I have nothing more to teach you!"[[/note]]
--->'''Tomo''': ''SANKUSU, MISU YUKARI!''[[note]]"Thanks, Miss Yukari!"[[/note]]
** Additionally, while Chiyo is always referred to as "Chiyo-chan" in the dub, Chiyo herself refers to "Miss Osaka", and "Miss Sakaki", etc. On the other hand, "Yukari-sensei" being called "Miss Yukari" is understandable, especially since one episode (in the original Japanese version) has Tomo(-chan) calling her "Miss Yukari" in English.
* Almost every manga Creator/{{TokyoPop}} has ever translated, ever. This goes double for ''Manga/SailorMoon''.
** Their anniversary re-release of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'' actually ''fixed'' the issues with this it used to have, and also repaired some things that were omitted or intentionally mistranslated in the original release. Said release was already one of the best from the period when they were still called "[=MiXX=] Comix", which isn't saying much.
* ADV's English dubs of the two ''VideoGame/ZoneOfTheEnders'' anime (the OVA "Idolo" and the TV series "Dolores, i") are a consistency freak's nightmare. Nearly every instance of name-dropping from the three video games is horribly butchered: the organization BAHRAM is called Bufram, villain Nohman is addressed as Norman, the events of the first game are said to have happened on a colony called Antiria instead of Antillia...there's even one brutally egregious case of "Orbital Flame" instead of "Orbital Frame" in the ''first episode'' (though later episodes do not repeat this mistake). On the upside, the English voicework ''apart'' from these annoying inconsistencies is ''excellent''; at the very least it's leaps and bounds beyond the borderline BlindIdiotTranslation made by Konami for the two [=PS2=] titles...
* The ''Manga/DeathNote'' English dub at first varied between leaving the word ''{{shinigami}}'' untranslated and translating it as 'god of death'. They eventually went with the former. This was probably intentional, so it would be clear what the word shinigami ''meant''. The same thing is done in the manga. The words 'gods of death' are also used [[spoiler:in a message from Kira to L]] while written in English in the manga. The word 'shinigami' could not have been used in that context.
* The half of the episodes of ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'' that were dubbed were very inconsistent about a lot of pronunciations. For instance the the last syllable in the titular mecha is sometimes pronounced "gar" and other times it's "ger". Sometimes it seems to vary ''by character''.
* The ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' dub can't seem to make up its mind whether the little girl modsoul is named Linin, Rinin, Rilin, Lilin, or something else entirely. Officially, it's "Lirin", but the voice actors seem to make a point of pronouncing it ambiguously, making it sound ''almost'' like "Ririn".
* The dub of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' has a minor, but still incredibly bizarre case where the name in the ''dialogue'' for a certain mecha contradicts the subtitles that were shown ''half a second earlier''. The mecha that [[spoiler:transformed at the end of the 25th episode]] was called "Super ''Galactic''" by the translation of the BossSubtitles, but then all the people called it "Super ''Galaxy''".
* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'':
** ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' suffers from this, with Fate's familiar being named either Alf, Arf, or Aruf depending on the disc. Although the season one dub consistently calls Nanoha's weapon the Raging Heart, the subs start with Raging and then switch it out for Raising, which was also used for the ''A's'' dub.
** In the Japanese version of episode 12, Fate calls her ''Thunder Smasher'' attack ''Thunder Buster.'' The English dub fixed that mistake.
** In ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'', the Belkan Intelligent Device Graf Eisen has the abilities "Panzerschild" (armor shield) and "Panzerhindernis" (armor obstacle), and the intelligent device Laevatein has the ability "Panzergeist" (armor spirit). Geneon's subtitles translate "panzer" as "tank" for Graf Eisen's abilities, but translate it as "armor" for Laevatein's ability. The fact that there aren't any tanks in this show, and that these are all defensive abilities, might suggest that it should be "armor" (or "armored"; the correct adjective forms would be "gepanzert", "gepanzertes", and "gepanzert", respectively).
** During the final battle scene of the ''The Movie 2nd A's'' commentary, the cast (including Fate herself) mistakenly call Fate's ''[[FinishingMove Plasma Zanber Breaker]]'' "''Jet Zanber''", which is a completely different attack.
* It's not an inconsistent ''dub'', but there's contradiction among the subtitles, the {{eye catch}}es, and various other things at two whether ''Anime/GunBuster'' (both the machine and the series itself) is supposed to be two words (Gun Buster), one regular word (Gunbuster), or a [=CamelCase=] word ([=GunBuster=]).
* The ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' manga by Viz ran into this during the "Aging Mushrooms" (called "Mushrooms of Time" in the English version) storyline. After consuming one of the titular items, which make you as old as the mushroom is long (in centimeters,) Ryouga turns into a little 6 year-old kid. Later on, he's fed a 3cm mushroom and becomes a three year-old, and he gets back at Ranma with the "Explosive Pulverization" technique (the ''Bakusai Tenketsu'', which Viz itself had ''always'' translated as "Breaking Point") and he gains a three year-old's lisp. Even worse, when he eats a 10cm mushroom, ''he keeps the lisp'' even though he didn't have one when he was six.
** The ''Hiryuushoutenha'' ("Flying Dragon Ascend-to-Heaven Blast") gets a new translation every time it's [[CallingYourAttacks called out]].
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'':
** The manga had some problems with this, especially in the first few volumes. They're fairly minor for the most part but there are two gratuitous instances: [[WeaselMascot Chamo]] is variously referred (by the same characters) as an ermine, rat, weasel, or ferret, before they finally confirmed him as an ermine. Then there was the early incident where Negi's father was referred to as the "Southern Master" for a volume before the translators realized that it makes no sense and switched to the correct "Thousand Master". Fortunately, later editions of that volume fixed it.
** Takamichi's note for Negi on [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Evangeline]] is supposed to read "talk to me if she becomes a problem," since she's an evil vampire with a personal vendetta against Negi, specifically. The official English translation is "Ask her advice if you're in trouble," making it seem as though Takamichi was trying to get Negi killed.
** Chachamaru's surname was said to be "Rakuso" at first, then "Karakuri" later on.
** They really couldn't decide on what Nodoka's nickname was either: the early volumes used "Library Girl" or "Librarian" before switching over to the more literal "Bookstore".
** Fortunately, the later Omnibus editions of the early volumes fix all of these problems, due to being re-translated by the same people doing the current translations.
* The Dark Horse translation of ''School Zone'' can't seem to decide whether it should be Yokai, Youkai, or Monster. In the summaries of previous volumes and character bios, they even manage to render it as Yosuke -- apparently confusing Nanka Youkai with Nanka Yosuke, the person it's possessing. There is also a character who's named Yoshiko in the first volume, and Miko in the later volumes.
* The ''Anime/ShamanKing'' Brazilian dub suffered from this in spades; the only attack that got a consistent renaming was Ren's Chuuka Zanmai ("Golden Tower in Action" in the dub), every other had a different name per episode. For example, Yoh's trademark attack (Shinkuu Budda Giri) was called Budda Slash, Budda Attack, Amida Style Attack, Amida Attack, Shinkuu Budda Giri, and "Haaaryyyaaahhhgggh!".
* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** There is a joke of sorts wherein characters generally believe that May Chang's pet miniature panda is [[IAmNotWeasel some kind of cat]]. Some of the English dub episodes had it be correctly identified as a panda, whereas a later episode used the cat confusion.
** They also weren't sure whether a country should be called Ishval or Ishbal, and then they tried to stick an R in there somewhere once. See the series' InconsistentSpelling entry for further giggles.
** Some number of episodes into the dub of ''Brotherhood'', the characters abruptly start referring to the Gate (as it had been called not only up to that point in the show, but throughout the entire ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'') as "the Portal" for no adequately explained reason.
** While the Australian translation is generally quite good with consistency and manages to translate most names correctly, it can't decide whether the name of the lizard chimera working under Greed is Bido or Pete. Also Xerxes was called ''Lebis'' the first time it was mentioned but was changed appropriately in every subsequent mention. The American version is much worse...while not in the anime, the manga translation referred to the country as [[FlatWhat "Cselksess."]] Where they got that from is anyone's guess.
** Also in the Australian version, the Briggs mountains were called the "Bux" mountains when first mentioned. They also got Julio Comanche's (The Silver Alchemist) first name wrong, calling him ''Joliot''.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion''.
** The name for what Kaworu (and in 3.0 [[spoiler: Asuka]]) call mankind is "Lilim" in the ADV dub of the series and "Lilin" in the Manga Entertainment dub of the NGE movies. For Rebuild, Studio Khara fixed this before it even came up: the preview at the end of 1.0 flashed "Lilin" on the screen, well before the word first came up in dialogue in 3.0.
** In NGE, Adam's form at the Second Impact is called ''hikari no kyōjin'', which was correctly translated as "giant of light". However, Rebuild 2.0 has a scene clearly reminiscent of the Second Impact in NGE, in which Eva-01 takes a form with the same Japanese name, which Studio Khara adapted to English as "Radiant Giant". The names of the latter form only appear in AllThereInTheManual, and the forms probably have no relation to each other other than being a MythologyGag.
** The localization of the manga adaptation is somewhat inconsistent about whether to include honorifics; for example, Rei calls Shinji "Ikari-kun" in some scenes and "Ikari" in others.
** In the English dub, "Eva" is pronounced like "ey-va" in the series, while in ''End Of Evangelion'' it's closer to "evva". Going by the Greek/Latin form of both "evangel" and "Eve", it should be pronounced "ey-va". Going by the Japanese, it's either or.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** The manga was affected by the 4Kids dub starting up, changing Zoro's name to Zolo, despite letting other characters keep their original names (for example, Smoker is called Chaser on the 4Kids dub, but is called "Smoker" in the manga). Considering there was also copyright problems with Zorro, it probably would've had to happen eventually, and it's been that way since, making this a relatively minor example. Or not as since Funimation gained the anime rights, they've been calling him Zoro with no legal troubles at all, along with every piece of One Piece media except for the official manga.
** The English manga is inconsistent with Buggy the Clown's VerbalTic, ''hade ni'', which Funimation consistently translates as "flashy" (for example, "Die flashily!"). Most of the time it's not even used, but other times it's been translated as "gloriously," "humor me," and "lavishly."
** For years, all official translations referred to the island at the end of the Grand Line as "Raftel". However, Chapter 967 of the manga, released over 20 years after the start of the series, establishes [[InconsistentSpelling it's actually supposed to be]] "[[GratuitousEnglish Laugh Tale]]", something translations would reflect going forward.
** The official translation is also inconsistent on whether or not they want to translate Character names. For example, the leaders of the Mink Tribe, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, both have their names translated in the official sub/dub as "Dog Storm" and "Cat Viper". Yet there are plenty of other characters whose names can technically be translated that are left alone, such as Nami which can translate to "Wave", and Bartholomew Kuma whose name literally means "Bear".
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'':
** The Hungarian dub had trouble with the name of the Kamehameha, going through at least six different names, including "Lifeforce Wave", "Highest Power", "Magical Force", "Magic Ray", "Personality Beam" and the simple "Lightning", and switching back and forth between them, sometimes within the same episode. Since Hungarian dubs are usually pretty good compared to most, it's possible that this was a quirk carried over from the French dub.
** It probably was, since the Spanish dub is also based on the French one and also has that issue ("Cameame Waves"? "Vital Wave"? "Infinite Light"?). The opposite also happened, with "Vital Wave" (The "normal" name for the Kamehameha) also being used for the [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Kikouhou]], the [[BlindedByTheLight Taiyou-ken]], the [[HeroicRROD Kaioh-ken]], several unnamed ki attacks, and more. The Taiyou-ken (Solar Fist) also went by several names, such as "Solar Beam", "Solar Fist" (Gasp!), "Photoelectric Waves" (Said by [[IdiotHero Goku]], go figure) and the crowner, "Final Flash". By Cell. One episode BEFORE Vegeta used the ''real'' Final Flash. Not even the titular {{McGuffin}}s are safe, being "magical balls" (Most things are simply "magical X" on this dub for some reason) but sometimes becoming "crystal balls" or even "dragon balls". There's also calling Saiyans "Space Warriors" and Super Saiyans "Super Warriors", but then using "Super Warriors" for vanilla Saiyans in some movies, and actually calling them "Saiyans" (In English) on early GT. Even the manga fell to this one, calling them "Saiyajins" in GratuitousJapanese at first, and by extension "Super Saiyajin" later on... until the Androids arc, where they used "Super Warriors" like the anime. Sometimes. To the point of using both terms ''on the same page''. The manga also called the [[CombinedEnergyAttack Genki Dama]] "fireball" on its first appearance and "Energy Ball" everywhere else. And that's not even getting to current video games being translated from the USA versions resulting in even ''more'' name changes for minor characters.
** Since then, ''Dragon Ball Kai'' got dubbed in French and is better than the original in all aspects. Closer to the Japanese original, secondary characters are named and characters keep their voice actors. Most importantly, 99% less translation errors.
** The Latin American Spanish dub had also its own share of inconcistencies: First, in early episodes, both Pilaf and Shen Long had no name (they were referred to as "The Emperor" and "The Dragon God", respectively), until the Red Ribbon saga when their names were finally said. Uupa on his first appeareance was called Nube (lit. "Cloud") and was a girl; by the next episode he was aptly renamed Uupa and got a gender change. Later, in the Z series, Dr. Gero was strangely called Dr. Maki and after a few episodes he reverted to his Japanese name. But maybe the worst offender is planet Namek, which during the Saiyan and Freezer sagas was named "Planeta Namekusei" ("Planet Planet Namek", in a weird case of Gratuitous Japanese). After the arc had ended the planet got renamed as Planeta Nameku. Also, secondary characters changed voices every now and then.
** Due to a complex licensing situation, people in the UK got '''five''' different dubs of the series on Cartoon Network alone. This created countless inconsistencies regarding names, voices and music.
** In the English version of ''Dragon Ball Z'', Piccolo went by the pseudonym "Ma Junior" at the World Martial Arts Tournament, with his reasoning that it was what he used last time he entered the tournament. In the ''Manga/DragonBall'' dub, he went by the name "Junior" (No "Ma") instead. Also, in the [[{{Bowdlerisation}} edited version]] of ''Anime/DragonBallZKai'' he uses the "Special Beam Cannon" on Raditz, only for it to be the "Makankosappo" in the next episode's flashback. This was averted in the uncut dub in that case, however was later invoked when Goku uses the "Solar Flare" and Krillin does the "Taiyou-ken".
** Mr. Satan was called "Hercule" (sourced from his French dub name) in the broadcast version of the English dub, and in most video games and merchandise. The uncut version of the dub, as presented on DVD, usually refers to him as Mr. Satan, but the remastered version accidentally used a few takes calling him Hercule.
** Raditz was said to be faster than the speed of light, yet much later on Goku's instant transmission was described as allowing him to move at the speed of light. (Both of these are inaccurate FYI, as in the original Piccolo just said that Raditz was amazingly fast and Instant Transmission, like its name implies, is actually instant).
** Another oddity of the Hungarian dub was Frieza's name, which was at first translated as Dermesztina ("Freezetina"), but was changed to Dermesztő ("Freezer") when it became apparent that he's a guy. Some changes also took place when they started dubbing ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' -- most of the French carryover names were left as they were, but the Trunk was restored to Trunks, as was Mr. Momo to Mr. Popo. Also, Vegeta finally began calling Son Goku by his Sayan name Kakarot, while in the dub of ''Z'', he constantly referred to him as Songoku, save for a single episode in which Kakarot was rendered as Cachalote (pronounced "Kaah-shaah-low" in the dub) -- another oddity of the French dub, which all other redubs based on the French version shared.
** Yet again an inconsistency stemming from the French localization: Maron is sometimes called Marlene.
** In the Danish version, spawned from the French version, most of the translation errors of that version are fixed... but a new one is added in the form of the so-called ''Gendi Kama''.
* In the Italian dub of ''Dragon Ball'', King Piccolo was renamed "Al Satan"... which was already used as Gyumaoh/Ox King's dub name. When the latter reappeared in the last episodes of the show, his name was changed to "Gyuma", a shortened version of the Japanese name.
* For years, the Italian dub of the ''Dragon Ball'' anime referred to Androids 17 and 18 as cyborgs, calling them C-17 and C-18 (of course, the C is for "Cyborg"). Starting from the Universe Survival Arc of ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', they started to call them androids, while still calling them C-17 and C-18.
* The ''Literature/{{Slayers}}: Super-Explosive Demon Story'' manga, as translated by Creator/CentralParkMedia, has some inconsistencies in how names are spelled:
** The silver beasts are initially called "Zanafer", then later called "Xanasphar". (Most other versions of ''Slayers'' spell it "Zanaffar".)
** The city with the Flagoon tree is initially called "Sylarg", then later called "Sairaag". (Most other versions of ''Slayers'' spell it "Sairaag".)
** The priestess from that city is called both "Sylphiel" and "Sylfeer", seemingly at random. There was even one page that had ''both'' spellings used on it. (Most other versions of ''Slayers'' spell it "Sylphiel".)
* ''Manga/SaintSeiya''
** The Latin American dub, despite its otherwise [[SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing excellent quality]], has this problem with the techniques of a few characters. For example: [[DarkActionGirl Shaina's]] technique was called "[[ShockAndAwe Thunder]] [[WolverineClaws Claw]]" in the original Japanese, while in the aformentioned dub she would go around [[CallingYourAttacks shouting]] ''"A mí cobra!!"'' and/or ''"El poder de la cobra!!"'' (lit. "To me, cobra!" and "The power of the cobra!") as a direct reference to the visuals accompanying the technique. Particulary egregious is the case of Shiryu who had the same technique with four different names.
** In the Asgard Saga, Hilda's castle Valhalla was pronounced ''waruhara'' in the Japanese version. Ergo, the dub would call it either Waruhala, Warukaya, ''V''arukaya, and once, but only once, ''Valhalla.''
** The Netflix English dub switches to calling the Saints "Knights" and their cloth "Armor" beginning with episode 42 due to ExecutiveMeddling from Netflix to match [[Anime/SaintSeiyaKnightsOfTheZodiac their reboot]]. However, alternate takes were recorded with the correct terminology for future use in case the dub got reissued elsewhere.
* ''Anime/EurekaSeven'' has a couple of minor inconsistencies. For a large part of the series, the name of the Scub Coral aliens is translated as "the Coralian" (in the plural), before it's switched over to "the Coralians." Also, Dewey's flagship is called the ''Galaxy'' on at least one occasion, but is later kept untranslated as the ''Ginga''.
** Matthieu mispronounces Eureka's name in episode 6.
* The English dub of ''Anime/{{FLCL}}'' seems incapable of making up its mind as to whether or not to use honorifics. One scene they'll be all over the place, the next, nada. Might be more RuleOfFunny though.
* The first volume of the ''Manga/RaveMaster'' manga names Haru's MorphWeapon sword by its Japanese name, "The Ten Commandments." After that however, it's always referred to as the "Ten Powers" instead.
* The English dub of ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'' has been known to switch between using "Lady" or leaving the honorific "-sama" untranslated. When it's really bad, they do this ''in the same sentence''. This was part of the dubs EarlyInstallmentWeirdness along with other characters using the same antiquated speech as Kaede and some mangled Japanese names/words. The dub would settle into its groove by the time Sango joined the cast.
** The English dub of the original series was pretty consistent with translations of CallingYourAttacks. The dub of [[SequelSeries The Final Act]], being released primarily straight to DVD wouldn't bother with any of the new attacks introduced. This leads to "Wind Scar" appearing alongside "Meidō Zangetsuha".
** Fun fact about the Brazilian dub: at first the series was translated by Fernando Janson, who kept the terminology pretty consistent throughout the first half of the series. For the second half, he shared his translation duties with Fred Correa, who apparently did not bother to research the established translations of terminology and made up new ones (sometimes inconsistent within ''themselves''). Thus, the second half of the Brazilian dub is known for being consistently inconsistent: for example, the term "han'you" (Viz: half-demon) would change between "half-youkai" (Janson), "semi-demon", or simply "hybrid" (Correa). Attack names also became a mess; Inuyasha's Bakuryūha (Viz: Backlash Wave) would vary between "Explosive Wave" (Janson), "Frontal Attack" (????) and, in one bizarre instance, "Bakuryuja" [[note]] That was probably due to an overlap confusion with the LA Spanish script; "j" has the same sound as "h" in Spanish, but definetly not in Portuguese [[/note]]. But you can tell which translator is working on the episode you're about to watch: if Inuyasha opens the episode with (the accurately translated) "I'll destroy Narak[u] with the Tetsusaiga!", it was Janson. If he does so with (the bizarrely reinterpreted) "We'll destroy Narak[u] [[{{Narm}} with our steel teeth!]]", it was Correa.
* The second English adaptation of ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' (entitled ''Anime/GForceGuardiansOfSpace'') was a rush job, as Turner wanted to get the show done as quickly as possible for less cost. It is unknown how many writers besides Fred Ladd must have worked on the dub, but translation and dub name inconsistencies were prone to crop up:
** Director Anderson is referred to as "Anderson" in some episodes, while others refer to him as "Commander Todd".
** The country of Hontwarl was called "St. Pierre" in the first episode it appeared in, while the next two episodes suddenly called it "Satania".
** In an example of attempted censorship, Dirk's parents are initially said to have "almost" been killed by Galactor, while the flashback scene of their deaths was edited out. A later episode states that Dirk's parents ''were'' in fact assassinated that many years ago, possibly because the writers realized they could no longer hide that plot point.
* The English dub of ''VideoGame/GateKeepers'' translates the villain Akuma Hakushaku's name as "Baron Akuma." In the sequel series, ''Anime/GateKeepers21'', he is called "Count Akuma" instead.
* Creator/AdultSwim bumps for ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'' were inconsistent in how they mispronounced the title character's name -- the ones that didn't pronounce it as "Loopin the Third" instead parsed it as "Lupin Three", as if it were the third series in a franchise simply named "Lupin".
** The Italian dub of the red jacket series [[DubNameChange renamed Fujiko "Margot"]]. The problem is that every other Italian dub of ''Lupin III'' media (including [[Anime/LupinIIIPart1 the earlier green jacket series]]) always kept her original name.
* The English dub of ''Manga/Cyborg009'' used "Professor Gilmore" and "Doctor Gilmore" very interchangeably, along with the actors experiencing difficulty over whether to pronounce 008's actual name (Pyunma) as "poon-ma" or "pyoon-ma". The dub of the "Gilmore's Notes" episode also had its script ''heavily'' diverge from the original, with the dubbed Gilmore claiming that he never got to meet the four first-generation cyborgs (001-004) as they were frozen before he came on to the project. A later episode would show this not to be the case. He also claims in the dub that 003 is over 80 years old, when she'd more likely be chronologically in her 50s for the time period that the adaptation takes place in (2001-2002).
** The Pu'Awak sister Dinah was referred to as both "Dinah" and "Deena" when her name was brought up, owing to some possible mispronunciation trouble. The Latin American dub went with calling her "Deena".
** The scriptwriter that handled the "Gilmore's Notes" episode, rather than re-using the sound and lines for the stock footage clips, opted to write new dialogue for the clips-- some of which did ''not'' match up to what was said in the previously-dubbed episodes. For instance, one line of 004's was rewritten to have him say to 009; "Look at me, I'm just a freakshow!".
* ''Manga/SgtFrog'': Tamama Impact is usually referred to by some variant of "Crazy Rage Breath", but occasionally they still call it Tamama Impact. Kogoro's transformation word also flips from "Attach-O!" to "Adhesion", the literal translation of the Japanese.
** In the Italian dub:
*** The Tamama Impact is called "Tamama Attack" in the first season and "Tamama Impact" in the subsequent ones.
*** Koyuki's surname is changed from Azumaya to Gashitana for no apparent reason in later episodes.
*** Saburo's radio persona is usually called "DJ Mutsumi" as in the original version, but in some episodes is randomly changed to "Romantic DJ"
* The Italian dub of the Anime/TimeBokan ''Royal Revival'' OAV was for most of the time faithful to the dubs of the shows that aired back then, except that the names of the two henchmen from the first series were switched around. And three side characters from ''Yattodetaman'' were called with their Japanese names rather than the Italian ones. Cue enraged fans.
* The Italian dub of ''Anime/CardfightVanguard'' has issues with the names of some clans and cards. Sometimes you see stuff like the names of the various incarnations of Tsukuyomi being switched around, sometimes you have Nova Grapplers being translated literally as "Combattenti Nova" rather than the usual "Lottatori Stellari" ("Star Fighters"), and then they can't just call Oracle Think-Tank with the right name: the correct translation is "Oracolo Esperto" ("Expert Oracle"), as used in the actual cards, but in the anime you usually hear either "Guardiano dell'Oracolo" ("Guardian of the Oracle") or "Esperto dell'Oracolo" ("Expert of the Oracle"), and the former is actually a wrong version of "Guardiano Oracolo", the translation of the "Oracle Guardian" family of Oracle Think-Tank units.
** Also, Blaster Blade and Battleraizer were translated as "Distruttore delle Lame" ("Destroyer of the Blades") and "Distruttore da Battaglia" ("Battle Destroyer"), being unaware that "Blaster" and "Raizer" were going to be important keywords later on. As a result, all the following "Blaster" and "Raizer" units keep the keyword in English with the effect getting a side note accounting that the first two units lacked the keyword in Italian. The anime, on the other hand, didn't care and kept translating the "Blaster" keyword as "Distruttore", giving different names to many cards: for example, Blaster Javelin is the literal "Blaster Giavellotto" in the card game and "Distruttore dei Giavellotti" ("Destroyer of the Javelins") in the anime.
* In the official Crunchyroll subtitles for ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'', Georgie is referred to as Josie in the preview for episode 10.
* The Italian dub of ''Anime/YoKaiWatch'' translates the name of Next [=HarMEOWny=] (Jibanyan's favourite idol group) differently in almost every appearance they make. Between the anime, the manga and other pieces of merchandising such as books or magazines, they were called "Miao Armoniche", "Micine Armoniche", "[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Micine Miao Armoniche]]", "Le Gattine", "Vicina Armiaonia", "Super-micie", "Armiaoniche" and some other names too.
* In the English dub of ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}'', Marucho is a boy in most episodes, which is his right gender, but in episode 11 he's referred to with female pronouns for whatever reason. The Romanian dub (and perhaps the dub of every language with gendered adjectives) is worse with this, because it translates him as a girl more often than the English dub does and in one episode he's dubbed as both a girl and a boy.
* In the Italian dub of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the exact pronounciation of "Quirk" isn't clear: most characters pronounce it correctly, but some (All Might in some earlier episodes, Recovery Girl and Endeavor) pronounce it "qwork" instead.
* The English localization of ''Manga/YuriIsMyJob'' flip-flops between whether its names are in Japanese or Western order. At the end of Chapter 6 in Volume 1, Mitsuki's name is shown as "Yano Mitsuki," on her student ID (the Japanese order), but in Chapter 8 in Volume 2, which returns to that scene after the WholeEpisodeFlashback, the same student ID has "Mitsuki Yano."
* The ''VideoGame/Persona3'' manga initially has all the high-school age characters on a FirstNameBasis- for example, Mitsuru calls Yukari by her first name in the first volume, long before they become friends. At the start of Volume 9, which starts shortly before the endgame, some of the cast start using last names- for example, Mitsuru calls Junpei "Iori." Something similar happens in the ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' manga, around the start of Volume 10, which begins just after [[WhamEpisode November 5]].
* The English dub of the anime version of ''Manga/HighScoreGirl'' mostly calls Japanese consoles and games by their North American names, although later on the Turbografx-16 is referred to as PC-Engine, and the Super Famicom/NES version of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is still called ''Final Fantasy VI'' despite being renumbered III for North America.
* The English dub of ''Anime/TheLegendOfSnowWhite'' had a complete cast change after the first fourteen episodes, and along with the different voices, Snow White's squirell friend's name changed from "Pik" to "Pikki" and the forest's magical fog changed from "the Seven Colors Fog" to "the Rainbow Fog."
* The English dub of ''Manga/AsteroidInLove'' is inconsistent on name order. For example, Ao introduces herself to Misa as "Manaka Ao" in the third episode, while introducing herself as "Ao Manaka" while on [[spoiler:Ishigaki island]] during the eleventh episode.
* ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'': Matsuri starts off calling his partner "[[LastNameBasis Ninokuru]]-senpai" or just "[[UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics senpai]]", both of which the English version simplifies to "Ninokuru". After Matsuri switches the former to "[[FirstNameBasis Soga]]-senpai" a few volumes in, the English translates ''either'' phrase to "Soga" or "Ninokuru" for a while before settling on "Soga" for both.
* Very common in Hungarian anime dubs.
** ''Anime/HelloSandybell'' was originally titled ''Sandy Bell'' when it aired on Szív TV. When it [[ChannelHop moved]] to RTL Klub's block Rajzfilmklub, the name of the series was suddenly changed to ''Helló, Sandybell!''.
** In the Hungarian dub of ''Anime/RyuTheCaveBoy'', Tyranno's name is Siránó. However after episode 4, everyone began calling him Tirannusz for some reason, and no one brings up that his name for the first 3 episodes was something different.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' series may as well be the most extreme example of this trope.
** Alyssa was localized as Alis, then Alisa.
** Lutz was translated as Noah, but was then changed back to Lutz.
*** This one has spawned so many arguments in the fandom, it's not even funny. What it basically comes down to is that in the Japanese version of the first game, Lutz is your friend, and in the second game, he comes out of cryo-sleep to aid Alisa's descendant, Eusis, in the same quest, a thousand years later. In the English version of the first game, Noah joins you on your quest, and then a thousand years later, some naked guy named Lutz gets himself out of cold storage to dump some exposition on Rolf and company. In the ''fourth'' game, in both versions, Lutz is a legendary godlike figure worshipped by the Espers, but players of the English version are likely to wonder what the hell happened to Noah and how did Lutz get this kind of publicity if he spends all his time in a box waiting for heroes to show up.
*** Noah/Lutz is at one point referred to as "her" in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarI''. In the first line of dialogue mentioning him. This was fixed in the GBA rerelease.
** Lutz/Noah's master's name changes even over the course of a single game.
** The recurring BigBad of the entire series has had its name spelled differently on multiple occasions, with Dark Falz and Dark Force being the most common variations.
* Minor example from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': a scholar early in the game tells you how people who used magic were called Mage Knights. By the time you actually meet their descendants later, they're called Mage Warriors. Later retranslations fixed this.
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'', GDI had the "Firestorm Defense", which used a "Firestorm Generator" and "Firestorm Walls". In the French localization, it becomes the "''Anti''-Firestorm defense", [[LogicBomb but is still powered by a "Firestorm Generator"]].
* Many of the various ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' games are completely inconsistent with using the localized or original Japanese attack names. For instance, in ''VideoGame/DigimonSurvive'' Agumon uses Pepper Breath, the English name of its signature attack. But it's evolution Greymon uses the Japanese name Mega Flame instead of its localized attack name Nova Blast.
* Extremely common in various long-running [[RolePlayingGame RPG]] video game series, where item, spell or monster names that are the same in Japanese are localized differently in different games.
** ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
*** The spell Esuna has appeared as Heal and Esna. Holy has appeared as Fade, White, Pearl and Holy. Potions have also been Cure (Potion) and Tonic. Are they Golden Needles or Soft Potions? Remember when Thundara was called [=Lit2=]? And who can forget Cactuar/Cactrot/Sabotender, and Coeurl/Cuahl?
*** The reason "Thundara" was "[=Lit2=]" has more to do with [[CharacterNameLimits character limits]] in the early games than inconsistency. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' only allowed four characters per name, whereas ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' allowed five and six, respectively. The Holy situation is also related to Nintendo's former [[CensorshipBureau draconian policies]] involving any sort of religious content. In all these cases, the localization team had to work with the resources (and within the limits) they were given, and it was only starting from the Platform/PlayStation era that they could be consistent with the Japanese naming schemes. In fact, it's only ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' which is the truly inconsistent installment, since it was [[BlindIdiotTranslation translated in-house by Sony]].
*** Most of the English spell names became standardized by ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', becoming closer to the original Japanese names, but there were still some odd inconsistencies here and there. Like the "Scan" spell, which eventually became "Libra", but only years later.
*** In the Castilian Spanish version, Dragon Knights (AKA "Dragoons") seem to change name depending of the game: "Dragon Knight" in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' and its sequel, "Dragontino" ("Draconesque", and no, it wasn't "Dragonesque Knight") in ''III'' and ''V'', "Draconarius" in ''II'' and "Draconius" in ''IV'' - the ''FF'' translator evidently loved GratuitousLatin. Curaja can't keep its own name consistent either; the previous spells are always "Cura", "Cura+", and "Cura++", but in ''IV'' it's "[[RankInflation Cura+++]]", in ''I'' "Cura++2". And the crowner, ''III'' changes the entire system to be "Cura, Omnicura, Cura+, Omnicura+" for the hell of it. Thanks for making this simple, Square. And we won't even get on how ''VII'' had completely different translations from later games, though that might be forgiven since ''VII'' was a BlindIdiotTranslation [[FromBadToWorse from the already blindly-idiotic English translation]] and the others are translated from the Japanese versions.
*** Even in English, the translation of "Dragon Knight" was inconsistent for a while, being translated directly in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' and translated as "Lancer" in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' (Playstation versions of both). Every other game refers to them as "Dragoons", despite the word "dragoon" meaning something ''very'' different in English normally (and you can blame ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' for that one, being the first game in the series to have the class and be translated into English... [[BlindIdiotTranslation sorta]].)
** ''Final Fantasy'' also flipped flopped on what to call the status effect characters slipped into when their HP reached zero. Names ranged from disabled, dead, swoon, wounded, etc. It wasn't until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' and later that the series stuck with using KO or Knocked Out to represent a character who has fallen in battle.
*** The many-armed fiend of fire was translated as "Kary" in the original release of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' and her cameo in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure'' (this was pretty obviously a mangling of [[UsefulNotes/{{Hinduism}} Kali]], who she closely resembles.) Later releases and cameo appearances went back to the more faithful "Marilith". The king of Lorim even lampshades this in ''Adventures Of Mana''.
*** Orthros/Ultros, everyone's favorite purple octopus villain who began life in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. The former is his name in Japanese, but it was changed in the localization of ''VI'', and later localizations have flip-flopped between which name to use in English, although "Ultros" seems to be a bit more common.
** ''Franchise/BreathOfFire'':
*** The first game was translated by Square, the later ones (sometimes very poorly) by Capcom. The goddess Tyr became Myria in her second appearance (the latter is actually correct); recurring character Deis was sometimes called Bleu (Originating with the Square release of the original, and kept as an [[TheArtifact Artifact]] for the Capcom translation of ''Breath of Fire 2''); and Winlan/Windia/Wyndia was supposedly the same place in each game. Gobi/Maniro/Manillo is another case -- all Capcom can be accused of is poor romanization, and yet again it was Square who was the root problem, picking a name out of thin air rather than using the original Japanese name; most cases of Inconsistent Dubbing in Breath of Fire can be traced back to this, actually -- although some of these were necessitated by technical limitations, there's actually no particularly good reason to change Deis to Bleu.
*** A few more that are legitimately Capcom's fault: Baba/Bunyan, Great Tree/Yggdrasil.
** Unusually averted in ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', where Luminaire and the Flea/Slash/Ozzie trio, for instance, were translated the same as in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. This becomes even odder when a character shows up in ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' with the Japanese name of Slash, making the translators change ''his'' name to Nikki in order to accommodate the returning purposefully-mistranslated Slash from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'':
*** The final boss was originally called Necrosaro, but was renamed Pizarro for some of the ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters'' games, and is going by Psaro in the latest DQM and DQ4 remake.
*** And, unlike some cases of this, ''none'' of these actually match the original Japanese name; "Death Pisaro" is just plain too long for English versions, even if they want to be faithful.
*** The guy actually goes by multiple names, complicating it further. In the original, he is Pisaro, who becomes Death Pisaro when he decides to exterminate humanity. The first localization has him as Saro/Necrosaro, while a later one calls him Psaro/Psaro the Manslayer. [[spoiler:He loses the upgraded name when he joins your party.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Cyan's samurai talk[=/=]YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe is a consistent character quirk in the Japanese and GBA scripts. In the SNES version, it only pops up when it's plot-relevant (i.e. actually alluded to in dialogue) and he's written exactly like any other character otherwise, which renders Sabin's GotMeDoingIt moment after he first meets him inexplicable.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'':
** There's the whole [[InconsistentSpelling Aerith/Aeris]] thing; Square, in most of the ''Compilation'', has settled on Aerith, however there are a few lapses. [[http://store.na.square-enix.com/store/sqenixus/en_US/pd/ThemeID.29853700/productID.250845500#.UM0Q03c2iQg One page for the updated PC rerelease of the game refers to her as Aeris]], [[http://finalfantasyviipc.com/en while another calls her Aerith]].
** Cloud's catchphrase "kyoumi ga nai ne" (translated later on as "Not interested") was translated as something different every time it came up in the script, meaning a huge majority of players didn't even realize he had a catchphrase at all until later on, when supplementary works with more consistent translations came along.
** Music tracks from the game also went through various translations over time: The regular battle music is known as "Fighting", "Those who fight" and "Let the battles begin" depending on translation, and the boss music is known both as "Still more fighting" and "Those who fight further".
* In the original English translation of ''VideoGame/Klonoa2LunateasVeil'', Volk is always called the Kingdom of Discord. The ''Phantasy Reverie Series'' remake changes every instance of "discord" to "anger" at first, but reverts to calling it "discord" halfway through.
* ''VideoGame/LunarSilverStarStory'' has a few instances. Most notibly, there's a part where you need to catch creature called a fluffy bug, which can be found in a field among similarly named creatures called puffy bugs. ...Except they're only called puffy bugs in battle. Dialog refers to them as puwapuwa bugs, their Japanese name. There's also the group known as the Prairie Tribe. All dialog refers to them as well, the Prairie Tribe, but in Tempest's introductory cutscene he introduces himself as being from the ''Plains'' Tribe.
* The English version of ''VisualNovel/LuxPain'' is rather infamous for flip flopping between whether the game takes place in America or Japan, characters' genders, the spelling of names, and numerous other details. There are even instances where the voiced lines say the exact opposite of what the text says!
* The English translation of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' consistently uses the traditional East Asian name format of Family Name first, then Given Name. ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors'' instead consistently used the Given Name, Family Name format more common in the West. Since they each used it consistently, this wasn't too much of a problem... until ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi'', where you now get characters who are inconsistently named using one format or the other, depending on the source game. It should be noted that the English localization team of ''Samurai Warriors'' actually breached convention when it decided to use Given Name, Family Name for characters, because you're not supposed to do that for Japanese figures born before the Meiji Restoration. (Rival series ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'' still keeps the names in the original order, as its translators apparently got the memo.)
* The Polish translations of ''VideoGame/TheSims1'' expansions have a case that messes up the user interface. Most of the game's expansions add additional areas to enjoy their contents, to get to them you need to use a phone to call for a taxi. The translators brilliantly decided to translate the "Call Cab" function on the phone ''in completely different manner'' for each expansion, thus making the player browse through differently worded sub-menus on the phone for each type of cab rather than having them neatly arranged under a single menu.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'':
** There's a bizarre example between this game and [[http://www.smashbros.com Smash Bros. Dojo]], which apparently have their own separate translation teams. The game pluralizes the recurring enemies in the Subspace Emissary as "Primids", while the site prefers just "Primid" (made even more jarring when the Trophy Stand update had a screenshot of the Big Primid trophy that includes the game's pluralization). Additionally, the game level "Outside the Ancient Ruins" is referred to on the site as "Outer Ancient Ruins" in the Secret Element List update, and the Mysteries of The Subspace Emissary update calls what is named the "Island of the Ancients" in the game the "Isle of Ancients". To be fair, however, the site did correct some of its own errors later on, as at one point, Samurai Goroh and the Wario Bike and Drill Rush attacks are called Samurai Goro, the Wario Chopper and the Triple Dash.
** The Italian site also has Ike's Aether being renamed "Twilight" all of a sudden some months before the game's release, where it was still called "Aether".
** More from the Italian translation of ''Brawl'': for some reason, the translators made up [[DubNameChange new Italian names]] for the characters from ''VideoGame/PanelDePon'' (which [[NoExportForYou was never released in Europe]]) in the sticker list. The odd part comes when you get the Lip sticker and she is renamed "Fiorella"... yet Lip's Stick is still called "Bacchetta di Lip" and not "Bacchetta di Fiorella"!
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Birdo from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2''. The English manual describes Birdo as a transgender female. Nintendo kept on swaying between her being trans or cis for years, though over time they've described Birdo in a [[AmbiguousGender more neutral]] manner. Curiously, the North American and British English versions of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioParty'' (which are otherwise identical) split the difference and refer to Birdo with female pronouns in the former and male in the latter. Other British translations during the Nintendo Switch era initially used male pronouns (or in some cases either gender-neutral ones or no pronouns at all), but in 2022 they switched to female ones.
** A minor inconsistency in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'': the items "Kuribo's Shoe" and "Jugem's Cloud" are obviously named after the enemies otherwise translated into English as [[TheGoomba Goomba]] and Lakitu. This was averted in later ports of the game (and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker''). Kuribo's Shoe has since been renamed "Goomba's Shoe". However, a reference to the item in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' (in the form of of the name of one of 100 Samurai-like characters that can be fought, each one referencing something from the series' past) used the translation "Shoe of Kuribo".
** The manual and credits sequences for ''[=SMB2=]'' (and the ''Super Mario All-Stars'' version) switched the names of Birdo and Ostro.
** This is a huge issue with enemy names between games and sub series. For instance, ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'', ''[[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi's Island]]'', ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' and a couple of others did a pretty poor job at translating anything, leaving us with Mario enemies given Japanese names instead of English ones in the 'dub' (''Mario Land'' 1), Big Boos the size of normal ones (''Mario RPG''), misnamed fish (how Cheep Cheeps and Fishbones were called Flopsy Fish in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'') and a whole host of ''Paper Mario'' examples where traditional ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'' enemies got new names for a single game. Like Lava Bubbles in ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' (which are just Podoboos).
** Watt from the first ''[[VideoGame/PaperMario64 Paper Mario]]'' is officially female, but is called a "he" during Super Block upgrades in the English version and in her Catch Card in ''Super Paper Mario''. This is apparently because [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns gender-specific pronouns were very rarely used to refer to her in Japanese]].
** Kamek in general. His English name is the same as the Japanese species name for a generic Magikoopa, meaning that there's a whole host of examples where either he gets mistaken for a different Magikoopa by the translators (''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', ''VideoGame/MarioParty9'') or has a completely different character end with the same name (''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' with Psycho Kamek). This makes even figuring out what games he appears in near impossible.
** The Spanish localization team(s) for the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series are terrible with keeping track of Fawful's name: he's called Esbirro Jijí in ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'' and the Latin American version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory Bowser's Inside Story]]'', Fawful in ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime Partners in Time]]'' and Grácovitz in the Castilian version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory Bowser's Inside Story]]''.
** In the Italian translation of ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', Hermie III speaks normally. In the remake, the Italian script was copypasted verbatim from the original version with only a few edits, so Hermie still speaks normally... then, in the new ''VideoGame/MinionQuest'' part, he suddenly has a German accent for no reason whatsoever.
** The occasionally appearing giant eel enemy is known as "Unagi" in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'', with this name sticking for most of its subsequent appearances... until ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', where they're suddenly referred to as "Maw-Rays".
** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'' and ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' both contain a ghostly blue character who tells long, boring stories and happens to be related to Merlon. In Japanese, she's named "Kurisutāru". However, her English name varies; in ''64'', she's called Madam Merlar, but in ''Super'', she's called Merlumina.
** The English version of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has a pretty bad record when it comes to translating references to its predecessor. For instance, Li'l Oinks are called "Bubu" (their Japanese name), the Crystal Palace is called the "Goomstar Temple", the Goomba King becomes the "Chestnut King", and Toad Town is called "Mushville". Then there's a reference to Chuck Quizmo, an NPC in the previous game, being completely scrubbed out.
** A minigame in ''VideoGame/MarioParty4'' takes place in a burger joint. A poster on the wall reveals that the resturant is called "Kinopio Burger". "Kinopio" is Toad's name in Japanese, and the poster says "Kinopio" in all versions of the game. The name wasn't likely changed due to an oversight in localization.
** ''VideoGame/YoshisCookie'' was released near the end of the "Princess Toadstool" naming, and it uses that name for her. However, in the battle mode, every character has a three-letter shortened form of their name for "who will be targeted with what status if you match Yoshis now". The Princess's is [=PEA=], thus "Peach" before America learned that name.
* ''VideoGame/SuikodenTierkreis''. Dear god, ''VideoGame/SuikodenTierkreis''. If you're lucky, the name will just be spelled one way and pronounced another. If you're not, the pronunciation will also vary depending on the character speaking. Two examples that spring immediately to mind are Shairah/Shailah, and Kureyah/Claire.
** Dear God, ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' as well. Bright/Shining Shield Rune, Han/Hal Cunningham, Crystal Valley/Ballet, Jilia/Jilian Blight, just to name a few.
** Sindar is spelled Cyndar in ''VideoGame/SuikodenIII''.
* The ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' has been getting better about standardizing the translations of certain techs that have been passed from main character to main character since ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'', but we're still at the point where we need a guide to list the various English names of some shared techs. Or even the ''same'' tech on the ''same'' character as a result of remakes and cameos. At least they've generally settled on what we're calling tokugi, ougi and hi-ougi.
** The most common inconsistency comes in the incantation for the lightning arte ''Indignation''. Whereas the Japanese version retains the incantation across games due to nostalgia, the fact that the various English localisations are rarely produced by the same team means that the incantation is inevitably translated differently each time.
** The Spanish translation of ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' changed the names of many skills, enemies and even some characters (Such as [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame the dwarves]]), but ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'' used the English terms. In most cases, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools this was a good thing]], since some names were ''too'' imaginative and clashed with the rest of the game. On a negative example (Still on ''Dawn''), ArcWords "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" was translated literally for 75% of the game, but suddenly changed to "With courage and galantry, any dream can be made true" (Which is not quite the same, mind you) right before the battle against [[spoiler:Brute]], then kept this way until the FinalBoss, where they go back to the first translation.
* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'': Creator/{{Falcom}} can't seem to decide whether they want the English name of Crossbell's police force to be the Crossbell State Police Department (CSPD), or just the Crossbell Police Department (CPD). On one hand, [[TheHero Lloyd's]] jacket has a "CSPD" logo on it, and there are other examples of CSPD text around the police department's headquarters. On the other hand, the official badge of the police department abbreviates the name to "CPD," and it's a more accurate translation of what the department is called in Japanese. As a result of this ambiguity, ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel II]]'', localized by Creator/XSEEDGames, uses CSPD, while the sequel, localized by [[Creator/NipponIchi NISA]], uses CPD, as does the Geofront FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure''.
* ''VideoGame/WildArms1'':
** The [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the original game, ''Wild [=ARMs=]: Alter Code F'', despite being developed eight years after the original, still infamously had a poor translation. Perhaps the best example of this is [[WhiteMagicianGirl Cecilia's]] middle name; she is referred to, at various points throughout the game, as Cecilia Lynne Adlehyde, Cecilia Raynne Adlehyde, and Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde. It's very jarring.
** Alhazad's gender, which is referred to both as "she" and "fellow". Why is this jarring? Because, not only is Alhazad referred to as a male in both the original's translation and the Japanese version of the remake, but he also constantly makes creepy advances towards a certain female even in his first appearance, which should have been a huge tip-off on his gender from the start.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendaryStarfy'' refers to Shurikit as both a "he" and a "she" at different points in the game. Officially, she's a girl.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'':
** Capcom seems to ''like'' being inconsistent about terms in the first game and its sequel, ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce''. The most notable ones are the ByThePowerOfGreyskull quotes: in the first ''Battle Network'' game, the sentence was "Jack In! [=MegaMan.EXE=], Transmit!". In later games, it became "Jack In! Mega Man, Execute!". Doesn't help that the first quote became "Jack In! Mega Man, Power Up" in the anime version.
** Translations of chip names change pretty often too. One very important chip went from the straightforward "Steal" to the ugly "[=AreaGrab=]". The anime split the difference with "[=AreaSteal=]".
** [[CombinationAttack Program Advances]] were called "Morphs" by characters in the first game, though the word "ADVANCE" would appear when using one.
** In the first two games all the characters had their Japanese names translated to western sounding ones but for 3 and 4 they didn't bother with that anymore, so Lan, Mayl and Chaud were in the same game as people named Saiko, Inukai, Sunayama, Shuuko and Tamako, but then 5 and 6 went back to changing the Japanese names again, unless they were from 3 or 4. In Battle Network 5, Higsby says he's going to meet Ms. Mariko. Mariko is the Japanese name of Lan's homeroom teacher Ms. Mari.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' suffered from this, mostly due to its [[ContinuityNod heavy leaning on elements from previous games]] that the translators didn't catch: for instance, Volt Kraken's BossBanter makes heavy reference to Launch Octopus from [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 the first game]], but they transliterated his Japanese name, Launcher Octopuld, literally, rendering it as "Octopardo". More than one boss also references the Repliforce from ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX4 X4]]'', Spiral Pegasus and Burn Dinorex being [[TheRemnant surviving members]] and Spike Rosered holing up in one of their abandoned bases, but their name is consistently mistranslated as "Reploid Air Force", with one or two references to just a "Reploid Force". [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking That's also not getting into]] that this is the only game in the series to more significantly change the names of bosses - in its case, [[CulturalTranslation renaming them all after]] then-current and former members of Music/GunsNRoses (Spike Rosered to "Axle the Red", Crescent Grizzly to "Grizzly Music/{{Slash|Musician}}", etc.) All of these were fixed/reverted for the ''Legacy Collection'' version of the game.
* Atlus is usually good about this, but flubbed a scene in ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWars Endless Frontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga]]'' that mentions a character from a previous game. That character, a woman named Lemon, gets translated as [[ShesAManInJapan Raymond]]. It doesn't help that Atlus [[ContinuitySnarl wasn't sure at first which continuity the game was meant to tie into, if any.]] The same game also has a character using a weapon called "Goshiki Zankanto", which is a ShoutOut to another character's Reishiki/Sanshiki Zankanto. The previous games had translated them as Type 0/Type 3 Colossal Blade, but since Kaguya's dimension is {{Wutai}}, they left everything in Japanese.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'':
** Some of the Demon/Persona names in the series are inconsistent across different games and spinoffs. TheFourGods go back and forth from their Japanese names (''Persona'' series) and Chinese names (''Digital Devil Saga'', among others), Mother Harlot is sometimes just called "The Harlot", etc. The recurring StatusBuff skills that multiply the next physical or magical attack damage by 2.5 are referred to either as the literally-translated "Charge" and "Concentrate" or the more [[{{Woolseyism}} Wooleyized]] "Power Charge" and "Mind Charge" depending on the game. Other than that, most skills remain consistently translated between all games and spinoffs, though.
** The ''Persona'' series can be a bit inconsistent when it comes to which names the characters call each other by. In [[VideoGame/Persona3 the third game]], most of SEES uses first names on each other, with the exception of Mitsuru[[note]]Mitsuru's characterized as a bit aloof from most of the group besides Akihiko and later Yukari. Her decision to start calling the latter by her first name is a turning point in their relationship[[/note]], and [[VideoGame/Persona4 the fourth game]] does something similar. [[VideoGame/Persona5 The fifth game]], however, has characters using last names at first, until they switch to first names, and some characters, such as Mishima, are strictly on a LastNameBasis with the protagonist. Interestingly enough, in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Persona 3 Portable]]'', some characters use last names in content that was added for the rerelease- for example, Ms. Toriumi calls the female protagonist by her first name in class, but by her last name in the scene in which she recruits the protagonist to a committee, which leads to the female version of the Hermit Social Link.
** In ''Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth'', the sign for the "You in Wonderland" maze is in English on the screen before the player enters it, but still in Japanese during a cutscene.
* Despite an otherwise wonderful translation, ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter3Tri'' can't seem to decide whether the little leech-esque monsters should be called "Gigi" or "Giggi."
* The ''Fighting Mania'' arcade game based on ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' can't decide between using "South Star" or "South Dipper" as the English name for ''Nanto''. While technically "South Dipper" is the correct choice, since ''Nanto'' is a Chinese asterism equivalent to Sagittarius and not a single star, "South Star" is more consistent with the way ''Hokuto'' is always translated as the "North Star" in the franchise itself.
* In the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series:
** The Progenitor Virus[[note]]始祖ウィルス, ''shiso uirusu''[[/note]] is also referred as the Mother Virus and the Founder Virus.
** The Supervisors[[note]]監視員, ''kashiin''. Literally observer or watchman.[[/note]] from ''Resident Evil 3'' are also referred as the "Monitor" unit in ''Umbrella Chronicles'' and as the "Observers" in the English edition of ''Resident Evil Archives''.
** The Special Tactics And Rescue Service are also identified as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad in certain promotional texts such as packaging descriptions and localized manuals.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** In the ''Pokémon'' games, the key item that allows you to find hidden items has been inconsistently translated. In Japanese, it's always been known as "Dowsing Machine." From Generation I to III, it was known in English as "Itemfinder," but ever since ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', it's been translated as "Dowsing Machine", or occasionally an abbreviated form thereof.
** As of 2010, the ''Pokémon'' franchise has generally gone the route of a "universal" set of translated Pokémon, character and location names for each language - causing some smaller translations to be phased out in the process. This includes the French-Canadian translation (which used the English names), any Latin American Spanish translated terms (usually identical to English) that differed from the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishDubbing European Spanish]] translation, and the Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese translations (which sparked ''[[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/31/in-hong-kong-protest-over-pokemon-name-change-reflects-fear-of-chinese-encroachment/ real-life protests]]''). This seems to be an application of the FleetingDemographicRule, where despite older fans' deep nostalgia for their smaller localized translations, the norm going forward is for fans to grow up with the same names and terms used by all other speakers of their native language.
** Koga's daughter is known as Janine in most of her appearances. However, while a younger version of her appears in a CallForward in ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'', the Fame Checker item lists her name as "Charine".
** In a similar fashion, the manager of the PC box system in Hoenn is called Lanette. The Italian translation keeps her name as such, but when Bill briefly mentions her in ''[=HeartGold=] and [=SoulSilver=]'', she suddenly became "Michela".
** ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' had some trainers that were {{Continuity Cameo}}s of characters from the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' films, including Rebecca from ''[[Anime/PokemonDestinyDeoxys Destiny Deoxys]]'', Butler and Diane from ''[[Anime/PokemonJirachiWishmaker Jirachi: Wishmaker]]'', and Lizabeth from ''Anime/PokemonRangerAndTheTempleOfTheSea''. The localization team apparently didn't realize these were supposed to be references and localized their names differently.
** The master of Mt. Battle in ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'''s story mode and ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'' is the same person, but ''Colosseum'' changed his name to Somek while ''XD'' kept his Japanese name of Battlus.
** The official pronunciation for Arceus used in ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' uses a soft "c" sound. [[DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch This was changed to a hard "c" in the anime since it otherwise sounds too close to the word "arse".]] However, ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'' goes back to using the original soft "c" pronunciation.
** The function allowing transfers from the fourth generation games to the fifth generation games is called "Poké Shifter" in Japanese, but was referred to as "Poké Transfer" in the English release. However, the later companion app ''Pokémon HOME'' lists any Pokémon from the third or fourth generation games as having been met at the "Poké Shifter" even in English.
* The English language setting of ''VideoGame/Rockman4MinusInfinity'' uses the appropriate {{Dub Name Change}}s, though there are some inconsistencies:
** In the cutscene after defeating Dr. Cossack, when Mega Man goes after Dr. Wily, his name is initialised as "R" (for Rockman).
** Dr. Light is called "Dr. Right" in the intro to the third Wily Stage.
** When Mega Man first speaks to Kalinka upon rescuing her in the third Wily Stage, his name is again initialised as "R" (for Rockman).
** If Proto Man comes to give Mega Man the [[EleventhHourSuperpower Wily Buster]] during the final battle, his name is displayed as "Blues".
** The Spark Chaser is abbreviated to "Earth" on the weapon select screen, after the Mega Man Killer you got it from. Problem: Earth's name was [[DubNameChange changed]] to Terra when ''Mega Man V GB'' was translated into English.
* The manual for the Platform/GameBoyAdvance remake of ''VideoGame/MegaManAndBass'' (the first time the game was officially translated) referred to nearly every character except the two in the title by their Japanese names; the game itself, however, used their normal localized English names.
* ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'':
** ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' [[DubNameChange changed the name]] of a minor NPC from the Balloon Monkey to the Bubble Monkey during the localization process in all but one instance: viewing the description of a Pak of Bubble Gum from the menu will still call it "the Balloon Monkey's favorite".
** The BigBad of ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' was named "Giegue" in the English prototype that wasn't released until 2015 on the Platform/WiiU Platform/VirtualConsole, but changed to "Giygas" in its sequel, ''[=EarthBound=]''.
** Porky Minch was renamed "Pokey" in the English version of ''[=EarthBound=]'', but kept his original Japanese name of "Porky" in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', the subtitles and the spoken dialogue often end up being very different. This happened because the subtitles were translated long before the voices were recorded; the differences between the two are the result of the voice actors rewording lines to make them more natural or in-character.
* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' had an incredibly well-done translation for the first few games but, due to ExecutiveMeddling on Creator/ArcSystemWorks' part, the new scenarios from ''Continuum Shift Extend'' have several instances where the script read by the voice actors and the subtitled text that is shown in the game do not match up. Characters even end up saying different things entirely. ''Chrono Phantasma'' takes it even further.
* ''VideoGame/RuneFactoryFrontier'': Earlier (and most later) ''Rune Factory'' games were translated by Creator/{{Natsume}} -- which is well-known for not being the most accurate translator around, among other issues. ''Frontier'' was a direct sequel to the first ''VideoGame/RuneFactory'', but was translated by the usually much better Creator/XSEEDGames. The problem is that [=XSeed=] didn't really bother to research Natsume's translation for the original game to maintain consistency, leading to things such as Tori becoming Tart (closer to her Japanese name, though "Torte" would be even closer) and the Sechs (Pronounced, roughly, Zeks) Empire becoming the Zzyzx (Pronounced, roughly, Zai-Zeks) Empire. When [=XSeed=] got another shot with the series with ''VideoGame/RuneFactory4'', they made sure to remain consistent with the Natsume translations, and [[SelfDeprecation mocked the Sechs/Zzyzx issue]] in the game's manual.
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'':
** Starting in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewLeaf'', Sun Cosmos from ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' were renamed Yellow Cosmos for unknown reasons. However, you can still buy seeds for Sun Cosmos, and when you plant them, their name changes to Yellow Cosmos. So the seeds have a different name than the flowers they grow into!
** Earlier games have shaken trees occasionally have [[BeeAfraid bees]] coming from a hive and chase the player around, but they're only called bees in the English version, as they're actually [[WickedWasp wasps]]. ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' was the first game to properly refer to them as wasps in English.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series is very inconsistent in its French translations. The [[VideoGame/Fallout1 first]] [[VideoGame/Fallout2 two]] games are more or less consistent, but the translation team for ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' ditched most of the original translations and made their own (very good) translation. Then ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' came along with ''another'' translation team that [[BlindIdiotTranslation half-assed]] the job.
** Example, originally, the PowerArmor was translated as "Super Armor", while from ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' onwards it became "Assisted Armor". Same thing with [[PowerFist Power Fists]] "(Super/Assisted Fist)".
** [[InvisibilityCloak Stealth Boys]] were originally called "L'homme invisible" ("The invisible man"). As of Fallout 3 they go untranslated.
** The Fat Man was originally untranslated in ''VideoGame/Fallout3''. New Vegas translated it literally ("Gros Homme").
** [[PsychoSerum Psycho]] used to be called "Foldingue" (roughly translates as AxCrazy) only to later be called "Psycho".
** "Raiders" were called "Pillards" in the first two games, ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' onward started calling them "Raiders" (you might be starting to notice a pattern here).
* The Polish translation of ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' manages to do this ''within one game''. The fictional Cat's Paw magazine's name is sometimes tranlated directly as "Kocia Łapka", sometimes it's called "Koci Pazur" (Cat's Claw), and sometimes it's left untranslated.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In the Italian versions of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time 3D]]'' Skull Kid was translated as "Bimbo Perduto" ("Lost Kid"), and it was called as such in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU'' too. When ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask 3D]]'' was released, they suddenly changed their minds and started keeping "Skull Kid" as a name in Italian translations too, and the April 2015 patch of ''Super Smash Bros.'' edited the name of the Skull Kid trophy and the tip about the corresponding Assist Trophy to reflect this change of heart in the localization. ''Twilight Princess HD'' on the Platform/WiiU used "Skull Kid" too.
** The Italian translation of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap'' translated Peahat literally as "Pisello Cappello", rather than the usual translation "Bulbocottero".
** The Ocarina item is named "Flute" in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', but it's called an ocarina in other games.
** The serpentine boss that appears in ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' and ''Ocarina of Time'' is called Barba in the former and Volvagia in the latter. Dark Link is called "Link's Shadow" in ''The Adventure of Link''.
** The Great Bay Temple MiniBoss in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' is called Wart, a literal translation of the Japanese name of Arrghus, the boss of the Swamp Palace in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''. The French, Spanish and German versions of ''Majora's Mask 3D'' changed Wart's name to match Arrghus's in those languages. Helmasaurs also use their Japanese name of "Hiploop", and Wizzrobe is spelled "Wizrobe" in the N64 version.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'': The English manual translation often doesn't match the in-game version, such as Ruby instead of Rupy (later Rupee), Whistle instead of Recorder, Magic Wand instead of Magical Rod, Magic Book instead of Book of Magic, and (most infamously) Ganon instead of Gannon.
** Bubbles are called Anti-Fairies or Whisps in some games.
** "Rupees" was mistakenly romanized as "Rubies" in early games.
** The enemies in ''Twilight Princess'' that the ''Magazine/NintendoPower'' guide calls [=ReDead=] Knights and the Prima Guide calls [=ReDeads=] are called Gibdos in Japanese; they are wrapped in bandages and use a paralyzing shriek just like [=ReDeads=] and Gibdos in earlier 3D games, the only difference being that they attack with a {{BFS}} instead of grabbing Link. Adding to the confusion, ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'' called the ''TP'' Gibdos by their original name and gave the name [=ReDead=] Knight to a stronger version that's called "Flame Gibdo" in Japanese.
** Ritos were originally localized as "Traveller Hawks" in the Italian translation of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', but keep the original name in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''.
* ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'':
** ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon1'' features a church that [[CrystalDragonJesus worships]] the "Goddess of the Land". All future games refer to her as the "Harvest Goddess".
** Kamil and Licorice had {{Dub Name Change}}s in ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonTaleOfTwoTowns'' but use their Japanese names in ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons2014''.
** The change in localizer from Natsume's ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' to [=XSeed=]'s ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'' led to some of this. The Harvest Sprites became Nature Sprites. In ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons2014'', the Harvest Goddess became Mother Gaia. In ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasonsFriendsOfMineralTown'', she's referred to as the Harvest Goddess.
** ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasonsFriendsOfMineralTown'' uses a TruerToTheText translation and does away with the {{Dub Name Change}}s used from ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon64'' and ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonBackToNature''. Ann is changed to Ran, Mary is changed to Marie, Elli is changed to Elly, etc.
* In ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'', Dyna Blade is female. The ending of her eponymous subgame even features Kirby discovering her chicks and raising them himself until she recovers. Despite this, the flavor text for the Dyna Blade event in ''VideoGame/KirbyAirRide''[='s=] City Trial tells you to aim for "his" head (similarly to the Watt example above).
* The manual of ''[[VideoGame/{{Nectaris}} Military Madness]]'' for the Platform/TurboGrafx16 refers to "Porcupines" in the description for the Trigger M-77 mines. This is a literal translation of their Japanese name.
* In the English version of ''Super VideoGame/StreetFighterII Turbo: Revival'', Bison, Balrog and Vega's win quotes were given to the wrong boss: Balrog had Bison's, Vega had Balrog's and Bison had Vega's; the developers forgot to correct the winquote pointers when they enacted the usual DubNameChange for these characters, meaning they ended up with their Japanese namesakes' quotes.
* The English release of ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' is chock full of name inconsistencies, such as Bright Shield Rune and Shining Shield Rune, Jilia and Jilian Blight, Han and Hal Cunningham, and so on.
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** Fang the Sniper was called Nack the Weasel in the English manual of ''VideoGame/SonicTripleTrouble'', but was then referred to by his Japanese name in all other games. This was especially confusing when [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics the Archie comics]] kept using "Nack the Weasel" for him. A nod to both of his names can be seen on a WantedPoster in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations''. ''VideoGame/SonicSuperstars'' would change it again to "Fang the Hunter" for good, with the game's prologue comic and the ''WebAnimation/TailsTube'' series confirming that his constant name changing is due to him previously using fake names to avoid law enforcement.
** Doctor Eggman/Robotnik's name switched between his Japanese and English names in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure''. The translators initially tried to HandWave it as Eggman being his nickname and Robotnik was his real name (making "Robotnik" a family name, with his grandfather "Gerald Robotnik"). Later games refer to him as Eggman almost exclusively. Both ''WebAnimation/TailsTube'' and ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'' would go into this further, where "Eggman" was an insult Sonic came up with [[AppropriatedAppellation that the doctor chose to embrace]], wanting to turn it into a name people all over the world fear.
--->'''Eggman:''' (in an audio diary from ''Frontiers'') It was Sonic who named me "Eggman". Except the joke's on him! I embraced the name! I made it my own! His mockery is now a name feared across the ages! [[EvenEvilHasStandards ...I'm not going to adopt "Baldy McNosehair" though. My dignity has limits.]]
** Mecha Sonic from ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'' was given [[IHaveManyNames many different and inconsistent dub names]]: Robotic Sonic, Evil Sonic, Q Zone, and even Metal Sonic (the name of a completely different robot Sonic who first appeared in ''Sonic CD''). Finally, when he was featured as part of DLC in ''VideoGame/LegoDimensions'', it was reverted to with its Japanese name.
** Similarly, Mecha Sonic from ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' was called Robo Sonic and Silver Sonic in English. Lego Dimensions went with the former name to distinguish him from the other model.
** In a clumsy attempt at tying up with contemporary cartoons and comics, [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD Amy Rose]] was called "Princess Sally" in the original English manual, before switching to her canon name in later releases.
%% * The Russian dub of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is inconsistent with its accentuation. Any specific examples?
* For a lengthy period of time between 2008-ish and 2016, most Creator/{{Nintendo}} games released had {{Same Language Dub}}s, one American localization for the North American market, and one British localization shared with Europe and Oceania. Because one hand wasn't talking to the other, several terms and concepts ended up with different names between versions, such as the game show in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'' or almost every proper noun in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks''. In late 2016, this eventually seemed to prove more trouble than it was worth, and Nintendo of Europe took over localization duties in full...except they ''also'' started using the North American English terms for everything, so the return of the aforementioned game show in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'' calls it "Snifit or Whiffit" instead of "Hit It or Snifit", the Splatfest ranks in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' use the snappier American names instead of their more literally translated European counterparts, and so on. On the flip side, this resulted in oddities like the Hammerhead Bros. in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' and Marie in ''Splatoon 2'' suddenly using British slang and speech patterns in the American versions for no in-game reason.
* When ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' first came out in 2001, the French dub translated the Master Chief's rank as ''Adjudant'' by mistake. A French Army ''Adjudant'' is OR-8 in the NATO rank structure, comparable to a Senior Chief Petty Officer in the U.S Navy. Subsequent games had him referred to as a ''Major'', which is comparable to a Master Chief Petty Officer in the U.S Navy [[note]]a ''Major'' in the French Army is an enlisted rank, not an officer rank[[/note]].
* In the [[Creator/NipponIchi NIS America]] English localization of ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'', the same class trial minigame is called "Mind Mine" in-game but "Imagination Excavation" in skill descriptions.
* Crops up from time to time in the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series:
** The whip-wielding skeleton enemies are called "Shimon" in Japanese, a pun on "''shi''," the Japanese word for death, and Simon Belmont's name, because they're undead beings [[EvilKnockoff that mimic Simon's fighting style]]. The kanji used to make up that name can be translated literally as "Gates of Death," which is what the English manual for ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse'' refers to them as, both missing the wordplay ''and'' not making any sense. The English version of ''VideoGame/SuperCastlevaniaIV'' just calls them Whip Skeletons, and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'' calls them Simon Wraiths, the closest to their Japanese name. Years later, ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair'' would instead settle on [[PunnyName Hellmont]] as a {{Woolseyism}}.
** The sorceress introduced in ''Dracula's Curse'' is called "Syfa" in that game. Subsequent games render her name as "Sypha" fairly consistently, but ''Harmony of Dissonance'' calls her Cipher.
** The enemies called Devils in Japanese are called Gargoyles in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' but, seemingly due to a translation error, they get labelled as [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos "Cthulhu"]] in the English version of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'', while another enemy that actually resembles Lovecraft's famous monster is called "Malachi," meaning that even if the names got swapped, the Devil still wouldn't have been called a Devil. Later localizations manage to call them devils consistently.
** The Holy Water subweapon is called the Fire Bomb in the localizations of most of the early games due to Nintendo of America's strict rules on religious content. Likewise the Cross subweapon usually got called Boomerangs.
** The magic stone that allows the player character to double-jump has a different name every time it appears: the "Leap Stone" in ''Symphony of the Night,'' the "Double" in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'', the "Stone of Flight" in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'', and hilariously, the "Ordinary Rock" in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia''.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** The series can't seem to decide on what the suffix for the [[SpellLevels fourth tier]] of magic is in the English localization. ''I'' and ''II'' use "-gun", ''3D'' and ''III'' use "-za", and ''0.2'' borrows "-ja" from ''Final Fantasy''.
** The Realm of Darkness is consistently translated as such in most games until ''0.2: A Fragmentary Passage'' and ''III'', where it is inexplicably called "Dark World" in the world logo and menu. In-game dialogues, however, still stick with the old name.
** This also applies to abilities throughout the games. For example, Lucky Strike was translated as Lucky Lucky in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' but was reverted back to its original name in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'', while Once More become Withstand Combo in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII''.
** Some of the Heartless that first appeared in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' were given different names when they reappeared in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. Rabid Dog became Bad Dog, Cannon Gun became Li'l Cannon and Surveillance Robot became Watcher.
** The pronunciation of Tidus's name also changes between games. In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', Wakka pronounces it "Tee-dus", but in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Selphie says "Tie-dus".
* In the NES version of ''VideoGame/AlienSyndrome'', the first boss, originally known as Squime, is called "Hugger", which is the name of a completely different boss in other versions.
* The manual for the US Platform/Turbografx16 CD version of ''VideoGame/WonderBoyIIIMonsterLair'' changes the protagonist's name from Leo to Adam, but the default initials on the ranking screen are still "LEO".
* Some of the dialogue between ''VideoGame/NarutoUltimateNinja'' was changed in ''VideoGame/NarutoUltimateNinja2''. One example is Sasuke's line "Killing him is the reason... for my existence!", which was changed to "Killing him is the reason... I exist!"
* The NES version of ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonI'' calls the mook Roper "Lopar" in its manual, and "Rowper" on the Vs. Mode select screen.
* The English dubs of the second and third ''VideoGame/{{Valis}}'' games for the Turbografx-CD inconsistently pronounce the eponymous sword's name as either "Valis", "Varis", or "Balis", and can't decide whether Yuko's sister is named Varna or Valna either.
* Back when Life Wonders first started to officially translate ''VideoGame/TokyoAfterschoolSummoners'', the character Managarmr was localized to Hati, most likely to avoid confusing any connection with the vastly different Garmr from the same game. However, while the dialogue still referred to him as the later, his character files and text box headers still referred to him as the former. This has since been changed back to Hati.
* In the English arcade version of ''VideoGame/WonderBoyInMonsterLand'', one of the swords is correctly named "Excalibur" in the HUD, but called "Axecaliva" in dialogue.
* The English translation of ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoFever'', in regards to the green {{demihuman}} character's name. She's mostly referred to as Rider (pronounced "reed-AIR"), but in one cutscene Amitie refers to her as Rita. The later ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoTetris'' changes her English name to Lidelle.
* There have been a good number of translation teams that have worked on the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, which has resulted in some strange name changes. For instance, Ayra's son and Larcei's brother in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' has gone back and forth between being named "Ulster" and "Scáthach," and the hotheaded axe fighter in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776'' has been named "Osian" and "Orsin". The main culprit is ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', which included a lot of offhand references and cameos from prior characters, and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', which made a lot of those prior characters directly playable.
* The US arcade flyer for ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' named the Player character Sir Michael, but the NES version and all subsequent material has called him Arthur. Later, the manual for ''Super Ghouls n' Ghosts'' changed the DamselInDistress's name from Prin-Prin to Guinevere, perhaps to relate to Myth/ArthurianLegend.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'': Multiple:
** The English SMS port of ''VideoGame/YsIAncientYsVanishedOmen'' calls Adol Arron and Dark Fact Dulk Dekt, while the MS-DOS and Apple IIGS versions rename them Arrick and Malificus, respectively, in addition to many other name changes.
** The crater left behind when the eponymous civilization of Ys was raised into the sky, officially romanized as Bagyu [[PunctuationShaker Ba'dead]], has at least three different English dub names: Bague Badet on the Sega Master System, Clifton's Cliff on the Turbografx CD, and the [[GratuitousFrench pseudo-French]] Vageux-Vardette on the Nintendo DS.
** The localization of ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} I and [[VideoGame/YsIIAncientYsVanishedTheFinalChapter II]]'' for the Platform/TurboGrafx16 CD changes Dogi's name to Colin; however, they changed it back to Dogi for all versions of ''Wanderers from Ys''.
** Raba is Rasta in the English Turbo CD version, but all subsequent English localizations use his original name.
** Galbalan, the BigBad of ''Wanderers From Ys'', is renamed Demonicus in both the Turbo CD and Genesis localizations, but retains his original name in the SNES version as well as all versions of [[VideoGame/YsTheOathInFelghana the remake]].
** In the English dub of the Platform/PlayStation2 port of ''VideoGame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'', the location of the Flame Sword is the "Altar of Brillante", but all subsequent dialogue refers to the sword as "[[JapaneseRanguage Blirante]]". Also, Ladoc's ship is named the Tres Mares, which is Spanish for "three seas", but in the intro cutscenes, Terra pronounces it as if it were French[[note]]The dub was handled by Creator/TheOceanGroup, who are based in Canada[[/note]]. The actual French counterpart would be "trois mers".
* ''VideoGame/{{Tomba}}'':
** Some item names are translated inconsistently between the first and second games. For example, Megumi no Hane (literally "Wings of Blessing") are called Charity Wings in the first game, but Magic Wings in the second. The Doka Pin also keeps its Japanese name in the second game, even though the first game called it the Grapplejack. (The name Doka Pin comes from the Japanese names of the Blackjack and Grapple weapons, which are Gurudoka and Gurupin respectively.
* In the English Platform/SegaCD version of ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia'', the only port to feature voice acting, the EvilVizier's name is pronounced "Jaffa" instead of Jaf(f)ar.
* Foreign translations of early ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' games had a few inconsistencies regarding character names: for example, Yugi's grandpa was often called "Trusdale" instead of his proper dub name of Solomon Muto. In a more specific case, ''Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel'' has Tea being named with her English dub name for most of the time, except for the very first dialogue where she presents to the player and states her name is Anzu Shinzaki (which is a slightly altered version of her Japanese name, Anzu Mazaki).
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'': The classic Brazilian dub for the series, done from 1984 to 1992, had a hard time estabilishing the recurring villains' names.
** Carlos Villagrán's gangster villain, "El Cuajináis", usually tends to be translated to "Quase Nada" ("Almost Nothing"), which is his most known name on the dubbed version and was chosen due to sounding similar to the original name and fitting well on its lip sync. However, in a handful of episodes, the same character had his name adapted very differently; in separate occasions, he has been named "Chinesinho" ("Little Chinese", probably a reference to his slanted eyes, one of which is partly closed by a scar), "Gorila", and "O Fura-Tripa" ("The Gut-Piercer").
** Ramón Valdés' "El Rascabuches" is almost always named "Racha-Cuca" ("Head-Cracker") on the dub, for the same reason as Cuajináis; to preserve an auditive resemblance to the original Spanish name. The only exception was the dub of an 1979 episode, where he was instead renamed to "Rasga-Bucho" ("Stomach-Ripper"), which sounds even closer to the original name.
** An example which ocurred on the ''same episode'': Rubén Aguirre played an one-off villain named "El Pocas Trancas", which was adapted to "Porca Solta" on the initial dub the episode received in 1984. However, the same episode was redubbed six years later, with the character's name being the much more literal translation "Poucas Trancas".

** In the ''Pokémon'' games, the key item that allows you to find hidden items has been inconsistently translated. In Japanese, it's always been known as "Dowsing Machine." From Generation I to III, it was known in English as "Itemfinder," but ever since ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', it's been translated as "Dowsing Machine." In fact, in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'', it's abbreviated to "Dowsing MCHN".

* ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'': The English dub of the original series is horribly inconsistent when it comes to the pronounciation of the characters' names. It isn't until episode four or five that this stops, and thankfully it stays consistent for the rest of the show, the OVAs, and the film.

** "[[Film/{{Transformers}} Bayformers]]": Although the dubbing was [[HongKongDub very low-quality]], border-lining incomprehensible at times, it finally used the Marvel names, save for a couple of instances when they accidentally left in English terms. One persistent naming inconsistency is Cybertron's name: "Kibertron" in movie #1, Cybertron in the rest.

* In the Latin American Spanish dub of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', MC Pee Pants' gender was zig-zagged twice due his high-pitched voice, and Dr. Weird accidentally referring to him as his "beautiful fiancée" in a [[TheTeaser Cold Opening]]: In his debut episode of the [[CharacterTitle same name]], Mc Pee Pants [[ShesAManInJapan was referred to as a female]] and even got a female voice actress, but he was later reverted back into a male in his second appearence in the episode "Super Sir Loin" [[TheOtherDarrin and got a male voice actor]], just to be turned back into a female in his third appearence in the episode "The Last One", [[TheOriginalDarrin with his previous voice actress even returning]], and yet, he was reverted back into male again in his fourth and final appearence in the episode "Little Brittle", although with a different voice actor.

* ''Franchise/XMen'' cartoons in Hungarian. ''Hoo-boy...'' First, the original dub of the [[WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries '90s animated show]] that aired on Creator/FoxKids disregarded the comic book name translations, angering many fans (for example, ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} became Wolf, ComicBook/{{Storm}} became Cyclone, etc.). Then, ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' followed on Creator/CartoonNetwork, with a fantastic dub, but kept the Creator/FoxKids names, and season 4 didn't get dubbed. The ''[[Film/XMenFilmSeries X-Men]]'' live action movies followed suit, and thus the new names became widespread, so that now the general public recognizes "Wolf" as the character's basic name. Sometime later, the un-aired episodes of the '90s series receive a wholly new dub, and didn't bother with translating names, but only kept a handful of the original voice actors. Finally, to everyone's surprise, a different channel demanded ''Evolution'''s dub be finished, after a long wait that lasted for about half a decade. Unfortunately, even though all of the original actors were still accessible, only a select few characters kept their voices, they got some names wrong at certain points, and a few of the old voices returned in ''different'' roles. The final episode also contained a quite noticeable goof-up; namely, Jean's voice completely changed for just one scene.

* As noted in the page quote, TheNineties English dub of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' practically turned this into an art form. Expect any attack, villain organization, MacGuffin, etc to have multiple names. Most egregiously Moon Princess Halation from R was called Moon Scepter Elimination from its first appearance until dub episode 65, then after a 3 year hiatus that ended with the show {{Uncancelled}}, it was called Moon Scepter Activation for the final 17 episodes of the season, Moon Princess Elimination in the R movie and finally Moon Scepter Elimination once more in the first episode of S.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', there's the whole [[InconsistentSpelling Aerith/Aeris]] thing; Square, in most of the ''Compilation'', has settled on Aerith, however there are a few lapses. [[http://store.na.square-enix.com/store/sqenixus/en_US/pd/ThemeID.29853700/productID.250845500#.UM0Q03c2iQg One page for the updated PC rerelease of the game refers to her as Aeris]], [[http://finalfantasyviipc.com/en while another calls her Aerith]].
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Cloud's catchphrase "kyoumi ga nai ne" (translated later on as "Not interested") was translated as something different every time it came up in the script, meaning a huge majority of players didn't even realize he had a catchphrase at all until later on, when supplementary works with more consistent translations came along.

*** The reason "Thundara" was "[=Lit2=]" has more to do with [[CharacterNameLimits character limits]] in the early games than inconsistency. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' only allowed four characters per name, whereas ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' allowed five and six, respectively. The Holy situation is also related to Nintendo's former [[CensorshipBureau draconian policies]] involving any sort of religious content. In all these cases, the localization team had to work with the resources (and within the limits) they were given, and it was only starting from the UsefulNotes/PlayStation era that they could be consistent with the Japanese naming schemes. In fact, it's only ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' which is the truly inconsistent installment, since it was [[BlindIdiotTranslation translated in-house by Sony]].

* The manual for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance remake of ''VideoGame/MegaManAndBass'' (the first time the game was officially translated) referred to nearly every character except the two in the title by their Japanese names; the game itself, however, used their normal localized English names.

** The BigBad of ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' was named "Giegue" in the English prototype that wasn't released until 2015 on the UsefulNotes/WiiU UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole, but changed to "Giygas" in its sequel, ''[=EarthBound=]''.

** In the Italian versions of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time 3D]]'' Skull Kid was translated as "Bimbo Perduto" ("Lost Kid"), and it was called as such in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU'' too. When ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask 3D]]'' was released, they suddenly changed their minds and started keeping "Skull Kid" as a name in Italian translations too, and the April 2015 patch of ''Super Smash Bros.'' edited the name of the Skull Kid trophy and the tip about the corresponding Assist Trophy to reflect this change of heart in the localization. ''Twilight Princess HD'' on the UsefulNotes/WiiU used "Skull Kid" too.

* The manual of ''[[VideoGame/{{Nectaris}} Military Madness]]'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 refers to "Porcupines" in the description for the Trigger M-77 mines. This is a literal translation of their Japanese name.

* The manual for the US UsefulNotes/Turbografx16 CD version of ''VideoGame/WonderBoyIIIMonsterLair'' changes the protagonist's name from Leo to Adam, but the default initials on the ranking screen are still "LEO".

** The localization of ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} I and [[VideoGame/YsIIAncientYsVanishedTheFinalChapter II]]'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 CD changes Dogi's name to Colin; however, they changed it back to Dogi for all versions of ''Wanderers from Ys''.

** In the English dub of the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 port of ''VideoGame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'', the location of the Flame Sword is the "Altar of Brillante", but all subsequent dialogue refers to the sword as "[[JapaneseRanguage Blirante]]". Also, Ladoc's ship is named the Tres Mares, which is Spanish for "three seas", but in the intro cutscenes, Terra pronounces it as if it were French[[note]]The dub was handled by Creator/TheOceanGroup, who are based in Canada[[/note]]. The actual French counterpart would be "trois mers".

* In the English UsefulNotes/SegaCD version of ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia'', the only port to feature voice acting, the EvilVizier's name is pronounced "Jaffa" instead of Jaf(f)ar.

** All Creator/ValveSoftware (and by default, UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}) games use the European dialect. The main problem, at least with UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, is all the on-screen text is an unholy mixup of both Latin American and European dialects in the menus. This was finally averted at October 2018, when Steam included support for Latin American Spanish, leaving the European one as a separated option for Spaniard users.

** The earlier versions of ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' were translated with a mix of European and Latin American dialects. Starting with the Season 1 pass, however, all the translations are now done in Latin American Spanish exclusively, despite, at least in UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, the game says the game was exclusively translated in the European dialect. This is justified in this case, as the game was developed in the U.S., a country with a big Latino population.

** Koga's daughter is known as Janine in most of her appearances. However, while a younger version of her appears in a ContinuityCameo role in ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'', the Fame Checker item lists her name as "Charine".

* The 4Kids dub of ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'' often cut any reference to Japanese culture, to the point of removing an entire episode taking place at a Buddhist temple and changing sushi into cheesecake, even though most American kids in the target audience would know what sushi is... But left an episode focusing on TabletopGame/{{Shogi}} completely intact. Furthermore, numerous instances of characters wearing kimonos are kept intact in most of the dub, but one later episode airbrushes all kimonos into looking like winter coats. Hell, that same episode was also inconsitent with itself, as one character in that episode kept her kimono and even her Japanese name.

*** The reason "Thundara" was "[=Lit2=]" has more to do with [[CharacterNameLimits character limits]] in the early games than inconsistency. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' only allowed four characters per name, whereas ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' allowed five and six, respectively. The Holy situation is also related to Nintendo's former [[CensorshipBureau draconian policies]] involving any sort of religious content. In all these cases, the localization team had to work with the resources (and within the limits) they were given, and it was only until the UsefulNotes/PlayStation era that they could be consistent with the Japanese naming schemes. In fact, it's only ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' which is the truly inconsistent installment, since it was [[BlindIdiotTranslation translated by Sony]].

*** In the Castilian Spanish version, Dragon Knights (AKA "Dragoons") seem to change name depending of the game: "Dragon Knight" on ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' and its sequel, "Dragontino" ("Draconesque", and no, it wasn't "Dragonesque Knight") on ''III'' and ''V'', "Draconarius" in ''II'' and "Draconius" on ''IV'' (The ''FF'' translator loves GratuitousLatin). Curaja can't keep its own name consistent either; the previous spells are always "Cura", "Cura+", and "Cura++", but in ''IV'' it's "[[RankInflation Cura+++]]", in ''I'' "Cura++2" And the crowner, ''III'' changes the entire system to be "Cura, Omnicura, Cura+, Omnicura+" for the hell of it. Thanks for making this simple, Square. Thanks. And we won't even get on how ''VII'' had completely different translations from later games, though that might be forgiven since ''VII'' was a BlindIdiotTranslation from the English version and the others are translated from the Japanese versions.

** Translations of chip names change pretty often too. One very important chip went from the straightforward "Steal" to the ugly "[=AreaGrab=]". (The anime split the difference with "[=AreaSteal=]".)

** In the first two games all the characters had their Japanese names translated to western sounding ones but for 3 and 4 they didn't bother with that anymore, so Lan, Mayl and Chaud were in the same game as people named Saiko, Inukai, Sunayama, Shuuko and Tamako, but then 5 and 6 went back to changing the Japanese names again (unless they were from 3 or 4 in which case they kept it for continuity). In Battle Network 5, Higsby says he's going to meet Ms. Mariko. Mariko is the Japanese name of Lan's homeroom teacher Ms. Mari.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** Fang the Sniper was called Nack the Weasel in the English manual of ''Sonic Triple Trouble'', but is referred to by his Japanese name in all other games.
** Doctor Eggman/Robotnik's name switched between his Japanese and English names in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure''. The translators tried to HandWave it as Eggman being his nickname and Robotnik his real name. Later games refer to him as Eggman almost exclusively.

* There have been a good number of translation teams to work on ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'', which has resulted in some strange name changes. For instance, Ayra's son and Larcei's brother in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' has gone back and forth between being named "Ulster" and "Scáthach," and the hotheaded axe fighter in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776'' has been named "Osian" and "Orsin". The main culprit is ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', which included a lot of offhand references and cameos from prior characters, and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', which made a lot of those prior characters directly playable.