Basic Trope: A character's name is changed in a dub.
- Straight: A character in an anime, initially called "Senko Wakamono", is called "Flash Young" in the English dub.
- Exaggerated:
- Every character and location are completely renamed in the English dub.
- The entirety of the anime takes place in Dotonbori, Osaka for the first whole season, and is entirely in Japanese. However, an entire setting shift sends Senko, along with his sister Hikari, and his father Hiroshi, to Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, making them "Flash", "Hillary", and "Harold" respectively.
- Every character from different countries (which translates into artstyles and media), from the very German Ulysses von Mikrov, to the very French Jacqueline Midwinter, are all translated into their English names (Ulysses Smalls and Jacklynn Midwinter respectively).
- Downplayed:
- Barely-Changed Dub Name.
- Only Senko is renamed to Flash; Thus making him Flash Wakamono.
- Justified: The dub also changed the nation from Japan to America, so it makes sense that an American won't have a Japanese name (thus giving all the characters reasons to adopt naturalized names).
- Inverted: The names don't change, even when the scenery does.
- Subverted: It seems that Flash is free to use his real name, "Senko", or his real surname, "Wakamono"...
- Double Subverted: ...Although he willingly chooses to go by his naturalized name, Flash Young.
- Parodied: Whenever characters go overseas, they have to get their names changed.Hiroshi / Harold: (In Japanese) Alright kids. We gotta change our names because it's the law of their country; It's just a case of translatin' our names, so it's still technically our names, just in their language.
- Zigzagged: Characters are selectively given dub name changes.
- Averted: The characters don't use naturalized names.
- Enforced:
- An anime character with a Punny Name is renamed so that the viewers understand the pun.
- The name if kept literally would be utterly inappropriate so Ti Ti becomes Tina.
- The original name contains vowels that do not exist in English, so they replaced it with something that doesn't have those problematic vowels.
- Lampshaded: "Believe it or not, but we're actually Japanese. Harold is just a name I take on to fit in; My real name's Hiroshi."
- Invoked: America's laws demand that foreigners take on naturalized names to fit in and prevent getting discriminated against by racists.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: America's laws become more lax on the naming; People can freely take on their real, untranslated surname.
- Discussed: Clay is a foreigner from North America coming to Japan, at the request of his friend Flash (of course, following the rules, Clay takes on the name of Toji). He's surprised to find out that Flash Young isn't exactly his real name...Clay / Toji: (In English) Hey, Flash, ever wonder why they're calling you Senko?Flash / Senko: That's my real name, actually.Clay / Toji: Wait, WHAT!?
- Conversed: "Why do anime dubs have to change everyone's name? It's not like white people are allergic to Japanese names! I mean, I get when the name has a pun or whatever, but it just seems kinda dumb when it's an ordinary name like 'Yoko'."
- Implied: Flash looks ethnically Japanese (or to get into a more animation technical sense, looks more like he belongs in an anime than a Saturday Morning Cartoon); People often ask what his name translated would be, but he wouldn't budge.
- Deconstructed: Hiroshi, back in the 40s up until the 60s, was forced to take on a more "Western" name, Harold, primarily due to the stigma around Japanese people after World War 2.
- Reconstructed: However, past the 60s, people near him have begun to accept him as a Japanese man, and while he'd still keep his name as Harold, he's a lot calmer now that he's finally not being discriminated against for once.
- Played for Laughs: The dub names are ridiculous and idiotic, or have been repeatedly run through Google Translate.
- Played for Drama: One of Hillary's friends from High School before she had to leave to America, Kyoko, mocks her for essentially bending over backwards for America's idiotic laws. And now that Kyoko, now Krystie, has come to America...
- Played for Horror: Flash is often bullied gruesomely just for changing his name both in America and in Japan; This makes him become more and more of an asshole, or possibly even a maniac.
Back to Dub Name Change. You might find that there were original names for these pages.
