History SpellMyNameWithAnS / Anime

In Japanese media such as anime and manga, foreign names are written in katakana, which conveys the approximate pronunciation but not the spelling. Thus, when anime and manga are translated to Latin-alphabet languages, these names can be written in many, ''many'' different ways.

Our page on UsefulNotes/JapaneseRomanization goes into this in more detail and explains the reasons for almost all of the examples below.

One recurring, and irritating, phenomenon is RecursiveTranslation between writing systems, where translators rigidly apply a Romanisation system to characters' names even when in context they are obviously intended to be a relatively common Western name. If the name is a play on an English word, and this gets brought up at some point, expect the subbers putting up a disclaimer rather than just correcting the spelling. In some cases there is an intentional ambiguity that cannot be accurately represented in English -- see ''[[Anime/MaiHime My/Mai-HiME]]'' for example.

Confusion in official Japanese sources often stems from the fact that the person creating English text for use on screen, on a website or in a guidebook is usually not the original author (for example the original ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' covers), and even the author may only be familiar with the katakana representation of the word or wrote it having only ever heard it spoken and not checked the facts.
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!!Examples:
* ''Webcomic/AfganisuTan'': InUniverse, Tajikis-tan gives Pakis-tan the nickname "Paku", who then insists that the "S" be in her name to represent the Sindhi because her name is an acronym of her five major ethnic groups.
* ''Manga/AkagamiNoShirayukihime'':
** Mitsuhide's first name has been romanized as Lowen and Rouen.
** The fortresses of Sereg/Selig and Raxd/Laxdo.
* ''Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS'': The twin scientists' surname are translated as both "Schmitel" and "Schmittel" by Central Park Media.
* ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'':
** It took a while for the official readings for everyone's names to come out.
** Korosensei, Koro Sensei, or Koro-Sensei? Most official translations use "Koro Sensei", but opinions still differ.
* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'':
** [[WordOfGod The author]] has given the romanization of Spain's name as both "Antonio Fernandez Carriedo" and "Antonio Hernandez Carriedo".
** [[WordOfGod According to the author]], China's name can either be spelled "Wang Yao" or "Wang Yue".
* ''{{Manga/Bakuon}}'': The English anime names the bike club president ''Raimu'' in the opening, but shows ''Lime'' on a scoreboard in episode 7.
* ''Manga/BlackButler'': In the Creator/YenPress English manga, the cook's name is translated as Baldo, but in the Creator/{{FUNimation}} English anime, his name is translated as Bard.
* ''Manga/BlackClover'' has this all over the place, at least in the beginning of the series' run. The official translation uses Asta, though some fan translations render it as "Aster", which is helped by the fact that it's an actual, albeit uncommon name in the real world [[GenderBlenderName that's usually meant for girls]]. And that's to say nothing of Juno/Yuno and Luck/Rack/Lack/Lakk Voltia/Boltia. Thankfully, the Japanese volumes give the English translations of some of the troublesome names, so this is much less of a problem now. There's still the problem of names that must be directly translated, such as "Wizard King", which may be Sorcery Emperor and Magic Emperor, and "Eye of the Midnight Sun", which may be known as White Night Eye or White Night's Demon Eyes.
* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' has "Rebecca", who is usually called Revi/Levi/Revy, etc. Ironically, such R-L confusion never exists for her partner 'Rock', whose nickname is a contraction of his Japanese given name, "Rokuro"...despite the fact that Japanese does not have distinct "l" or "r" sounds. Actually for people who know Hebrew, (Rebecca being a Biblical name and all) the name is more correct as Revecca or Revekka or Reveqqa or Rivkah.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' has had a serious problem with this since it started using lots of non-Japanese names (spelled only in katakana) in the Arrancar Arc. For some time, this was compounded by Viz' slow release schedule for the English manga, as Roman alphabet spellings attempted by fans had been circulating online for as much as ''two years'' before the official transliterations were published. Official Japanese manga title pages and [=CDs=] established English spellings for some characters well before the Viz translation caught up (such as the correct spelling of "Charlotte Chuhlhourne"), but not all mistakes were corrected this way.
** Arrancar names with widely-used alternate spellings include (correct spelling listed first): Nnoitra / Noitora, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez / Grimjaw Jaggerjacks, brothers Yylfordt and Szayel Aporro / Ilforde and Zael Apollo, Aaroniero / Aroniro, Wonderweiss / Wanderwyce, Harribel / Hallibel, Starrk / Stark.
*** There is a noticeable (although not universal) "double letters" theme in these names that confounded many early transliteration attempts, which favored parsimony.
*** During the long delay between the original airing of the anime and the first airing of the dub, the manga revealed that the 3rd Espada's name is officially spelled "Harribel." However, the dub still went with the "Hallibel" pronunciation used in the original Japanese dialogue. It may have made maintaining LipLock easier.
** The Thousand Year Blood War Arc has suffered much less from translation lag but the prevalence of [[GratuitousGerman shaky use of German]] has still resulted in confusion.
*** The {{BigBad}}'s name is officially spelled "Yhwach" and pronounced approximately "Yoohah-vawk". You will still see widespread use of the fan spellings "Juhabach" and "Juha Bach". "Yuhababa" was also suggested but didn't gain traction. The official spelling echoes "Yahweh", the Hebrew name for God.
*** The Quincy army's name is spelled "Vandenreich" in the official Viz translation. At least one Japanese {{Paratext}} source has used the spelling "Wandenreich" instead [[note]]Which is a better ''German'' transliteration of the original katakana, although somewhat confusing for English readers[[/note]], leading to an Administrivia/EditWar on this very wiki before the mods decreed that the Viz spelling would stand as the most accessible source of {{Canon}}.
** Even before the Arrancar appeared, Bleach fan translations had problems with the correct readings of name kanji as they were often working from Chinese scans, not the original Japanese with pronunciation furigana. For example, "Zaraki Kenpachi" was initially read as "Giraki Kenbachi" or even "Saraki Tsurugihachi", "Benihime" was read as "Kurenaihime", "Kurotsuchi" as "Kumetsumo", and "Zangetsu" as "Kitsuki".
* Sylia / Celia Stingray from ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' was an older example of this trope.
** The 1992 parody fanfic ''[[http://www.textfiles.com/stories/bgcspoof.txt Bubble Gum Cards]]'' by Ryan Mathews pokes fun at this by never using the same spelling twice.
** Creator/AnimEigo had to ask for WordOfGod about whether the name of the antagonist in the sixth episode was Ralgo, Rargo, or the answer they received -- Largo.
** Also, the robots[=/=]androids in the BGC world are ''Boomers''. They're frequently translated as, "buuma," because that's the strict Japanese spelling, but the fact is that the name was ''specifically'' chosen by the creators to evoke the raw destructive power of American nuclear submarines. You know, Boomers.
*** Somewhere in Tokyo 2040 it was written onscreen as VOOMER, spelt out as [=VOOdoo MEtal=].
* "Captain Future", oh where to start? Written in English, turned to an Anime, then backtranslated to German and French...Lessee. We have Captain Future/Captain Future/Capitaine Flam (now that was still easy), Ul Quorn/Vul Kuolun/Kahlon, Joan Randall/Joan Landor/Johann Landore, N'rala/Nurara/Saturna...wanna hear the side characters too?
* Anime/CaptainHarlock or "Herlock". Arcadia and Alkadia seem to be at one time interchangeable. [[Anime/QueenEmeraldas Emeraldas]] was Emeralda in the 1978 ''Space Pirate Captain Harlock'' series. Matel, [[Manga/GalaxyExpress999 Maetel]], or Maeter? As to whether Tochiro's surname Oyama or Ooyama, it's probably the former. The concept of double vowels to reflect inflection is seldom used in Romaji.
* The name of the male lead in ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' and ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' is sometimes translated according to the Japanese pronunciation, Li Syaoran or Shaoran, and at other times according to the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation Li Xiaolang or Li Hsiao Lang. On the other hand, since Xiaolong is from Hong Kong, his name ''really'' should be pronounced as the Cantonese ''Lei Siulong''.
** The ''Cardcaptors'' dub, however, actually switched his name so that Li was his given name, his surname then becoming Showron. This admittedly isn't as bad as what was done to most characters, who got completely new names.
*** Some fans think ''Cardcaptors'' did this to {{Bowdlerise}} incest. Li Meiling is his cousin and also his fiancée (until this is {{Retcon}}ned). Shifting around his name, while not shifting around Meiling's name (and romanizing "Li" as "Rae" for her) hides this.
** ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' unfortunately is littered with these, mostly due the dub and Creator/{{Geneon}}'s subs as well. As mentioned before, Syaoran (小狼, ''Xiǎoláng'' in Pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Shaoran or Shaolan. Meiling (苺鈴, ''Méilín'' in pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Meilin or with a dash in her name (Mei-Ling). Cerberus is almost always misspelled as Keroberos. The official Bilingual manga (which is more accurately translated than the Creator/{{Tokyopop}} version) brings up several different spellings including Touya as Toya and Kero as Cero. According to Creator/CLAMP's official website, it should be Cerberus, Kero, Touya, and Syaoran. There is no official consensus on Meiling's correct spelling.
* ''Manga/{{Chobits}}'' fans argue over whether it should be "Persocom" or "Persocon." Persocom makes the most logical sense (being that it's short for '''perso'''nal '''com'''puter), but since the Japanese pronounce it "Pasoko'''n'''" (pāsonaru konpyūta) some people think the romanisation "Persocon" is better. Regardless, the name wasn't made up for the anime as many people think -- "pasokon" is just the Japanese word for a computer in general.
** The main character's name also garners debate on whether it should be Chi or Chii. Given that her name is spelled "ちぃ" in Japanese, with the characters "Chi" and "i", "Chii" is the most likely correct version, but the anime writes her full name in English letters as "Chi Motosuwa" on her pay envelope in one episode. Shinbo's name is also spelled Shimbo in the Tokyopop manga, but spelled as Shinbo on the Japanese official website (though the Japanese pronunciation would be identical in either case).
* ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' has this happen at least once in ''the official translation'' of the manga: Satella's name is sometimes given as "Stella". Then there's others like Aion/Ion, Chrono/Chrno, Azumaria/Azmaria...
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'':
** ''Code Geass'' uses Western names heavily. The most prominent example is Kallen Stadtfeld, who some fans '''still''' call "Karen" despite WordOfGod reinforcing "Kallen" as official. Since she's biracial and passing as Britannian, a lot of people settle for "Kallen Stadtfeld" as her public name and "Kouzuki Karen" as her real name. In a similar but stranger fashion, there seems to be heavy disagreement over whether female lead C.C.'s name should be pronounced "C-Two" or "Cici" (the former is official). One fansub referenced Rivalz as Leval, which would certainly make sense for a citizen of the somewhat Gallic Britannia. Just to add to it, the American actors render the name as sounding something like "Rivvle" in an attempt to preserve the original pronunciation.
** It even extends to organizations; the fan-preferred name for LaResistance is "The Order of the Black Knights", which is a slightly mangled translation of "Kuro no Kishidan". The official translation is simply "The Black Knights", but most fans continue to use the longer name, presumably because [[RuleOfCool it just sounds cooler]].
** Similarly, the secret organization that appears in early ''R2''; referred to as the Order, [[spoiler:the Geass Cult]], or [[spoiler:the Geass Directorate]]. In-series documents give the name of the group as "[[spoiler:The Followers of Geass]]".
** He's not particularly important, but there seems to have been some confusion regarding Carares/Carales/Calares (the latter is apparently the official version).
** The soup of disputed spellings continues to thicken as R2 continues its run in America, with even the Emperor's name now coming into question (before they simply side-stepped the issue by only crediting him as "Emperor of Brittania"). Originally, fans generally accepted "Charles di Britannia" as the spelling, but now both the show and the first light novel spell it "Charles ''zi'' Britannia".
*** The confusion here stems from the fact that Japanese sometimes uses the same characters for words beginning with G, D, and Z; this led to a debate over whether Britannia's Knight the Third was named "Gino Weinberg" or "Zino Weinberg", both of which were used in magazines and official sources. For the record, "Gino" is used in the American dub.
*** It's the result of the fact that the initial consonant sounds of two different katakana, ジ and ヂ, are used to represent an unfortunate number of English sounds, (including d, z, zh, and j, possibly among others), and their sounds have converged to be almost identical in modern Japanese to the point where the kana themselves are almost entirely interchangable. Compare the Japanese borrowing of "radio", ''rajio'' (ラジオ). Ask any beginning student of Japanese about those two kana, and you're likely to get an exasperated sigh in return.
*** Even ''native speakers'' have problems with the two "ji" kana. That's the whole reason [[Manga/AzumangaDaioh Osaka]] rants about the spelling of 'hemorrhoid'.
** Many fansubs refer to Nunnally as Nanaly. Or Nunnary, which makes it sound like she's named after a place full of women devoted to Christianity. Or even Nanari.
** What about Lelouch's nickname? Is it Lelou, or Lulu?
** All official media spells Milly Ashford's first name as "Milly", but some fans continue to insist on "Millay" or "Millie".
** The fandom had a field day with Rolo. For a long time, the fandom was split between Rollo and Rolo, and at least one group of subbers referred to him as, of all things, ''Lolo''. Not too surprising, though, considering that the two characters that make up his name are the same, but it's still an odd choice for a name.
** Euphemia's diminutive is even lampshadded in-universe. Euphy is widely used, but Euphie is apparently the "right" form. Then Nunnally engraves "Euphy" on her candle, and confesses to Suzaku she is ashamed because she's not even sure she spelled it correctly. [[FridgeBrilliance Keep in mind that Nunnally is blind, and most likely can't tell how it came out]]. More to the point, Nunnally has been blind for over half her life, and it's surprising that she can read and write at all, considering that 99.9% of all English text is illegible to her. It may be one of the few things she's written in English for a long time.
* A straightforward transliteration of Kaoruko Moeta's PenName in ''Manga/ComicGirls'' is "Kaosu." Opinion is divided on her main intent is the word "chaos," which is pronounced the same way in Japanese, or just as a cutesy way of calling her name, in which case the name "Kaos" is more appropriate. Since she is mainly known by her pen name, there's always a combination of "Kaos" and "Chaos" in discussions on her.
* Fan translations of ''Cosmo Police Justy'' transliterated two characters' names as Jelna and Astaris. The Viz ''Justy'' translation, such as it was, decided they were Jerna and Astalis.
* In ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'' and its sequels, the Abh have their own language, Baronh. Despite its Japanese roots, it has an alphabet, many sounds not in Japanese, and pronunciation rules almost as bizarre as English. In the English version, most Baronh words are transliterated from Japanese, ignoring the official romanization and pronunciation guides. For example, the name of the female protagonist "Ablïarsec Lamhirh" becomes "Aburiaru Rafiiru" in Japanese and "Abriel Lafiel" in English. The proper pronunciation is closer to "Ablyars Lafirh".
* Thanks to mishandling in its official English translations by Tokyopop and Sony Pictures, and compounded further by some characters not having official English translations for their names, ''Manga/Cyborg009'' has had quite the cases of these:
** Cyborg 001's name is usually translated as "Ivan Whisky" or "Ivan Wisky", but due to the way that his given name is put down in katakana (iwan), "Iwan" and "Iwon" can occasionally crop up in official materials.
** Cyborg 002's name is ジェット・リンク (jetto rinku) in the original katakana, which just so happened to be the same way that the Jett Rink character from ''Giant'' had his name put in katakana- and was the very character that Ishinomori sourced when he set a name for 002. However, as decades passed with no official English notation for the character's name, Ishimori Pro settled on "Jet Link" at some point, as did the Italian dub of the 1979 series. While "Jet Link" is the official accepted spelling these days, some debate can arise over if his surname should be rendered as "Rink" at the very least. Adding to this is a Digimon character modeled after 002, named "Rinkmon" as a double pun (due to him being an ice skater and with him bearing resemblance to 002). However, it's definitely not "Ger Link", a name made infamous by bootleg Malaysian English fansubs that have been known for many unusual errors. "Jedd" is another erroneous spelling seen, which can be blamed on the English dub of ''The Legend of the Super Galaxy''. There even exists a fansub where his given name is inexplicably rendered "Jade".
** Before her name inspiration was more widely-known among Western readers, some newsgroup discussions and oldest Cyborg 009 articles would spell Cyborg 003's name as "Francoise Arnelle" or "Francoise Alnul", as opposed to "Francoise Arnoul". "Arnelle" can be seen in the fansubs for some 1968 episodes, while Toei's DVD releases of that version have her surname spelled as "Arnou" on the cover artwork. There also exists a sub for the 1967 film "Monster Wars", in which her name is translated as ''"Fransoir"''. Furthermore, the English dub of ''The Legend of the Super Galaxy'' referred to her as Francis/Frances, and some older fan discussions and even some fanworks to this day opt to use the more Anglicized spellings for her name.
** Cyborg 006 is officially "Chang Changku" in Ishimori Pro's materials and in any adaptation that depicts his name written in English. However, this spelling is based upon the Wade-Giles rendering of the name, which has since fallen out of use in mainland China. Due to its usage in the Italian translations and with it being based on the more acceptable Pinyin rendering, there are fans that argue that the official reading of the name should be "Zhang Zhanghu". And then, you have dubs that refer to the guy as "Chan Chan Ko" or "Chang Changko", due to how his name is pronounced in Japanese (Chan Chanko). The MF Comics release of the manga had his name misspelled as "Chang Charghu" on their covers.
** Cyborg 008's name is officially spelled "Pyunma", but due to the lack of existence for such a name, there are fans that wonder if Ishinomori may have in fact meant ''"Puma"'', which is very similar to the katakana reading for his name (besides lacking the "n" character). It doesn't help that Episode 4 of the 1979 series depicts his name written down as "Puma" on a letter, and that most dubs of the 1980 film ''The Legend of the Super Galaxy'' also use "Puma" due to Toei rendering it as that in their simple English script. The Italian dub of ''Super Galaxy'' opts to use "Punma" as a compromise, and it happens to also be an alternate reading for the katakana. Both English dubs of Super Galaxy and the 2001 series also ran into inconsistent pronunciation of his name; with Super Galaxy using "poo-mah" and "pyu-ma" for "Puma", and the 2001 series using the pronunciations of "poon-ma" and "pyoon-ma".
** While the ex-Black Ghost scientist that mentors the team is officially "Dr. Gilmore", occasional merchandise will slip up and spell his name "Dr. Gilmour". Some fansites also opt to use "Issac" (based off a misspelling seen in episode 31), although the correct and more sensible spelling is "Isaac".
** The lead villain in the early arcs of the manga is officially "Skull", but due to Ishinomori's way of translating the name to katakana, the extra ーcharacter in スカール (sukaru) throws off many a translator who are used to the word being rendered スカル. This lead to the alternate official spelling of "Skarle", which appeared in the 2001 anime and a 2011 pachinko game based off of that version. The English dub of the 2001 series officially used "Scarl", perhaps based off of this, while Tokyopop's English translation of the manga named him "Scar". The 2013 graphic novel by Archaia Entertainment opted to name him "Sekar", which in turn was a valid alternate reading for the katakana of his name and was perhaps used to make him seem less cartoonish. The 2014 pachinko game ultimately goes with "Skull".
** Skull's second-in-command is named "Van Vogt", after the science fiction author A.E. van Vogt. However, when the character appeared through 1966-1967, the "vu" katakana character had yet to come into fashion and the standard way of denoting a "v" was with the "b" character. Thus, his name appeared as "ban boguto". Due to the archaic and different way of rendering his name (which continued into modern adaptations), foreign adaptations had a very difficult time with his name. In Sony's English dub of the anime (which had its scripts used in turn for other countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico), his name was translated as "Van Bogoot", while Tokyopop's English manga called him "Ban Bogart" and then "Van Bogart". The Italian translation of the manga also opted to use "Van Bogoot", but the French translation caught the reference in his name and translated it appropriately. Bootleg fansubs of the series have mutated his name even further into "Benbergart" or "Phun Por Ke".
** Two of the disabled men assisting Cyborg 0012 are named "Camel" and "Röntgen" (named after Wilhem Röntgen, who discovered X-Rays). In Tokyopop's translation, "Camel" was translated literally as "Rakuda" (the Japanese word for the animal), while "Röntgen" became "Lentgen".
** In the English dub of the 2001 anime, the anime-original villain Dr. Berck was translated literally as "Dr. Beruku". A similar case happened with Dr. Findor, whose surname was put as "Findoru". In turn, that latter doctor's name can be debatably also read as "Findol" or even "Phindol", as it was intended to be an anagram and re-arrangement of his name from the original manga (Dr. Dolphin).
** Ishinomori and the 2001 anime use "Apollon" and "Minotauros" for two of the Mythos cyborgs, going off of the Greek variants of their names. The English manga and anime opt to use "Apollo" and "Minotaur" for ease, but this can cause some minor spelling debates. Ishinomori also uses "Helene"/"Helena" for the cyborg with the Trojan horse, which would be rendered as "Helen" in English if Westernizing the other Greek names (and the fact that her mythological inspiration is known as "Helen of Troy" in English would make the reference more obvious). However, perhaps to not confuse her with the "Helen" from the Yomi arc, and due to the girls' names being rendered differently in katakana, the "Helena" spelling is what is commonly used.
** In the fourth major series arc, "The Underground Empire of the Yomi", two of the princesses have names that have caused quite the spelling confusion. The English dub of the anime refers to them as "Vena" and "Dinah" (when not mispronouncing her name as "Deena"), while Tokyopop opted to call them "Venus" and "Diana". In katakana, their names are given as ビーナ(bina) and ダイナ(daina), while Venus would be ビーナス and Diana would be ダイアナ. Tokyopop's translation can be seen as a pragmatic alteration, as it's been a popular theory that Ishinomori might have meant "Venus" and "Diana" but had difficulty with translating some loanwords and names in Japanese as he had with Skull and Van Vogt (forgetting one character in Dinah/Diana's case, and forgetting the "su" ending character in Vena/Venus' case). It's also been theorized that all five sisters were meant to have a Greco-Roman naming theme; making the five "Helen" (after the Greek demigoddess Helen of Troy), "Venus" (after the Roman equivalent of Aphrodite), "Diana" (the Roman goddess of the moon), "Aphro" (after the Greek goddess Aphrodite herself), and "Daphne" (a nymph in Greek mythology). However, the Italian translation of the manga opts to use "Veena" (a Hindi name) and "Dyna" (a Greek name meaning "power") for the two sisters in question. This appears to be a spelling matter that won't ever quite be solved.
** The evil dinosaur race in the Yomi arc is officially the "Zattan", but Tokyopop's translation referred to them as "Zartan" and bootleg English subs often refer to them as "The Satan" or "Satans". "Zathan" is an alternative possible spelling that's also been seen.
** One of the Mutant Warriors in the eponymous arc of the 2001 anime is officially "Mii", but had her name changed to "Mai" in the English dub and other foreign dubs based off of its translation. This still causes much confusion among fans.
*** The leader of the Mutant Warriors is either "Kane" or "Cain", with the second option having significance in him being a traitor.
** A Mutant Warrior who had basis in a manga character has had her name alternatively spelled as "Lina", "Lena", or "Rina"/"Rena". A character with a similar name in the 1979 series also runs into this kind of problem.
** Joe's former friend Ibaraki had his surname spelled as "Ibaragi" in Tokyopop's translation. Another friend has had her name debated as either being "Merry" or "Mary", as the katakana can represent both. Tokyopop went with the latter, while the Italian translation used the former.
** The princess in the story "City of Wind" is officially "Ixquic", and can also be spelled "Xquic". However, due to the pronunciation issues and the way of the name being translated in Japanese, "Ishuki" and "Ishukik" can still be seen in some Western fanworks. Her robot should be "Cabrakan", but is often spelled as "Kabrakan".
** A minor character in the "Moses in the Desert" arc somewhat infamously had her name rendered as "Crisheeta Moore" in the Italian translation of the manga, while English scanlations call her ''Christa'' Moore. "Christa" would be the more appropriate rendering of クリスタ, but it appears that the "si" character may have been misread as "shi", leading to the confusion on the Italian end.
** The Italian dub of the 1979 series had its own fair share of errors, with the Deinonychus dinosaur becoming the "Dinonix", and Freyja and Thor being referred to as "Flair" and "Tol". Most egregiously, the cyborg triplets of Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu became "Shiba", "Brehmet", and "Bishun", losing out on their own mythological references and causing much spelling confusion for decades.
* ''Manga/DGrayMan'' has a character who the Japanese have already romanized as "Arystar Krory", but to English speakers, the name is obviously a reference to Aleister Crowley. Still, Krory is officially Arystar Krory. The author specifically wanted a name that sounded like the infamous Crowley but wasn't.
** Not to mention the million different spellings of Lenalee Lee: Rinali, Linali, Linalee... Plus, her surname can be romanized as either Lee or Li. And then there's Rabi vs. Lavi and Tyki Mikk vs. Ticky Mick and... basically 90% of the characters in the series are subject to this.
*** Worse than any of the others, some of the names for one of the Noah twins: Devit, Debit, Debitt, David, Debitto, Devitto, Debbit.
** The Noah n'aime of the Noah are chosen After an english word combined with à japanese suffix. This leads to the need to choose between transliterating the whole thing or going with the base english word. The choice not even being consistent in the fanbook doesn't help... Ex: Road (transliteration : Rodo) and Raasura (from "Wrath" +"ra")
** Luckily, [[WordOfGod the author]] added a nice chart with all the characters' names, in English, to one of the volumes. A similar chart with the same spellings (also English) followed one of the anime episodes. The [[AllThereInTheManual fanbook]] includes the official romanisation of each character's name in their character profiles, and the recent manga compliation volumes include English name spellings in the profiles of all the characters written into the story since the fanbook was produced - ''except'', for some reason, for the new Noahs. Though one of the names on the author's list and in the fanbook is spelled "Jeryy," so some fans choose to ignore the list.
*** A new fanbook is out, providing the names for the "new" Noah. Some of them are ''really'' odd like "Maushyma".
* Done with the official translations of ''Manga/DNAngel''. What's the name of Daisuke's pet? The anime dub went with "With", but the manga translation decided on "Wiz".
** It makes sense if 'Wiz' is short for 'wizard'. But it comes off as narm.
* ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' has a possible example with Decade, British spymaster [[spoiler: and member of TheSyndicate]]. While the name is a perfectly reasonable CodeName, given that his agents use month-based code names, one fan-sub translated the name as Richards.
* ''Manga/DanceInTheVampireBund'' explains the disappearance of Creator/AmbroseBierce by having him show up as a vampire. Unfortunately, since his name's been transliterated to Japanese and back again, the Romanization of the manga spells it "Biers". (One wonders if the translator didn't understand the HistoricalInJoke.)
* This was a source of much confusion in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' fandom, partly because of unusual transliterations on the author's part, partly because the official transliterations changed during the course of the series and from one publisher to another:
** Light Yagami is an odd example, since, to most fans, it sounded so odd they assumed it had to be ''Raito''. Some scanslations and even the first official translations had trouble with this, as they had gone with "Raito", then had to switch to Light half way through the series (as the intended spelling became known). Some fans even call him Lighto/Laito as a compromise.
** Some fans simply call Light(/Raito) "Kira", a name that is subject to minor debate itself. Is it Kira or Killer or Killa? Hell, this comes up in the ''series'', as Light initially dislikes the "Kira" nickname because it's obviously based off the word "Killer". (In the live-action movie, Lind L. Taylor - who was turned into an American for the film - even calls Kira "Killer" during his speech.)
** Near and Mello were written as "Nia" and "Mero" in some scanlations at first.
** There's also Sidoh/Shidou/Sidou/Shiddoh, Jealous/Gelus, Lester/Rester, Gevanni/Giovanni, John Matckenraw/''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McEnroe John McEnroe]]'' (real name Rally Connors/Larry Connors). It doesn't help much when some of the official spellings go and change during the run of the series, such as the case with Connors' codename (the English translations stuck with "[=McEnroe=]" and changed "Rally" to "Larry").
*** To elaborate further: Ohba varied between using "Shidoh" and "Sidoh" in English for the white Shinigami, while Viz settled on calling him "Sidoh". "Gelus", however, was Viz's doing, as Ohba had always spelled his name out as "Jealous". "Giovanni" and "Lester" were initially used in some scanlations, while both the Japanese and English versions of ''How To Read 13'' use the "Gevanni" and "Rester" spellings.
** Hal Lidner/Hal Ridner/Halle Ridner/Halle Lidner/Harinda. Ohba used "Hal Lidner", which Viz used in their translation of the manga, before switching to the more feminine "Halle" spelling for the anime, while still using "Lidner" for her surname (Ohba gave her actual name as ''Halle'' Bullook, anyway). The others spawn from scanlations or fan confusion.
** It's Ray'''e''' Penber, strangely enough. Also, on his ID card his last name reads "Penbar" in the first anime episode he shows it in, only to be corrected to "Penber" in the next episode.
** A few other names: Dwhite Godon (alias Rodd Los/Rod Ross), Elickson Guardner (real name: Tohmas), George Psyruth/George Sairas, Devitt Hoope (David Hoope) and Steeve Maison (Steve Maison). One man in the mafia went from having the name Gurren Hangfreeze to the more sensible "Glen Humphreys" in Viz's translations.
** Rem/Remu and Ryuk/Ryuuku.
** "Aiba" and "Weddy". "Weddy" was actually used in the first OVA, while the official translations call them Aiber and Wedy. Their actual names also changed between Ohba's own spellings and the ones used in Viz's English translations. Ohba preferred referring to them as "Tierry Morrello" and "Merrie Kenwood", while Viz's translators preferred "Thierry Morello" and "Mary Kenwood".
** In ''How To Read 13'', some other Shinigami names (besides Sidoh and Gelus) changed a bit between what Ohba put down in English and what the Viz translators chose.
*** Shinigami names in the original release: Armonia Jastin Beyondllemason, Delidubbly, Gook, Meadra, Zerhogie, and Dalil Guillohrtha.
*** In Viz's edition: Armonia Justin Beyondormason, Deridovely, Gukku, Midora, Zellogi, and Daril Ghiroza.
* Until the official translation of ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' was released, no one could agree how to translate any of the names. Even on this very wiki there were debates about Falin vs Faylyn and Laios vs Laius, etc.
* In ''LightNovel/DestructionFlagOtome'' the third prince's name has been romanized as Jared or Gerald and the prime minister's son is either Nico or Nicole depending on if you're reading the light novel or the manga. Looking at the way they're written in Japanese, it's pretty clear that the prince is supposed to be Gerald. The prime minister's son's name ''is'' supposed to be pronounced Nicole, but as this is a feminine name it's more likely to be the masculine Nicol instead, which makes both wrong but the manga closer.
* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan/[[MarketBasedTitle Case Closed]]'', Ran's English name is spelt as "Rachel" in the manga, but "Rachael" in the anime.
* ''Anime/DiGiCharat'': One character is usually transliterated as "Rabi~en~Rose" -- when it really ought to be "La Vie En Rose", a French saying meaning "Life in Pink", or rather, "seeing through rose-colored glasses'.
* Viz Comics used the name "Tetsusaiga" for the sword in ''Manga/InuYasha''. This is a mistake resulting from a misinterpretation of the small 'tsu' character (which acts as consonant doubler for the next syllable) in the name; the correct spelling is "Tessaiga". (For comparison, Sesshoumaru's name also uses the small 'tsu,' but no one ever tries to spell it "Setsushoumaru"). Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} spread the error even further because its rules have been interpreted to use Viz's version, and to ignore the mistake.
** It doesn't help that the dub pronounces it "Te'''t'''saiga".
** While on the subject of ''Inuyasha'', while all title cards and subtitles refer to a "Kirara", the English dub uses the pronunciation "Kilala" - the Japanese version, of course, falling somewhere in the middle, since Japanese doesn't have distinct "r" and "l" sounds.
*** Which makes it a bit confusing when Episode 91 introduced Kuroro, another cat whose name the characters pronounce as spelled.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' has repeated problems with this, including a special variant unique to it: see, all Digimon names are abbreviations of literal descriptions, many of which involve English words. For instance, "Imperialdramon" is short for "''Imperial dra''gon ''mon''ster". The problem comes because Toei doesn't always have the greatest grasp of English, and sometimes even enforces incorrect spellings on English translations, leaving fans who do know English to choose between the official spelling and the correct one. (And that's leaving aside words from ''other'' languages; Digimon Frontier notably borrows from German, for example).
** ''Digimon Data Squad'' (a.k.a. the dub of ''Anime/DigimonSavers'') gave us the oddly romanized "[=BioRotosmon=]", "[=BioSupinomon=]", and "Eldradimon," instead of the more logical "[=BioLotusmon=]", "[=BioSpinomon=]", and "[=ElDoradimon=]." (After El Dorado; he's a [[TurtlePower turtle]] with a city on his back.)
** ''Data Squad'' also has the Royal Knights' [=LoadKnightmon=], as "load" is an actual English word but it makes absolutely no sense in this context. Bandai of America previously called him "[=LordKnightmon=]," while some of the fandom seemed to prefer "[=RhodoKnightmon=]," as a pun on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodonite rhodonite]], which matches his color scheme. Adding to the fun, the dub of ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' a few years earlier took the DubNameChange route and just called its version Crusadermon.
** An earlier example: Endigomon/Wendigomon/Wendimon, from the first ''Adventure 02'' movie; based on the {{Wendigo}} and so the latter two names are more accurate. Its evolved form was the (fallen-)angelic Kerpymon, which was then changed when it reappeared in ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' to become the more accurate Cherubimon.
** Diablomon became Diaboromon, though that may have been to get away from referencing demons outright.
** Also from ''02'': Lighdramon/Raidramon - either "Light dragon" or "Rai (Japanese: thunder) dragon." The latter makes more sense.
** Sometimes the dub names are direct transliterations of the Japanese pronunciation, instead of using the actual English word. Examples include Arukenimon (which should be Arachnemon for the mythical Arachne), Sukamon (Scummon), and Gizumon (Gizmon, as in "gizmo"). ''Data Squad'''s Merukimon, based on the Roman god Mercury, is another, though he's justified as the ''Frontier'' dub already had a Mercurymon (named for the metal).
** Saban's dub of ''02'' renamed Miyako to "Yolei", but occasionally the writers would also spell her name "Yolie" (such as in an episode titled "Run Yolie Run").
** Another example from ''Frontier'' is that Ardhamon's name was mistranslated as Aldamon, Ardha meaning "half" in Sanskrit. Agnimon (after the Hindu god Agni) also became Agunimon for some reason; possibly an intentional homage to franchise mainstay Agumon but it's impossible to say for sure.
** Going back to ''Digimon Data Squad'', that aside from Tohma/Touma/Tooma, his sister, Relena. In the original, it's said as Ririina (Liliina?). Of course, being reminded of the Creator/DiC English ''Anime/SailorMoon'' dub, [[WritingAroundTrademarks perhaps it sounds too close]] to Rini a.k.a., Chibiusa.
** In ''Anime/DigimonTamers'', Lee Jianliang and Xiaochun are [[ButNotTooForeign half-Chinese]] [[StockForeignName and have Chinese names]]. Apparently, much of the fandom didn't get the memo, and continue to call them Jenrya and Shiuchon (or ''Shuichon'', after an early translator's typo caught on). In their defense, it's extremely unusual for someone living permanently in Japan to use a non-Japanese spelling or punctuation (hell, it used to be outright illegal for citizens) and 90% of resident Chinese would use Jenrya and Shiuchon, just because that's what everyone reading your name would call you.
*** The ''Jenrya'' and ''Shiuchon'' pronounciations would still be considered foreign. The natural Japanese pronounciation of their names would be ''Ri Kenryou'' and ''Ri Koharu''. Even then though, the structure of their names would still mark them as foreign.
*** That's also the question surrounding ''any'' anime characters of a Hong Kong heritage: their name should be romanized as Canetonese or Mandarin? In that case, it'd be more realistic to call Lee as Lee Kin-leung.
** No one can seem to decide whether to spell [=GrapLeomon=]'s name (a pun on "grapple" and "leo") with one P, two Ps or two Ps and a U.
** The English dub of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' can't decide whether to use an "s" in the plural of "Digimon", possibly because the translators wanted to both keep it catchy and dissuade viewers from the obvious similarities to Franchise/{{Pokemon}}.
** The spelling for Joe's name is inconsistent in the original Japanese version. Toei and Bandai can't decide if his name is spelled "Joe", "Jyou", or "Jo." (Though, they've tentatively agreed on "Joe" for the most part.) The English version got away with having his name "Joe", a common spelling for a common name in the West.
*** Speaking of the English dub, are the main heroes (Chosen Children in the original) the [=DigiDestined=], Digidestined, or Digi-Destined?
** The Italian dub of ''Anime/DigimonXrosWars'' screws up a lot of names. Basically, [=MadLeomon=], Lilithmon and Baalmon are known there as [=MadoLeomon=], Rirismon and Barmon.
*** The US dub, ''Digimon Fusion'', has one with [=SlashAngemon=] becoming ''Slush''Angemon, which like with [=LoadKnightmon=] uses an actual word but with a completely nonsensical meaning. It also changed Bastemon (named after the Egyptian goddess Bastet) to the anagram Beastmon, though at least in this case the entirely different meaning still fits.
** Another good example is ''Tamers'' lead Digimon, whom the translations would all tell you is "Guilmon", but whose Japanese name of ''Girumon'' would be more accurately translated as "Gilmon" (as in "Gill", such as those things he has on either side of his head, or "Gila Monster").
* ''LightNovel/DirtyPair''
** Mugi/Mughi. (The latter spelling comes from the first episode of the OVA series [[RetCon retconning]] his name to be an acronym for "Military Utility Genetic Hiper (sic) Intelligence".)
** ''Anime/DirtyPairFlash'' has Lady Flair/Flare/Freya.
** The rare Kodansha-published English translation of the first short story spelled Kei's name as "Kay". (When Dark Horse republished this story, they ''mostly'' reused the existing English translation, but changed the spelling to the more usual one.)
* Meanwhile, in ''Manga/DoctorSlump'', WordOfGod has it that Toriyama prefers the romanization "Arale" for アラレ (Arare).
* ''Anime/DotHackSign'' has the spear-wielding character, whose name is officially "Clim" according to the website. It's been spelled variously as "Crim", "Krim", "Kurim", "Kurimu", etc. etc. (Most think it should be "Crim" as a play on the word "crimson"). Ginkan is also often called Kinkan, or has his name literally translated as "Silver Knight" in the subs (even though that would be kind of like subbing [[Franchise/YuGiOh Yugi]] as "Game" - it's his actual name, not merely a description of what he is).
* In ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'', Gian, the BigGuy who often bullies Nobita, has also been referred to as Giant, Jaian, and Jayen.
* This happens more often than not with the characters of ''Manga/DragonBall''.
** Intentionally done in many translations with Bulma's family to hide the fact that [[ThemeNaming all of them are named after underwear]]. While Dr. "Briefs" (ブリーフ, ''buriifu'') and "Trunks" (トランクス, ''torankusu'') are kept, "Bloomer" (ブルマ ''buruma'', via a GratuitousEnglish brand name) becomes "Bulma" and "Bra" (ブラ, ''bura'') becomes "Bulla".
*** Although, to be fair, while intended to be a pun on bloomers, the character's very first appearance (and several subsequent ones) has her wearing a shirt with 'Bulma' printed right across her chest. [[JapaneseRanguage Her creator messed up his L/Rs and it stuck]]. The spelling itself is consistent, and it is a somewhat valid romanization(It's pronounced roughly as "Buruma" in Japanese, so "Bulma" does work, despite entirely missing the point of the pun). Calling Bra "Bulla" is pure [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerisation]], though.
*** Oddly enough, despite Bra being [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerised]] to Bulla happening even in the uncut dubs, Mr. Satan(Which, as with a good few of the names in the series, is a case of GratuitousEnglish, so there's only really one correct way of romanizing it) was already rendered correctly as Mr. Satan in the uncut dubs, but Funimation always record alternate takes where they refer to him as "Hercule" for the TV versions. Most TV-only dubs also refer to him as Hercule. So, this does leave the question of why Bra is still censored in Funimation's uncut dub.
** In ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', the sentient dragon radar is called "Giru" in the Funimation dub, which is a direct romanization of the Japanese way of referring to him. However, the generally far more-accurate [[{{Creator/TheOceanGroup}} Ocean Group]] dub, and the subtitles for the Japanese version call him "Gill". There are also many online who would argue his name was intended as a pun on the English word "Gear". Most debates online about which one is more accurate tend to be overshadowed by [[FlameWar Flame Wars]] about ''GT'' itself, though.
** While names like Kulilin/Krillin/Kuririn or Yamcha/Yamucha can be hotly debated for hours, one has to wonder why anyone would think that words of blatantly non-Japanese origins such as "Piccolo" or "Garlic Jr." could ever be taken at face value as "Pikkoro" or "Gaariku Juniya.", or "Red Ribbon" as "Red Ribon" for that matter.
*** Though, on that note, a few translations throw those blatantly-English names out in favour of invented names, such as the infamous AB Groupe dub of the movies, which is commonly referred to by fans as the "Big Green" dub, after their name for Piccolo.
*** Kuririn's name is actually spelled "Kulilin" on his ballcap during the "trip to Namek" story arc. His name is meant to be a portmanteau of ''Kuri''(a Japanese chestnut) and ''shourin'' (as in a Shaolin monk). Arguably, since the second half comes from the root word "Shaolin", while the first half is the Japanese "Kuri", the best way to romanize it would be Kurilin, which is about half-way between the two most common romnizations of his name, Kuririn, and Krillin.
*** Some Bandai toys (like the Super Collection figures) and at least one cel art has his name spelled as "Klilyn", and the TGS 2017 trailer for ''Dragon Ball Fighter Z'' spelled it as "Kliyn".
*** Arguably, Yamcha's name should be presented as ''Yum''cha, as it's a reference to Yum cha, Cantonese for "tea drinking". This is backed up by the fact that his partner is named Puar, a reference to pǔ'ěr tea. Yamcha's name had to be altered for the Chinese translation since someone with the name "Tea Drinking" would sound silly.
** "Recoom", whose name is an anagram of Cream or "Kuriimu" in Japanese. Due to the extended vowel being its own character, this is a simple matter of switching the two first characters, ku and ri, in the base word, but the result is completely impossible to spell out in English while keeping the pun. The official subtitles settled on "[=Reacoom=]", which no one would ever see as a pun on the word "cream" unless actually told so. Adding to the confusion, the dub uses "Recoome". Another way to do it would be Reacm - it looks weird, but it's the closest approximation of the pun you can get in English.
** There are at least two or three different names each for the little red guy and the tall blue one (whose names are "Jeice" and "Burter" in the dub, respectively) Their names are romanized in the subs as Jheese(Pronounced like "Jeez", but an S sound at the end instead of a Z) and Butta. Jheese (Jīsu) is a play on "cheese" ("chīsu") with the "ch" replaced with a "j". Butta (Bāta) is a pun on the word butter ("batā") with the long and short vowels switched.
** "Vegeta". The series is full of name puns, every Saiyan is named after a vegetable, and it has been recently revealed that this character's younger brother is named "Table/Tarble." And yet, there are still some people who will violently insist that the character is named "Bejiter."
*** ''Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly'' likely struck first when an article on the first UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom FightingGame used "Vegita".
*** Similarly, there are people who will insist on using Torankusu and Gotenkusu instead of Trunks and Gotenks.
** The name "Vegetto"[[note]]''Bejitto''[[/note]], the combined alter-ego of Goku and Vegeta whose name is a portmanteau of Goku's Saiyan birth name with Vegeta's, only makes sense if you romanize the name "Kakarotto" as-is instead of using the more popular variation, "Kakarrot". Because of this, Viz renamed him "Vegerot" in the English manga. On the other hand, the Funimation dub used the spelling "Vegito", which was originally used on action figure made by Irwin Toys, and makes no sense in the context of the English dub.
** Son Goku's name, when literally transliterated, becomes "Son Gokuu" (or "Gokū" with a macron), but most English adaptations don't bother with either. Toriyama actually spells it "Son Gokuh" at one point at the original manga, while Bandai uses the spelling "Son Gokou" in some of their toys in what seems to be a misguided attempt to anglicize his name (think of the "cou" in "cougar"), similarly to the "Ayeka/Aeka" deal with Tenchi Muyo. In the "Gokou" case though, it would change the name's pronunciation entirely to "Go-coh" instead.
** Lunch's name[[note]]''Ranchi''[[/note]] is spelled "Launch" in the dub for some reason. Because schizophrenic girls named after meals is bad?
** And Bardock, whose name is probably supposed to be Burdock (in keeping with the plant/vegetable ThemeNaming). Some dubs also call him "Bard'''a'''ck".
** And Frieza/Freeza/Freezer/Furiza("Furiza" is probably the closest to how it's spoken in Japanese). "Freeza" makes most sense - it's a pun on "freezer" but with a short vowel sound at the end instead of a long one, and that's the spelling the official subtitles and the manga use.
*** The EGM article mentioned above used plain ol' "Freezer".
*** This is lampshaded in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', where Future Trunks initially calls Freeza "Fry-zah" because of the "i" in the latter's name in most media handled by Funimation. Freeza immediately corrects Future Trunks' pronunciation and irritatedly points out that there isn't an "i" in his name. With this scene in mind, you'll probably start to notice that Creator/TeamFourStar have always spelled his name as "Freeza".
** Goten's girlfriend in ''Dragon Ball GT'': The romaji for her name is ''Paresu'', which is generally considered to be an approximation of the English word "Palace". However, it's not uncommon to see her referred to as "Paris" or "Palis". Creator/{{FUNimation}}'s dub cranked the confusion up even more by calling her Valese.
*** "Valese" isn't totally pulled out from no-where; B, V, and P are fairly closely-related sounds, and many languages tend to mix them up(Particularly languages like Spanish, which is worth noting, since rumours claim Funimation used to get their scripts by translating the Mexican dub's scripts into English), so it's possible the P was rendered as a B in the scripts given to Funimation, and then Funimation thought it was supposed to be a V.
** The names of Burdock's allies in the "Bardock - The Father of Goku" special are puns similar to those used by the Ginyū Force - Toma ("tomato" with the last kana removed), Pumbkin (panbukin, a play on pumpkin (panpukin) with the pu replaced by a bu), Sleypar (seripa, a play on "parsley" - paseri - with the first kana moved to the end) and Totapo (totepo, a play on "potato" - poteto - with the kana reversed). [=FUNimation=] changed them entirely to Tora, Shugesh, Fasha and Borgos respectively for unknown reasons.
** Gokū's Saiyan name is another example. The name comes from a pun on "carrot" (karotto), with the first kana repeated (turning it into "Kakarotto"). The ideal way of keeping the pun in writing would be to romanise it as Cacarrot, though this is less of an issue in the English dubs, as the pun is fairly obvious when spoken aloud.
** There are many ways to call the dragon that comes from the titular Dragon Balls. A direct romanization of his name from Japanese to English yields Shenron, which is what Funimation uses. However, his name in Japanese is actually borrowed from Chinese, and if you romanize the Chinese to English, you get Shen Long(Which is what the subtitles use), or Shenlong. Both approaches could be argued for, so there's no real consensus on this.
** Beerus's name is based on the Japanese pronunciation of "virus," (''bīrusu'') similar to how Bulma's name comes from "bloomers." However, this is largely an ArtifactTitle, referring to an early draft of Anime/DragonBallZBattleOfGods in which the character would control peoples' minds, rather like some kind of mind-controlling virus. His name was kept as-is, but the English word it's a pun on was declared to be "Beers" instead, resulting in his name being presented as "Beerus" in almost all English media. Yet every now and then you'll come across someone who decides to call the guy "Bills", especially among Spanish-speaking fans. Some also spell it as "Beers", pushing it closer to its supposed pun.
*** Incidentally, [=FUNimation=] pronounces Beerus' attendant Whis (''Uisu'', from whiskey) with a long "I" so that it sounds like "wheeze", thus preserving the Japanese pronunciation at the expense of the pun.
** One point of contention is the character known in the subtitles as Majin Boo, in most English-dubbed material as Majin Buu, and in the manga as Djinn-Boo. His name goes alongside his master Babidi, and Babidi's father Bibidi, to form a reference to the classic Disney song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. A direct transliteration from Japanese would be Majin Bū. Buu is an acceptable way to transliterate the Bū part, though it is a rather odd choice, so the manga and official subtitles use Boo. Majin roughly translates as "Demon man" or "Demon person", with "Ma" meaning demon, and "Jin" being person or man. However, the word "Majin" is often translated as Djinn, and especially when combined with the Djinn iconography surrounding the character, Djinn-Boo works perfectly well. The one issue with choosing Djinn is that there's all the "M" iconography surrounding Boo and Babidi, and with Babidi's title of "Madoshi" usually being translated as "Wizard" or "Warlock", the "M" iconography only makes sense in English as coming from "Majin" ([[EpiplecticTrees unless you interpret it as an upside-down W?]]), though we don't truly know if it does come from "Madoshi" or "Majin". Ultimately though, Majin Boo, Majin Buu, and Djinn-Boo are all valid names for the character. That won't stop people online from arguing over which one is better, though.
*** Babidi is also a rather odd one, with some unofficial sources spelling his name as "Bobbidi", to match Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. Most official English media(Including the manga, most English dubs, and the official subtitles) refer to him as Babidi, though.
** Behold, Malay version of Dragon Ball:
*** Yamcha - Yamu
*** Lunch - Ranchi
*** Krillin - Kurin
*** Piccolo - Pikor
*** Yajirobe - Yazirove
*** Son Gohan - Son Go-han (sometime they drop the hyphen)
*** Kakarrot - Kakaroct
*** Nappa - Nacpa
*** Vegeta - Bezita
*** Freeza - Fliza
*** Dodoria - Dodolia
*** Recoom - Rikum
*** Vegetto - Bezict
** The French version brought us Sangoku and Songoku (spelled as [=SonGoku=] at times) as single names, with Songohan and Songoten following suit. Since a lot of the European translations were based on the French version to various degrees, some of them also have Garlic Jr. spelled as "Garbig", Tien Shinhan as "Tenshin Han", Paikuhan as "Paul Kuhan" and Kakarotto as "Cachalote".
* Dullahan Celty/Certy/Selty/Serty Sturluson/Sturlson of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' is a fine example of this trope. The English version of ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'' lists her given name as [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/zhp/chars/snap306.jpg Celty]].
* ''Manga/CountCain'' has a lot of trouble with this, with some apparently stemming from Creator/KaoriYuki's fondness for {{Gender Blender Name}}s. The MadDoctor's name was officially translated Jizabel-- the proper spelling of that name would be Jezebel, and the symbolism works, but it's possible the change was supposed to be a concession to the fact that [[GenderBlenderName usually men aren't named Jezebel]]. Similarly, Cain's half-sister's name is usually rendered as Mary Weather, Merry Weather, Marywether, etc., probably because Meriweather is traditionally a boy's name. Other cases (like Rukia/Lukia/Lucia or the odd time the translators called a primrose a "Prom Rose") don't have that excuse, though.
* ''Manga/ElementalGelade'' often displayed this problem with either the ''show title'' and other plot elements; for example, Pledgers (initially introduced as either "Preja" or "Pleasure"), Sting Raids (misspelled as "Stream Raids" or "Sitting Raids"), or even the Eden Raid (called "Edil Raid" by the first [[{{Fansub}} fansubs]] of the series). In the official Creator/{{Geneon}} release it's subbed (and pronounced) "Edel Raid", adding to the confusion. Same with Edel Garden.
** It doesn't help that the series's name was originally romanized as "Erementar Gerad" in Japan. The title of the "official" Geneon release has it ''both'' ways: the title is listed as "Elemental Gelade" if you have the English subbing turned on, whereas the actual title sequence has "Erementar Gerad" appearing below the original kanji (look for it after the silhouette of Ren appears in the title, in the lower right).
* A character's name in ''Manga/ExcelSaga'' is spelled "Ilpalazzo" in the anime but spelled "Il Palazzo" in the manga. Since the names of =ACROSS= members are also the names of hotel chains, the manga's is probably the right one.)
** "Menchi" is "Mince" in the manga--according to the pop-up assists in the ADV-translated anime, "Menchi" does, in fact, mean "mince meat". Note that Viz handled the manga and apparently chose to ignore ADV's translations in the anime, so that's where these inconsistencies come from.
** Ropponmatsu II is sometimes called "Nishiki"[[note]]Literally, 'second type/model'[[/note]] in the manga.
** The recurring immigrant's name is pretty much obviously "Pedro" (an actual and very common latin-american name), but in an episode of the anime, we can briefly see a sign by his house written "Pedolo".
* Del Rey has made an attempt to avert this with ''Manga/FairyTail'' by asking the author Hiro Mashima himself for a list of English-translated names. An act that does help to somewhat cut down on the possible mistakes/debates since the names are WordOfGod. The fact that [[WordOfGod Hiro Mashima said the names were to be spelled that way in English]] doesn't stop fans from insisting that Juvia is really Lluvia[[note]]probably because they want the "rain" pun[[/note]], Gajeel is suposed to be Gazille, or Jellal's name is really Gerard. This may be a case of the [[ShrugOfGod creator not being sure himself]], if [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ft_screencap1.jpg this]] is any indication.
** The German translations also use Elsa instead of Erza. Since this is a real name, and since her name has been drawn in the series as Elsa, Elza, ''and'' Erza at different points, the only thing to settle this one is trusting Del Rey when they say they got WordOfGod, which some people don't.
** Even more delightfully, the claim that Hiro Mashima is providing name translations can't be found in the back of more recent releases. The Fairy Tail wiki has taken this as a sign that they can ignore official translations they don't like. Considering how well received all the official translations were ''before'' the claim disappeared, this means pretty much anything that disagrees with what scanlators said is rejected. Merudy (romaji "''Merudi''") and Sirius Island (Tenroujima in Japanese) are too ugly to use, not as cool, or are too similar to Harry Potter to be considered valid.
* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', fansubs often mistakenly subbed Agnès' name as Anies or something similar. The long French names are confusing too. Fansubs switched between Valliel, Vallielle, and finally Valliére for Louise's last name. Some fansubs even subbed Tabitha, who has a Western name, as Tabasa.
** Is it "Osman" or "Osmond"? The former is a rather Arabic/Turkish name, and the latter is English—neither of which fits a Franco-Belgian setting.
** Most people call Giulio Julio, despite the fact that he's from the Halkeginian counterpart of Italy, which would make "Giulio Cesare" the correct spelling.
** The dub has also decided that the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Europe counterpart continent]], referred to as Halkeginia by fans, is really Harkeginia.
** Most of the names ''should'' have a canonical spelling, since they're taken from the names of real people or places. The problem is that the original name isn't always clear, since they're written in katakana. This is especially true for minor characters, whose names are taken from equally minor people or places.
* The ''Anime/FantasticChildren'' fandom is terrible about this. Even thought an English dub was officially released, no one seems to agree whether he's Sess or Sesu or Seth, or if it's Toma or Thoma or Tomas, or if you should spell it Duma or Dumas. Even Soran and Solan get interchanged sometimes too.
** Given that her sisters are named "Cocoa" and "Kahlua", [[ThemeNaming "Mocha"]] would clearly seem to be the intended name here...
* ''Anime/FinalFantasyUnlimited'' has Fabula, who one particular fansub calls Fabra. Fabula means "story" or "tale" in Latin, which makes more sense than Fabra, which doesn't really mean anything. We also get Oscar instead of the correct Oscha (an anagram of Chaos), Helba instead of Herba (the latter being a pun on "herb", as she's a plant-woman) and Pisto instead of Pist from the same fansub.
* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''
** ''Sauzā'', the name of the ''Nanto Hōōken'' successor, has been romanized as "Souther" (in some of the earlier action figures and video games and Toei and Discotek's subtitles for the 1984 anime), "Thouther" (in the Arc System Works fighting game and ''[[AllThereInTheManual All About the Man]]'' guidebook), and "Thouzer" (used in newer merchandises and works). Arguably, "Souther" seems to be the most fitting, seeing how "Souther" is the strongest of the ''Nanto Seiken'' successors, the "Holy Fist of the South Star", and "Souther" mearns "southerly wind", which fits with the avian motif of the ''Nanto'' styles, but most of the recent merchandise seems to favor the "Thouzer" convention. Funnily enough, in ''[[VideoGame/FistOfTheNorthStarKensRage Ken's Rage]]'', it's spelled in English ''text'' as "Thouzer", but the English ''dub'' of said game ''always'' pronounces it as "Souzer".
** The name of the ''Nanto Kōkakuken'' master is literally Yuda in Japanese, is based on the Japanese transliteration of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Judas Iscariot]], the infamous Biblical traitor. Some sources romanize his name as "Juda", probably to get the point across quicker.
** "Raō" is most popularized romanized as "Raoh", but the ''All About the Book'' actually spells it "Laoh", which managed to find its way in the manual for the NES game that was released by Taxan in the US.
** "Debiru Ribasu," depending on the translation, is Romanized as either "Devil's '''Rebirth'''" or "Devil's '''Reverse'''." Given his demonic appearance and characterization, the former would make more sense. However, in [[https://teachmetarot.wordpress.com/part-iii-major-arcana/lesson-6/the-devil-xv-upright/the-devil-xv-reversed/ tarot cards]], the reversed "Devil" card represents freedom from restriction, which fits his anger towards his imprisonment and his desire for freedom.
** "Rin" is sometimes anglicized as "Lynn". Of course, this kinda ruins the ThemeTwinNaming between her and "Rui" (although, her name is sometimes rendered as Louise). The other alternative is to spell their names as "Lin" and "Lui".
** Bat's name, literally "Batto" in Japanese, was changed to Bart in the Manga Entertainment dub of the TV series. Some people actually insists that Bat's name is actually "Bart", but [[WordOfGod Buronson]] stated in an interview featured in the ''Raoh Den: Jun'ai no Shō'' DVD that he named Bat after the flying mammal of the same name.
** In certain translations, Yuria is sometimes anglicized to "Julia".
** The short-lived Creator/VizMedia translation of the manga anglicized Rei's name to "Ray", while his sister Airi became Iris. Mamiya also became Mamia, which is actually closer to how her name is pronounced.
* From ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', some names that appear in different forms depending on the translator are Gracia/Glacier/Glacia, Lan Fan/Ran Fan/Ranfun, Riza/Liza/Lisa, Halcrow/Hakuro, Olivia/Olivier, Elysia/Elicia, and Lyra/Lyla/Ryla.
** The Creator/{{Funimation}} dub uses place names like Lior and Ishbal, while the creator, Hiromu Arakawa, uses Reole and Ishval. The English manga can't seem to make up its mind which versions to use; for instance, fluctuating between "Ishbal" and "Ishvarla", "Xerxes" and "Cserksess", etc.
*** The Funimation sub of ''Brotherhood'' uses Ishbal for the first five episodes, then switches to Ishval in the sixth (likely due to a map in the fifth episode that clearly says "Ishval").
*** The actual dub of ''Brotherhood'' likewise officially switches it to "Ishval".
** On the topic of Lior: For the longest time fans have been stumped. Leore/Lior/Reole/Riore/Reore/Liore... The English dub for 2003 uses "Lior" but, as mentioned, Reole and Liore are also correct.
** Almost all the names in ''Fullmetal Alchemist'' have been disputed at one point or another, from Winry/Winly/Wendy to Huey/Fury/Fuery to Marta/Martyl/Martel. Rumor has it Winry's name was meant to be "Wendy" but it ended up being translated incorrectly in Japanese.
** Resembool? Risembool? Rizenbul? Rizembool? Rizembul? Rizenbool? Risempool? Liesenburgh? Liesenbough? ...The Elric brothers' hometown, anyway. This is so bad that even the offical translations have it spelled differently - ''on the same page''. See book nine, where it's spelled "Resembool" in one pannel, and then "Resemboul" two pannels later. The Spanish official translation of the manga has it Riesenburg (German for Castle of Giants or Giantville). A real town in Germany, it was the birthplace of the Von Hohenheim family, and thus has a family connection to the Elric brothers through their father Van Hohenheim (Hohenheim of Light [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist in the anime]]).
** With the characters Lin/Ling Yao and Mei/May Chan/Chang, a G was added top their names within one or two volumes for no apparent reason than the translators forgot their own name choice.
*** In one image, there is a closeup of a prisoner identification bracelet given to Ling, with English lettering on it, rendering his name as "Ling Yao". This was particularly hilarious with the Official Viz translation. The dialogue bubble in the SAME PANEL has another character going "So your name is Lin Yao?". ''''
*** This should be blamed on Hiromu Arakawa, in all other official english translation (such as the Character guides, and calenders) it's always Lin Yao, it's only Ling in that one panel.
*** Actually this one being "Lin" is because that's [[UsefulNotes/ChineseLanguage how you read his name's kanji in Chinese.]]
*** Viz also ping-ponged between [[UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands "Van"]] and [[{{UsefulNotes/Germany}} "Von"]] for Hohenheim's first name for a while, until they were forced to settle on Von when the Paracelsus reference came up.
** Not to mention the [[FanDumb fans who insist]] on calling Ed and Al "Edo" and "Aru"... although the fact that their names should be rendered in English is painfully obvious.
** There's argument over whether the librarian should be "Scieszka" or "Sheska". There's not much agreement between the English releases either. Even Funimation's subtitles differ from their own liner notes on this one.
** The strangest is Lan Fan's grandfather, who the fans refer to as Fu; the official perfect guide for the manga refers to him as "Who". Apparently, Arakawa likes baseball. Like the Ling/Lin example above, this is because "Hu" is how you read his name in Chinese.
** ''Brotherhood'' does solve this issue in one respect: the {{eyecatch}}es, even in the raw Japanese version, spell the names of the featured characters in English. Funimation, naturally, has chosen to use the same spellings in the subtitles.
** The official ''Viz'' translation of the manga called Mustang's bodyguard Riza, and Elizabeth by [[spoiler: Madame Christmas]].The OFFICIAL translation also has Winry calling her "Ms. Lisa". Oy.
** There is DVD box set of ''Brotherhood'', which has some truly BIZARRE name spellings in the subtitles. Ed's name is spelled "Edowado Erurixtuku", Roy Mustang is "Roi Masutanngu", and Winly/Winry is "''Wuxinnrexi''". The first episode also subbed Gluttony as "Blatny". The Xs probably resulted from taking their names in katakana and running a particular romaji-to-kana scheme in reverse (where an "x" is used to indicate that the next kana should be small rather than normal size). If you look at them that way they kinda make sense, and "Roi Masutanngu" is literally how the Japanese pronounce his name.
** And there's Zolf/Solf J. Kimbley/Kimblee/Kimbly/Kimberly. Confirmed, as of that one ''Brotherhood'' {{Eyecatch}}, to be Solf J. Kimblee.
** Is it Dr. Knox, or Dr. Knocs, Dr. Knoks, or Dr. Knocks?
** Denny Bloch/Brosh.
** Fans have been torn in the past on whether it's "Roze" Thomas or "Rose" Thomas. Likewise her lookalike from [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa the movie]] of [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the first anime]] has this problem: "Noa" or "Noah"? Both of the latter two names come off as {{Meaningful Name}}s.
** Likewise, there's been debates whether Heiderich from the same film is "Alfons" or "Alphonse". Some sources, even official, have him as "Alphonse" but others as "Alfons". Most fans use "Alfons" to [[OneSteveLimit differentiate him from Edward's brother]].
** The Tringham Brothers (Russell and Fletcher): Is the brothers' surname spelled as "Tringham", "Tringam", or "Tringum"? The "Tringham" spelling receives use in the anime and is visible in Creator/{{Funimation}}'s English subtitles for Japanese episodes. However, printings of the LightNovel ''Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand'' (where the brothers originated from), repeatedly use "Tringum" throughout the text. Within the same light novel, the "final character sketches" of Russell and Fletcher (with the pages being situated near the end of the book) prominently feature the spelling of "Tringam".
* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' has Captain "Tessa" Testarossa, whose full given name seems like it ''should'' be "Teresa" or "Theresa," but which is officially spelled "Teletha." In addition, there is Lieutenant Belfangan Clouseaux/Clouseau/Grouseaux/???, and the Uruz/Urzu/Uluz mecha strike team. Since all of Mithril's field teams are named after Elder Futhark runes (Perth, Gebo, Teiwaz, etc), the correct spelling of the latter is "Uruz," but since that's all but impossible to pronounce in Japanese it comes out as "Urzu," which then carried into the English dub.
** A purposeful use of the trope is Sousuke Sagara - whom Mao interprets as "Sousky [[Creator/StevenSeagal Seagal]]".
* At some point during the development of ''Anime/FushigiboshiNoFutagoHime'', レイン's name was apparently romanized as Rain. Notable since it appears that way on the first season's EyeCatch (it's normally covered up by the title logo, but it appears in plain view in the EC used in the 2nd half of the season). The second season's premiere has her writing her name as Rein both on a drawing on a train (belonging to another character with this issue, see below) and a business card... and it also appears that way in the EyeCatch.
** Another princess that had this issue was ミルロ: Two different supplemental books romanized her name differently (Mirlo and Milro), and [[https://forums.honobono.cc/index.php/topic,99.0.html both romanizations even appear in the same episode]]. Other romanization (and translation) issues are mentioned [[http://princess.ruby-eye.net/series.php?name here]].
** Not mentioned at the above webpage is a 2nd season character named エリザベータ. On the train that the twins draw on it's spelled as Erizabert, and [[http://princess.ruby-eye.net/chara2.php?elizabert this page]] spells it as Elizabert, neither being what one might expect from the katakana.
* Knight Schumacher from ''Anime/FutureGPXCyberFormula'' has been named "Shoemach" in the series. This may have been deliberate on the producers' part, as they made it possibly to avoid copyright issues. There's also Edelhi/Edehi/Edelie, Clair/Clare/Claire and Steel/Stil.
* Rune/Renee/Renais from ''[[Anime/GaoGaiGar GaoGaiGar FINAL]]''.
** Hell, Anime/GaoGaiGar itself had been spelled several different ways in the ''official'' subtitles of the [=DVDs=], some of which wouldn't even come close to actually being pronounced "Anime/GaoGaiGar", if said aloud.
** Most fans spell "Palparepa" like that when the official spelling is "Palpalapa". Also, spelling "[=GaoFighGar=]" as "[=GaoFaiGar=]", though in fairness, those instances are mostly in discussions of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha 3'' or ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'' where the writer's only exposure to [=GaoFighGar=] was through kana.
* The names of demons/mamodo in ''Manga/ZatchBell'' is a frequent source of frustration since the creator rarely gives them straight up English names, but an especially infuriating one is the guy who hangs out with a movie director and sings a garbled "Ode to Joy", which has been rendered as Kisu, Kiees, Keith, Kiss or Kiith.
* ''Manga/GetterRobo Āḥ'' has problems with this, due to having a Sanskrit letter in the title. The Japanese spellings 'Ark' and 'Aku' are frequently used, when the correct English form is Āḥ.
* ''Manga/GingaNagareboshiGin'' has its share of these, as does its [[Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed sequel]]:
** Although most of the fandom refers to Rokusuke's partner as Beth, the Finnish translation of the manga calls him Bess. The matter is not made any simpler by the fact that [[GenderBlenderName both are feminine names]].
** Rocca/Rocker/Locker
** Heuler/Hoiler. It should be noted that Heuler is a German word and, properly pronounced, actually sounds like "Hoiler". It's probably meant to mean howler (as in, someone who howls), though the word [[UnfortunateNames can also mean seal pup]].
** The young Golden Retriever from ''[[Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed Weed]]'' is pretty universally called Mel in the West, though most Japanese materials romanize his name as Mer. Additionally, the Finnish translation of the manga calls him this.
** Some prefer to call Weed's brother Joo over Joe. It was also believed for a long time that Joe/Joo's son was called Koujirou, but it was later found out that it's actually Kou''shi''rou.
** The [[GloriousMotherRussia Russian dogs of war]] are especially plagued by this. Maxim/Maxime, Ridia/Lydia, Aramu/Aram/Allam/Alam, Iwanov/Ivanov, Victor/Viktor...
* Speaking of giant robots, many of the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series pick up mangled names on the way to production, most of which get more reasonable conversions overseas. Which, depending on where in the translation process one starts watching, can make it nearly impossible for the fandom to agree on which is the "correct" spelling.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' (and its sequels) has examples such as Char/Shar/Shaa, Judau Ashita/Judo/Ashta, and the rather embarassing Quattro Bajeena, often rendered in Japanese sources as... Quattro Vagina.
** Worse, the ''official'' translations for the various terms in the UC timeline have changed at least once (ignoring the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam MSG]] movie trilogy dub in the 90s that has been ignored ever since); the [=OVAs=] use different terms than the original series, such as "Kishiria" instead of [[LadyOfWar "Kycilia"]], "Jabrow" instead of[[ElaborateUndergroundBase "Jaburo"]], the Duchy of Zeon instead of the [[TheEmpire Principality of Zeon]], and [[ANaziByAnyOtherName "Seig Zeon"]] instead of [[ExecutiveMeddling "Hail Zeon"]].
** Zeon's arguably the worst case of it in the entire franchise, as it can be (and has been at various points in the past) been translated as the Principality, Duchy, Archduchy, or Grand Duchy of Zeon, Zion, or Jion. Zeon was simply the cleanest translation of the original Japanese, but they only settled on Principality after looking at the Japanese terms for real-life principalities/duchys/whatevers and realizing that Principality was the only exact match.
** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ Gundam ZZ]]'' has one extreme example in the case of Puru. Is her first name "Elpie" (how it's pronounced) or "Elpeo" (how it's spelled)? For that matter, her last name is spelled "Ple", which of course the Japanese pronounce as "Puru". The [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn only official English production]] the name has appeared in pronounced "Ple" as "pull", making things even more confusing. The problem stems from the fact that her name is a pun based on an old [[LoliconAndShotacon Lolicon magazine]] called Lemon People, which was frequently abbreviated as L People. Basically,
*** Lemon People -> L People -> Elpeo Ple
** Or, if you want to be more specific about it,
*** "レモンピープル" -> "エル・ピープル" -> "エルピー・プル".
** [[DontExplainTheJoke Its funny because she's a little girl, you see]]. That said, this case is especially amusing because significant portions of the fandom have ''outright refused'' to acknowledge her name as "Ple," not out of any concerns of canonicity, but specifically because they feel that the name "Ple" is ''stupid.''
** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' has the following: Heero/Hiiro Yuy/Yui, Relena/Ririna/Lilina Darlian/Dorian/Derlian (the latter which appears in the Operation 4 soundtrack), Wufei/Wu Fei, Zechs Merquise/Marquise, Lady Une/Ann/Anne, Hilde/Hirde, and Tubarov/Tuberov/Tsubarov.
** Turn A has its fair share as well, most prominently with the main character's name. Is it "Loran" or "Rolan" (or even "Roland")? The few English productions the character has appeared in spelled it "Loran", but some fans refuse to accept this as official. Meshy/Meshie/Miashi Kyun/Cune also commonly has this issue.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' are also fraught with different translations, though that's mostly due to AerithAndBob style names and a horde of different FanSub groups translating it simultaneously. The worst, but certainly not only, examples are [[TheRival Rauw/Raw/Rau le Kleuze/Cruze/Creuset]], [[TheAce Muu/Mwu/Mu ra/la Fraga/Fllaga/Flaga]], Rux/Lux/Lacus, [[FallenPrincess Frey/Fllay/Flay]], [[ForgottenChildhoodFriend Asuran/Aslan/Athrun]] and [[TheBrute Issac/Esak/Yzak Jool/Jewel/Joule]].
*** Confusing matters further, the official Japanese material uses different spellings than the official English material, so although the last versions of each of the above examples are, strictly speaking, the "correct" versions for Western audiences, spellings like "Raww le Klueze" and "Mwu la Fllaga" are equally official. Fans will never agree on which version is more correct.
*** Interestingly, the Del Rey translation of the ''Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny'' manga got a lot of flack from fans due to the fact that, for some stupid reason, they opted to translate names phonetically, despite the fact that plenty of those names were translated ''correctly'' in their translation of the ''Mobile Suit Gundam SEED'' manga. The second volume on had an author's note pretty much stating "stop contacting us, we're translating this ''our'' way".
** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' is also bad, especially in the second season, since a lot of the names are actually GratuitousEnglish. So you get slavishly translated names back into English without taking into account what the original English was obviously meant to be. Which leaves you with things like Bling Stabbity instead of Bring Stability and Hilling Car instead of Healing Care. Of course, a proper PragmaticAdaptation would probably translate these English terms into a ''third'' language to keep the original feel of "characters named something meaningful in a semi-commonly understood foreign language"...
** The worse part of this whole phenomenon in the Gundam FanDumb who ''insist'' on using the older, outdated translations of certain terms ''just'' to establish themselves as "old school" fans who were around before you kids had your "official versions" or "correct translations".
*** Back in the height of ''Gundam Wing''[='s=] Western popularity, a sizeable group of fans (mostly in the YaoiFangirl set) rejected the official English names in favor of the "proper Japanese names" -- or rather, the English names clumsily re-translated into Japanese by people with little to no grasp of the language. The prime example is Quatre: the "fangirl version" of his name was "Kyatora", while the actual Japanese pronunciation of his name is "Katoru".
*** Rather exasperated by the official English translation of the ''Mobile Suit Gundam'' novelizations, which were released in the United States in 1990, almost a full decade before the anime proper was released (officially). The choices used in that novel are almost entirely different from the ones that are now standardized, such as "Sha" Aznable, Amuro "Rey", and "Gren Zavi" (Ghiren Zabi), amongst others. It's almost harder to find names that are familiar (Kai Shiden is one of the few to escape unchanged). The introduction even acknowledges that these are different and that "hardcore Gundam fans" might be disconcerted, so this trope has been going strong for quite some time, even in official media.
* In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' there was much confusion over [[FanNickname Evil Amuro's]] true name, since "Ribbons Almarck" sounded just too stupid too be true. Many thought it instead was "Livonse Almack", but were proven wrong.
** There are some who think his name was supposed to be "Reborns" ([[spoiler:which matches the name of his transforming Gundam]]), which, admittedly, does make some thematic sense given the names of his fellow Innovades.
* ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAge Gundam AGE]]'', like many a Gundam show before it has a bad case of this due to the franchise's love of bizarre, usually made up names. For instance, is the first main character's name Flit, or is he named after a brand of corn chip?
** The mass production MS based on the AGE-1 are often translated as "Adeles", though Adder makes a bit more sense considering that a) it's the name of a deadly snake, which many weapons in RealLife are named for (eg. the Colt Python and Sidewinder Missile) and b) they retain the Gundam they're based on's ability to equip various add-on parts.
** The enemy faction this time around has several possible romanizations, the most humorous of which is "Vegan". Most fans seem to have settled on "Vagan", but "Veigan" also pops up fairly regularly.
** SID. Or is it Cid? Maybe Shido (phonetic Japanese pronunciation)?
* In ''VideoGame/{{Gungrave}}'', minor character Blood War frequently had his name translated as Brad Wong by dubbers thrown off by the unusual pronunciation.
* ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' has a lot of names transliterated completely differently in the anime and the manga (Jose vs. Giuseppe and Hirscher vs. Hillshire, for example), and when you add in fan translations it only gets more confusing.
** Giuseppe was a style choice, going for the "regular" Italian form. Later chapters show that his full name is actually Josefo (showing the brothers' northern origins), but this might not have been decided when the manga was translated. Hirscher/Hillshire ''is'' this (both read the same in katakana). Since he doesn't try to conceal his nationality (and it's a alias anyway), most people go for Hirscher (which is used in the German translation).
* Irene Vincent of ''Manga/GunsmithCats'' has her nickname as Rally in the official English versions, but WordOfGod is that the nickname is actually ''Larry'' Vincent. Interestingly, Larry is the name of Irene's father.
** This is often considered a case of artistic license, though; apparently the author wanted to give her a name that sounded exotic and foreign, so he picked the name "Larry" for her, not knowing that it was actually a male name. Quite strange considering that the author [[ShownTheirWork showed his work]] in every other detail of the universe. When the series was brought to Western shores, the Rs and Ls were flipped to give her the name Rally, which fits her as she's into cars. Then again, he still insists that her name is Larry - at the 1993 Anime America convention, he responded to a fan's question about the character with "It's Larry, not Rally". Make of that what you will. Her name is also written as "Larry" in one part of the manga.
* The ''VideoGame/HarukanaruTokiNoNakaDe'' franchise tends to have this problem when it comes to the members of the Oni Clan. Their names are rendered in katakana and are supposed to be non-Japanese, yet it's quite hard to find an official romanization for these. ''Shirin'' is pretty much the only one ''not'' to suffer from this trope, since her name is very simple. Unfortunately, there are also ''Akuramu'' (Akuram/Akram), ''Sefuru'' (Sefuru/Sefle/Sephle), and ''Ikutidaaru'' (Ikutidaru/Iktidaru/Iktidar/Iktidaal). Then ''Haruka 3'' came around and introduced yet another member of the same Clan, named... ''Rizuvaan'' (Ridvan/Rizvan/Lizvern/Lidzvan... you get the picture. The fact that he is called "Rizu-sensei" by other characters doesn't help either). This time, however, KOEI confirmed the spelling to be "Ridvan" (persian/arabic for "paradise"; the meaning is pointed out in one of the spinoff games. Incidentally, "Rizvan" would be a valid version of this name as well.). Assuming the rest of the Oni names aren't made-up ones and have similar origins will give us "Shirin" (persian), "Iktidar" (arabic) and "Akram" (arabic). The only slightly problematic case is ''Sefuru'', which, going from the same languages, likely ends up as "Sefr" (not a name, but a Persian word for "zero", which isn't quite meaningless either if you look at his backstory).
** ''Haruka 4'' has its share of this trope as well, this time with sanskrit. Thankfully, ''Ashuvin'' CAN be legitimately spelled two ways (the more logical "Ashvin" and the apparently chosen by KOEI "Asvin"), and the rest of the names eventually came out romanized in the visual book for the game, but before that you could get "Ashuvin" for Asvin, various disasters on ''Mudogara'' (Mudgala), etc.
** After the announcement of ''Haruka 5'', much lulz ensued when one character's name, spelled in katakana as ''Aanesuto Satou'', was romanized by at least two sources as "Honest Sato". Yes, '''Honest''' Sato. Such a name. Which probably would just be a case of GratuitousEnglish if not for the fact that the character in question is based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Mason_Satow Ernest Mason Satow]]. Feel free to wonder just how much one can mangle an existing name by simply converting it to katakana and back to latin script.
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' is famous for this. "{{Alucard}}" is a classic SdrawkcabAlias, but subtitles (Arucard) seem to say otherwise. Some even go with "Arcard". Walter C. Dollneaz/Dollners/Dornez (this one being the Dark Horse-used one) and Pip Bernadotte/Bernadette/Vernedead have more conventional name problems, while British woman Integra/Integral has the knightly title "Sir"; in real life, female British knights use the title "Dame". The Japanese dialog never calls her "sir" except as an insult, while English translations mistakenly call her "Sir" full time (and much of the fanbase went along with it due to Integra's {{Bifauxnen}} nature). Meanwhile, Ceres/Seras Victoria ''has'' no [[WordOfGod official spelling]] (although in chapter 6 the writing on the wall looks suspiciously like "Serase"), and her name sounds like it's in reversed (i.e., Japanese) order. And the name of the show itself is supposed to refer to Bram Stoker's Dr. Van Helsing.
* To the irritation of most of its Western fans, the beautifully dubbed ''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'' switched horses in mid-stream and changed pronunciation for all major characters and cities after the first two films were released, turning Arislan, Daryoon, Narsus, Pharangese, and Gieve into Arslan, Darun, Narcasse, Farangis, and Guibu. It's even more complicated: originally the names of characters and places either came from Persian legends (Arslan, Farangis, Giv, etc.) or are native to various languages like Farsi, Hindi, Urdu (Daryun, Elam, Etwar, etc. Many places mentioned in the story, such as Ecbatana or Atropatene, actually exist or existed in real life). The person who translated the anime to English treated the names as if they were random fantasy names, hence Arislan, Pharangese, Daryoon, Gieve and so on. And ''then'' the above-mentioned ExecutiveMeddling happened. The materials for the new adaptation are a bit more consistent. "Arislan" might have been to avoid having it sound like something not-so-nice, since that dub was British.
* The English dub of ''Hauro No Ugoku Shiro'' (''Anime/HowlsMovingCastle'') mostly manages to re-translate the names in accordance with the original book, with one notable exception: "Markl"? You don't think the L is a hint that his name could be, say, ''Michael''? Dubs in other languages also have problems with the name of Howl--several of them call him "Hauru," both because it's the direct Japanese pronounciation and because it fits the MouthFlaps. And the fact that the movie is based on a novel by a BRITISH author didn't occur to them?
* Almost every name in ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' comes with several alternate spellings (Kurapika/Curapica/Clapika, Ging/Gin/Jin, Freaks/Freecs, Zoldyck/Zaoldyeck, Uvogin/Ubougin, Ponds/Ponzu, Kaito/Kite, Kuroro/Quoll/Chrollo, etc.). There are a set of "official" spellings, but no one, not even the official English translation, uses them: Curarpikt, Hyskoa, Chzzok, Phalcnothdk, Quwrof Wrlccywrlir...
** This trope caused many readers to miss a fairly important plot point: Meleoron [[spoiler:is Gyro, which is really the same name as Jail]].
* While its universally agreed on how to spell Guu of ''Anime/HareGuu'', the other title character's name has many different spellings. His name has been spelled Hare and Hale. Haré is the official English name.
** Although early chapters of the manga (and some episodes of the anime as well, if I'm not mistaken) romanized Guu's name as "Goo".
** The problem is that Hare is an actual Japanese word, 晴れ or はれ and should be read as such in the title, but since it is written in katakana as ハレ some translators assumed it must be a non-Japanese word.
** There are some minor confusions as well - such as Reiji/Leiji/Lazy, Wiggle/Uigher and Weda/Ueda.
* ''Manga/InuXBokuSS'': Even after the anime had already been released, Creator/YenPress decided to romanize Karuta Roromiya's name as "Carta".
* ''Manga/IsTheOrderARabbit'':
** The anime ended up split in the official English translations over what the "correct" spelling of character names. The Japanese version wrote the names in English letters for the opening credits, using Rize and Syaro. The Website/{{Crunchyroll}} subtitle of the work call them Lize and Sharo for the first half of Season 1, and then switch to the original spelling. The Creator/SentaiFilmworks subtitles use Rize, but this was apparently done after the fact via find-and-replace, as words that happen to contain the sequence "lize" had "Rize" introduced into them ([[EpicFail e.g. specialize is misspelled as speciaRize]]).
** On the Chinese side, their reluctance to transliterate a Japanese name causes Mocha's name in China to be quite contentious among viewer. This contention is partly due to the interference of ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'' where there is a pair of sisters called Cocoa (Kokoa) and Mocha (Moka) with kanji names (thus translated), and the fact that ''GochiUsa's Cocoa does have a kanji name that's the same as Kokoa's. Going so far that the largest Chinese-language wiki on anime-related material, while using the usual transliteration of Mocha (the drink) as her name, it's immediately followed by the disclaimer to the effect of "that's the name used by the legal live streamer in China[[note]] BiliBili, a Chinese Website/NicoNicoDouga clone[[/note]] and does not imply this wiki's endorsement of such name."
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' is notorious for this for a few reasons. First, some official English names were missed by fans in favor of names that made more sense with the MusicalThemeNaming the series uses when their names were officially written differently to avoid copyright or trademark issues; examples include the three Pillar Men [[Music/TheCars Kars]], [[Music/GeorgeMichael Wamuu]], and [[Music/{{ACDC}} Esidisi]] (the pronunciation of all of their names but Kars' differs from the original bands) and Stands such as [[Music/{{Kraftwerk}} Kraft Work]], Little Feet, and [[Music/NatKingCole Nut King Call]]. A second case arose from characters getting renamed for English language releases of ''[=JoJo=]'' media, such as [[Music/{{Devo}} Devo the Cursed]] becoming "D'Bo" and [[Music/TheBeatles Rubber Soul]] becoming "Robber Soul" in [[VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureHeritageForTheFuture the Capcom fighter]]. A third situation arose from fan translators just blatantly ignoring original English text that spelled out "CUJOH, JOLYNE" in ''Stone Ocean'' chapter 2 in favor of "Jolyne Kujo", as her father is Jotaro Kujo.[[note]]"Cujoh" is explained as the family "Westernizing" their surname after they moved to the United States[[/note]]. Of course, there are two more blatant examples of the issue cropping up:
** ''Stardust Crusaders'' character Muhammad Avdol[[note]]According to Japanese media at least; for English audiences he's "Mohammed Avdol"[[/note]] (モハメド・アヴドゥル ''Mohamedo Avuduru'') has had his name written in various ways, first due to the complexity of transliterating the Arabic given name into English ("Mohammed", "Muhammed", "Mohammad") and then his surname as being exactly like namesake Music/PaulaAbdul or closer to the Japanese pronunciation of ''Avuduru'', which, again, in Arabic makes no distinction.
** ''Vento Aureo'' character Bruno Bucciarati[[note]]According to the ''most recent'' Japanese and English media[[/note]] (ブローノ・ブチャラティ ''Burōno Bucharati'') is almost worse than Avdol. Is he "Bruno" (an actual name) or "Blono" (closer to the Japanese pronunciation and used in French translations)? Is his surname "Bucciarati" (current definitive use in Japan), "Bucciaratti" (used in an illustration in one of the volumes), "Buccellati" (after an Italian jewelry brand), or "Bruccellati" (a Sicilian pastry which would fit in with the EdibleThemeNaming of every other character in the arc)? Current usage goes with "Bruno Bucciarati"...except "Blono Bucciarati" is used in the same book that name variation comes from and was used when his Super Action Statue figure was released.
* Reisi Munakata from ''Anime/{{K}}'' spells his name without the H, just because it looks cool (it's pronounced Reishi, and the standard romanization would be that). Doesn't stop some fans and fan translations from putting the H in anyway... even though the first thing you see in [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/569831 the very first episode]] is all of the characters names in official romanizations.
* Carlos from ''Anime/KaleidoStar'' became '''Kalos''' in the dub. Since the name is romanized as KAROSU カロス, it is a little hard to tell since the usual ways of making the name are either KAAROSU カーロス and KARUROSU カルロス. But still, ''Kalos''? Is that a name?
** Wait, his full name is ''Kal''os ''Eid''os or something like that, right? Wasn't it supposed to be a pun on "Kaleido"?... (Yes.)
* ''Anime/KantaiCollection'': Is Kongou's InSeriesNickname for Fubuki "Bookie", "ComicBook/{{Bucky| Barnes}}" or "Buki"?
* ''Manga/{{Karin}}'' and her two siblings use the last name "Ma'aka", yet their parents, Henry and Carrera, have elected to use the surname "Marker". This is entirely intentional, though. The series explains from the very beginning that the family moved from Europe to Japan. The kids, having been raised in Japanese society, adopted the Japanese spelling, while the old-timey parents retained the original European spelling. The manga points out also that "Ma'aka" is pronounced "Ma-aka", not "Maaka".
* In ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'' there is a character whose name is either Jill, Raziel, ,Ciel, Sill or Rasiel. [[spoiler: Given that his brother's name is Belphegor, Rasiel is the most probable.]]
** Not to mention Colon(n)ello, Ma(r/m)mon, L(u/i)ssuria, etc., etc.
*** Lussuria is the Italian word for lust, apparently, which explains that one.
*** And now that we've got the new chapter, we've obtained (Y)Uni as well...
** Chrome/Kuromu Dokuro. Every instance is Chrome, but her name is a SignificantAnagram of Mukuro Rokudo.
* ''Manga/KenganAshura'', the series’ title can be either Kengan Ashura or Kengan Asura, the official Japanese print romanizes it as Kengan Ashura, some fan translators however prefer to stick with Kengan Asura.
* Kururu (Kululu), Angol Moa (Angolmois), and Rabie (Lavie) in ''Manga/SgtFrog''.
* There are a few cases of this in ''Anime/KiddyGrade'' - most notably Armbrust, who is "Armblast" both in the dub and accompanying subtitles on the English [=DVDs=], but spelt correcting in the subtitles accompanying the Japanese audio on the same discs (they caught the error before release, but not after it had already been enshrined in the dub). The English [=DVDs=] are mostly correct apart from that due to WordOfGod material that accompanied the Japanese [=DVDs=], but the fansubs were full of errors and inconsistencies. The fansubs for sequel ''Anime/KiddyGirlAnd'' are similar despite English spellings for most characters being available via the official website - e.g. Himatsubushi insists on subtitling Sommer as "Zoma".
** In an ironic twist, the English subtitled blu-ray discs for the Kiddy Grade compilation movies published in Japan use Creator/{{FUNimation}}'s subtitle tracks with a few corrections.. and a few new mistakes, most notably changing Donnerschlag's mame from the correct German spelling to "Donnersclag".
* While many of the characters' names were changed when ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'' [[DubNameChange made it to the states,]] Lyra has earned many names which includes Kitty, Leah, Laia, Raija, Raiya, and Raya, when staring in different editions throughout time.
* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', while Zenitsu is the most common way his name has been spelled for western audiences, a more proper romanization would be ''Zen'itsu'' to indicate its correct pronunciation, there’s emphasis on the Zen (''Zen - i - tsu'') instead of saying it like ''Ze - ni - tsu''. Then there’s the author herself trying to give it an original spin, Gotouge has said the emphasis on the "tsu" should be bigger than on "Zen".
* ''Kyo Kara Maou'' is officially titled "LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh" in English. As if that wasn't enough, Conrad/Konrad has been translated into "Conrart" (there is no sane way to get "Conrart Weller" from コンラッド/ウェラー卿. The main character's name is technically Yūri (according to proper grammar, the macron is removed by doubling the vowel, hence "Yuuri"), which has a specific meaning referenced in the story, but is spelled "Yuri"... which has a different meaning entirely, and is also pronounced differently.
** And that's just the beginning of it! Most of the demon's names - most of ''everyone's'' names - in the other world are derivatives of European names, or made to sound that way, making it pretty much impossible to find a consistent spelling for any of the non-Japanese characters. The discrepancy is sometimes so great that you can't recognize the name of the same character as spelled by different fansubbers.
** ''Kyo Kara Maoh'' is painfully full of these. The dub spelled the main character's name as "Yuri" while most subs and fans had used "Yuuri". The spelling of several last names is argued upon, such as Kleist/Christ or Bielfeld/Bielfelt, and a sub that used "Forngrantz" and "Fornchrist" and such, apparently having missed the German ThemeNaming where the correct translations were "von Grantz" and "von Christ". Saralegui's name is still sometimes written as "Sarareigi", and no one can agree on whether his retainers name is Belias or Berias or Beries. The worst by far is poor Geneus/Janus/Jeanus/Jyanuss/however million other ways his name has been writing.
* ''Anime/LastExile'' has the name of one of the main characters variously transliterated as Lavi or Ravi.
* And then... there's ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', in which everyone on the Imperial side has a German name, and the Alliance side is a kind of multicultural potluck, all rendered in katakana pronunciation. The people that made the anime version (wherein the characters' names appear onscreen when they are introduced) didn't even know where to begin with this mess, and the resulting roman spellings are often bizarre. The later DVD release features revised spellings. Add a handful of different fansub romanizations into the mix and the result is almost as complicated as the actual ''show''.
* In ''Manga/LetterBee'' we have Zaji/Zazie, Vashuka/Wasiolka, Gus/Gasu/Gazu, Connor Kluff/Connor Culh, Roda/Lode, Gauche/Goos, and Aria Link/Aria Rink. Oh, and the freak show in Chapter 2 has had its name romanized as Lovesome Downs, Love Someone Down, and the incredibly silly Rabusamu Wandaun
* ''Anime/LupinIIIGreenJacket'' has [[Recap/LupinIIIS1E2 "The Man They Called A Magician"]], Pycal. Or perhaps, Piker, Paikaru, or Vical. Pycal is considered the official English spelling.
* The name of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'''s signature weapon is レイジングハート, which can be transliterated as either ''reijing haato'', "Raging Heart", or as ''reizing haato'', "Raising Heart". The WordOfGod is that the latter is correct. The main issue here is that spoken Japanese makes no distinction between the "ji" and "zi" syllables, as the latter doesn't exist. Thus both "Raging" and "Raising" are pronounced as "Raging".
** For added confusion, the English dub switches from "Raging" to "Raising" at the beginning of the second season-- and the subtitles for the first season switch back and forth!
*** And with ''Force NEXT'', the "Raging Heart" spelling has now appeared in an [[http://hdimage.org/viewer.php?file=m5jnnq50ev1rt0lys97q.jpg official Japanese release]].
** The names of ''characters'' are even less clear. Their spellings aren't even consistent in the various different official sources, even though the dialogue makes the automobile ThemeNaming obvious. On the other hand, this hasn't stopped fansubbers from using ''Yuuno'' instead of the more likely ''Euno'' (after the Mazda Eunos marque)... The official site tries to clear up a lot of confusion (stating that Yuuno is indeed spelled Yuuno, for example), however, fans are still hesitant to use the official spelling for some of the other names, the most popular example being Zafila, whom many still prefer to call Zafira. Understandable as, given the aforementioned ThemeNaming, "Zafira" makes much more sense (from Opel Zafira).
*** The official spelling of the Azure Wolf's name seems to change with every release. While earlier side-materials used 'Zafila', the later video game adaptation went with 'Zafira'.
** It doesn't help that the English dub cycles through the names Arf, Alph and Aruf depending on which volume you're watching. They use the first two spellings ''in the same conversation''.
** Caro presents an odd example, as she's clearly named after her tribe, so they should be spelled the same; instead, her surname is always written "ru Lushe" or "Ru Lushe", yet the tribe itself is called "Lu-Lushe". Even her employee card uses both spellings.
*** In the early days before [=StrikerS=] aired, Caro's full name, romaji'ed "Kyaro Ru Rushie", was transliterated into Carole le Loussier. That is, until after [[WordOfGod canon materials state the otherwise]]. Hey, it makes sense...
** The name of the ship, which is officially "Arthra", but The Triad used "Asura".
** Most people tend to refer to Teana (from the Nissan Teana) as "Tia".
*** Though this may be because "Tea" [[SpotOfTea could be confusing]].
*** Such people often refer to her full name as "Tiana", although that doesn't fit in the ThemeNaming with many characters being named after cars.
** There's also Fate's assistant Shario Finieno, who more often goes by the nickname Shari. There are some alternate romanizations, like [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=1592232&postcount=1210 Shirley]] or [[http://www.onemanga.com/Magical_Girl_Lyrical_Nanoha_StrikerS/4/05/ Sally Fenino]].
*** It's possible that it could be "Chariot" (if you pronounce "Chariot" in a French way, it sounds like "Shario", and she is apparently named after the Mitsubishi Chariot).
** Signum's sword is usually either Laevatein or Levantine.
*** Given how there are so many references to Norse mythology already (three of Hayate's attacks are Mistilteinn, Ragnarök and Hræsvelgr), Lævateinn would make more sense. The problem is how Signum pronounces it - Lævateinn in Japanese is usually "Rēvatein", but Signum's sword is pronounced "Revantin", which leads to the confusion.
** Some fansubs also couldn't decide whether Shamal's "weapon" was called Klarer Wind or Klarwind. For the record, Klarer Wind is the correct German, so it's most likely the correct spelling.
*** The correct spelling is actually Klarwind. Just being correct German doesn't necessarily mean it's the right spelling, especially in anime. And both are correct German anyway (Clearwind vs. Clear Wind).
** Even the two Numbers whose names are not literal Italian numbers- Wendi/Wendy and Deed/Dido- occasionally fall into this.
*** Strangely, even though "sei" is Italian for "six", the official spelling of the character's name is Sein.
*** Probably an abbreviation of "Sei-chan", which Japanese does for some names.
** ''The Battle of Aces'' official guidebook, released 2010, renders Amy as "Eimy", even though it's six years after she first appeared.
** The name of Caro's dragon (written as Furīdorihi in Japanese) could be either "Friedrich" (as a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche) or "Friedliche" (German for "peaceful"). Given her other dragon is called Voltaire (Vorutēru), though, Friedrich would make more sense.
** Fans thought that the name of Vivio's Fate {{Expy}} was named "Einhart", yet come ''Gears of Destiny'', it turns out that it's "Einhar''d''". In German, D is pronounced like T at the end of a word.
* ''LightNovel/MagicalGirlRaisingProject'' is full of this, with official spellings usually contradicting each other:
** The Forrest Musician is the worst offender: her name in the official anime website states it as "Cranberry", but some merchandise spells it as "Clanberry", and many people insist on calling her "Clamberry".
** "Weiss Winterprison" is the spelling used during the credits of the series, but it is "Vess Winterprison" in the official anime website.
** The official site for the novels spells the name as "Shadow Gale", but some merchandise spells it as "Shadowgale".
** It only gets worse with girls without an official spelling: "Detick Bell" or "Detec Bell"? "Rionetta" or "Leonetta"? "Cherna Mouse" or "Cerna Mouse"? "Mao Pam" or "Maou Pam" or even "Maoh Pam"? "Pythie Frederica" or "Pity Frederica"? "Bluebell Candy" or "Blue Bell Candy"? "Armor Arlie" or "Armor Early"?
** Is CQ's full name is "CQ Angel Hammer", or "CQ Tenshi Hamuel"?
* ''Anime/{{Mahoromatic}}'' has Mashu/Masshu/Mash/Mathew/Matthew. (Creator/{{Geneon}} uses "Matthew", and Creator/{{Tokyopop}} uses all of them at different times.)
* ''Anime/MaiOtome'', which includes LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters with Western-sounding names, is literally full of this despite the fact that ''official romanizations are available on the official website''... except, for some reason, for Lena Sayers, leading to her name being consistently and incorrectly spelled "Rena" in fandom (and the credits for the English version). And that's not even taking into account GEM or country names...
** The country of Cardair in the anime gets called Chaldea in one manga scanlation.
* Makubex/[=MakubeX=]/Makube X from ''Manga/GetBackers''.
* ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico'' has a very funny one with its parody ShowWithinAShow, particularly in the ADV dub. Throughout the series, the show is dubbed ''Gekigang'''ar''' 3''. And it stayed that way throughout the entire series... even after one scene late in the show shows it to be spelled ''Gekigang'''er''' 3''. This was because ADV had went phonetically (''Gekigangaa'') and never realized their mistake until ''that scene''
* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': Notably, this series managed to largely avoid this, but still there were some cases:
** Baron Ashura: In the Spanish dub in the seventies he was named "Ashler".
** Count Brocken: In some places he was called "Count Blocken".
** The twin blonde research assistants from ''Anime/GreatMazinger'' and ''Anime/{{Mazinkaiser}}''. Rori, Loli, Lori, Roli? Roru, Lolu, Rolu, Loru, or possibly Roll?
** However, the worst offenders were the [[{{Robeast}} Mechanical Beasts]] by far: Debira, Devira or Deviler X1? Belgas or Velgus V5? Doublas or Dabras M2? Zaira or Zaila? Bikong or Bicong 09? Holzon or Horzon V3? And so on.
** ''Anime/UFORoboGrendizer'' was not so bad... But -other than the Saucer Beasts and the Vega Beasts- some characters had some confusing names: Gandal or Gandar? Blacki, Blackie or Brackie? Barados or Barendos? Rubina or Lubina?
* ''Manga/MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch'', according to entry-level fans that only saw the fansubs, is the story of "Luchia" (Lucia) and her love for "Kaitou" (Kaito). Her friend "Lina" (Rina) is depressed about the loss of "Nuil" (Noel), which "Karen" (Caren) blames her for.
** Even in the series itself, there were problems. The main antagonist of the first arc of the manga is named Gakuto. His name is written in katakana for most of the series, and is meant to evoke the singer Gackt, leaving his name as Gackto. However, once and only once, he uses kanji for his name that can only be read as Gakuto. And on top of that, the anime called him Gaito to distance the character from the singer and play up the connection to Kaito.
*** Are the kanji '楽斗'? The singer occasionally uses those. It's the gaku from ongaku, music, and the to from hokuto, the Big Dipper -- it means something like 'vessel for pouring music'.
** And the prototype for Lucia, Lyre, is called "Riiru", a nonsense name, by the usually-accurate manga translation.
** The first release of the first episode fansubbed called the penguin Hip. Also, not fansub-wise, but some fans often misspell Hanon's name as Han'''n'''on.
** There is also Ranfa/Ran Fa/Lang Fa/Lanhua, or Michel/Mikeru, Michal/Mikaru and Alala/Arara
* The title of ''Anime/MichikoToHatchin'' has been spelled multiple different ways: "Michiko & Hatchin", "Michiko e Hatchin", "Michiko and Hatchin", and "Michiko y Hatchin". The english dub opted for "Michiko to Hatchin".
* [[InspectorJavert Lunge/Runge]] from ''{{Manga/Monster}}''. The manga, the official website and the fansubbing groups says it's 'Lunge', his name plate in the anime says it's 'Runge'.
** Johan Liebert has this case when his first and last name are called Johann and Liebheart.
* Layla/Reira Serizawa from ''Manga/{{Nana}}'', which ought to be a no-brainer since she specifically says she's named after the Eric Clapton song (but on the other hand it's romanized Reira all over official Japanese materials). In Japan, when a child is born, it's registered with the kana and kanji for it's name. Since Layla would be phonetically changed into Reira, this is her official name (in Japan, depending on her American passport). This troper has a Japanese friend with the same name, named after the same song, it's still Reira.
* ''Manga/MyBrideIsAMermaid'' has San/Sun and Luna/Lunar/Runa, although official material usually goes with [[ThemeNaming Sun and Lunar]].
* ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'':
** Rock Lee's mentor has had ''both'' of his names vary in spelling: Might/Mighty/Maito Guy/Gai (official translation: [[http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1144/152153ow9.jpg Might Guy]]). Despite there being an official spelling, there's still too many fans who insist on one of the other spellings. To be fair, almost every translation prior to the official one had his name as Gai, and that is a more common transliteration. Also, the official translation of the manga [[InconsistentDub originally used "Mighty Guy"]]. Guy-sensei has suffered in this respect more than any other ''Naruto'' character: At one point, the American branch of ''Shonen Jump'' was apparently drawing names out of a hat for him, as during the first part of the Chunin Exam preliminary rounds, his name changed in spelling every issue for nine months. The spelling "Might Gay" was apparently considered before they finally settled on the current version of his name, though online scanalations of chapters not yet released by Viz in America still sometimes use the old translation of 'Gai.' As a side note, the dub had [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Kisame mock his name by calling him "Mighty Stupid-looking Guy."]]
** Pain's name was originally frequently romanized as "Pein," but he mentioned why it was meant literally in English. Even so, lots of fans still insisted on spelling it "Pein".
** The "letters" from the Hidden Cloud vary is it: A, Ay, Ei or Ē, Killer B, Killer Bee or Kirābī, C, Shī, Shee or Cee, F, Efu or Eff, J, Jei or Jay.
** From the final chapter we have "Boruto" or "Bolt" and "Sarada" and "Salad" English puns for [[spoiler: Naruto/Hinata's son and Sasuke/Sakura's daughter]] with bonus points for mixing and matching. Probably represents where fan translators thought WhoNamesTheirKidDude and some MeaningfulName on Boruto's part. ''VideoGame/NarutoShippudenUltimateNinjaStorm4'' doesn't make matters clearer for thr former. The English version has the subtitles saying "Boruto" yet Naruto clearly refers to him as "Bolt" in the dialogue. ''Anime/BorutoNarutoTheMovie'' has the official spelling as "Boruto", and eventually the English dub went with "Boruto" as well.
** Some fans referred to Metal [Lee] as "Metaru" prior to his name's spelling being confirmed.
** Fans were confused for a long time on whether it was spelled "Chouchou" or "Chocho", however the first ending o ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'' clearly shows it as "Chocho". Similarly, [[spoiler:Chocho's father]] Choji suffered the same issue.
* An in-universe example occurs in Franchise/{{Negima}}. Any time a character gets a Pactio card, their name is printed on it, but with a "latinized" spelling; some of the letters are replaced with others ("Y" with "J" and "K" with "C", for example), so "Yue" turns into "Jue", "Nodoka" becomes "Nodoca", etc.
** [[FridgeLogic If they really wanted to latinize it, they should have replaced every "U" with "V".]]
*** Plus the fact that J was not a letter in the latin alphabet either, instead simply being an I, usually before a U. But that would mean that Yue's name would look like IVE, which would be quite confusing.
** Some scanlations have trouble deciding if the WeaselMascot is named "Chamo" or "Kamo". The first is more widely accepted (and used in the official translation).
*** Given that his name is short for Chamomile...
** Also, Chao's magic activation key is one of the few that doesn't yet have an [[WordOfGod "official"]] romanization.
** There's also a bit of controversy over Gateau/Gatou/Gato's name.
* Keel Lorenz from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' often has his name spelled as "Kihl". For some reason.
** Actually, it should be Kiel. Keel is a widely distributed misspelling which is pretty much Fanon by now.
* In ''Manga/NewGame'', Hifumi's name is purely written in kana, but since Chinese does not transliterate Sinospheric names unless necessary, this results in ambiguity. In Hifumi's case, the Taiwanese publisher Tongli gives her name in on-yomi as ''Rifumei'', whereas Tokuno has stated that the intentions are the numerals one-two-three (given as ''Yi'ersan'' in Mandarin).
* ''LightNovel/NoGameNoLife'' has one character that's either called Kurami or Clammy depending on whom you ask. Some even go with ''Chlammy''.
** Her elven girlfriend gets this too. Is her name Feel, Fiel or Fil?
** Is the country the elves come from Elkia or Elchea?
** The name of the LittleBitBeastly race - Warbeast or Werebeast? Both make sense, and both are pronounced the same way in Japanese.
** Even the magic word used to begin a game is subject to this, as it's been spelled both Aschente and Asciente in different places.
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the official transliteration of the name ルフィ is "Luffy". The double "f" is especially peculiar, since it will change the preceeding vowel. A strict reading of the kana would produce a word that rhymes with "goofy;" whereas in English "Luffy" would rhyme with "stuffy" instead.
** Ironically enough, the German dub insists on Ruffy, pronouncing it in a perfectly English way. This is explained in a translator Q&A in the manga -- Ruffy (as in "rough") sounds more like a pirate name than Luffy. It's not pronounced as "Roofy", it's "Raffy".
** There's also the dispute over Roguetown vs. Loguetown (as in "prologue" and "epilogue"); the guy that makes the series spells it in the series as "Loguetown", but it got changed in the 4kids dub.
** There are lots of characters in this series that have their names weirded up by fans, [[ExecutiveMeddling other people in the publication process]], or [[Discontinuity/AnimeAndManga the thankfully-soon-to-be-forgotten]] [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] {{Macekre}}: [[http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/372/01/ Mr. 2 Bon Kurei]] (Bon Clay), [[http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/96/06/ Don Krieg]] (Don Creek), Nefertari Vivi (Nefeltari Vivi, Nefertari Bibi), Portgas D Ace (Porgaz D Trace, Puma D Ace). The first ones are the correct versions used in the actual manga, or stated by WordOfGod from Oda himself.
** The English dub has no choice with Zoro/Zolo.
** In the first volume of the English manga they used Zoro, but in vol. 2 they changed it to Zolo, mainly to pander to the English dub available at the time (4kids)
** Zoro's name is interesting - while it is officially written "Roronoa Zoro" (spelled that way on his Wanted poster in the anime), he's allegedly named after the pirate François l'Olonnais... except that "l'Olonnais" is written in katakana as "Roronē", NOT "Roronoa". It's possible Oda thought the name was l'Olonnois, which WOULD be written as Roronoa in katakana. His first name did indeed come from Zorro, which is "Zoro" in katakana - this is why it had to be changed to Zolo in the English dub, as there was still a copyright on the name Zorro in America at the time.
** There's also "Navy" vs. "Marines." While in etymology (''kaigun'') and role it is VERY obviously a Navy, pretty much everything they own has "[[GratuitousEnglish MARINE]]" printed on it in big block letters, in English. Though "Navy" is probably the correct term, it's often criticized in a kneejerk reaction to the [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] {{Macekre}}, which digitally erased all instances of "MARINE" and replaced them with "NAVY". Ff course, it could just be that the author forgot, or doesn't know.
*** And don't forget that "Marine" is, in several languages, a direct translation of the English word "Navy".
*** Also don't forget that, even in English, the civilian shipping capacity of a nation is often called its Merchant Marines. The two words shared a meaning at some point in the past, which sort of muddles the issue.
** There also seems to be some confusion on if it's Blueno or Bruno. Though "Bleuno" appears on the sign of his tavern in Water Seven. (Which actually makes sense too - "Bleu" is French for "blue", and pronounced the same way as "blue" in katakana.)
** Most recent perhaps is the giant Luffy-powered zombie Ouzu/Oz/Odz/Oars. Oz is the most common spelling of his name, but a strong theory is that the name is meant to refer to Odr, a god of the Norse Pantheon. Some translators have thus mixed Oz and Odr together to make the spelling "Odz." Some fans have [[TakeAThirdOption taken a third option]] and just use "Odr."
*** Chapter 551 shows [[spoiler:a ship with the word Oars III.]] Chapter 554 reveals [[spoiler:that the descendant of the giant zombie is one of Whitebeard's allies.]] So now some think "Oars" is the official spelling, further backed by VIZ Media's decision to use this spelling.
** ''Manga/OnePiece'' suffers greatly from this trope. Juracule/Dracule Mihawk is a weird case, since "Dracule" is a logical MeaningfulName but not really supported by the way it's written.
*** In Japanese katakana, "ju" is the closest basic equivalent to the "du" that could be used. Though in katakana it is possible to write "du", Oda opted for "ju." However, because of Japanese pronunciation rules, "du" can never begin a word in katakana, so in this case Oda had no choice but to use "ju". "Du" and "di" katakana are used for etymologic spelling, when the unvoiced equivalents "ti" and "tu" (often romanised and pronounced "chi" and "tsu") undergo a "sound change" and become voiced when they occur in the middle of a compound word. In other cases, "ji" and "zu" will be used instead. Though the question is why Oda didn't simply opt for "do", which is more often used to make "d" sounds in Japanese (for example, Dracula is written "Dorakyura" in katakana).
*** Some think it should be written Juraquille.
** Then there's Chew/Chuu/Choo.
** Vivi's duck also suffers from this trope, as the name Karoo has been spelled as Karu, Carue, and Kaloo.
** Not to mention the fact that fans tend to spell even the names of the main characters in vastly different ways. This may be caused by the horrid HK (Honk Kong) subs. Ex: Sanji = Sunkist/Haingis, Usopp = Liar[[note]]"Uso" means "lie", making it a literal translation of a MeaningfulName[[/note]] Bu/King Bu/Crock Bu, Zoro = Sauron/Churk Lok, etc
** Whitebeard's Third Division Commander is the latest to suffer - "Jozu" is the currently accepted English spelling among most fans, but various scanslations have used "Jose," "Joss," and "Jaws."
** One of the oldest ones - the name of the currency in the world of ''One Piece''. The official translation uses "berry" for its name, but "belli" is frequently used as well. Compounding matters is one early image (at the end of the Arlong Park arc) which shows Nami holding a note that says "10,000 Belly."
** Speaking of interesting spellings seen in the anime itself, the doctor who takes care of Laboon signs his name as "Krokos" on his painting of the sky while the subs write him as "Crocus," and Alvida's wanted poster has her as "Aluvida."
** Iceberg's name was spelled "Iceb'''a'''rg" in the anime and "Iceb'''u'''rg" in the manga (in the actual manga art, not in a speech bubble), so no one's really sure how his name is meant to be spelled (some think it should be Iceburgh, but most just go with Iceberg).
** Eneru vs. Enel is also a point of debate sometimes.
** A character whose name was always translated as Shiryu was later confirmed to have the official spelling of Shiliew. The official spelling was later changed to Shiryu. This is one case where most of the fandom just sticks with the first name, because it looks cooler and is easier to remember.
** There is a character whose name is literally written in Japanese as Haguwāru Dī Sauro. The spelling most sources use for this name is Jaguar D. Saul. Romanising Haguwāru as Jaguar is fine, because it matches the Spanish pronunciation of "jaguar", but "Sauro" is most definitely not how "Saul" is written in katakana (that would be "Sau'''ru'''"). However, Oda tends to have a habit of spelling his characters' names differently to how they're pronounced (such as Luffy), so it would seem Saul is the correct spelling after all, even though the "o" sound at the end makes it sound like it should be something else.
** The name of the Marine headquarters is literally "Marinfōdo" in katakana. Most places and subs romanise it as Marineford, which is sensible. However, in one episode of the anime, there's a shot that briefly shows a sign with "MARINE FOOD" written on it (and it's not a restaurant sign). It's probably obvious why fans choose to ignore this, though (similarly to the "Icebarg[=/=]Iceburg" example).
** The capital of the World Government, literally "Marījoa" in katakana, has been spelled Mariejois, Marie Jois and Mariejoa. And then the place's name is spelled out as "MARY GEOISE" much later in the manga, which no one saw coming. The One Piece Wikia originally went with Mariejois but has switched to Mary Geoise.
** The official Crunchyroll subs have been using the spelling "Ponegliff", confusing and annoying fans who were used to the spelling Poneglyph (which does make a lot more sense, as the objects in question are covered in symbols, or "glyphs").
** The giants' island is mostly spelled as Elbaf (a SdrawkcabName) in fansubs, but Crunchyrolls official subs use Elbaph.
** Crunchyroll started out using the spelling Big Mam (since the katakana reads as "Biggu Mamu") for the female member of the Yonkou (real name Charlotte Linlin), then later changed it to the more sensible Big Mom (which is confirmed in-series by way of being written on her ship's sails).
** Brutal Bull's name is spelled out as Brutal Bule in-series, though most subs (even official ones) go with Brutal Bull for obvious reasons (since the character is an actual bull).
** The name of Señor Pink deceased wife is spelled with the characters ru-shi-a-n, or Russian. The french editor of the manga tranlated it as Lucian, which seemed more like a plausible firstname... Then [[WordOfGod Oda explained in the question corner]] that the character and her son Gimlet where named after Cocktails. So the name was indeed Russian, as in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Russian_(cocktail) White Russian]].
* ''Manga/PandoraHearts'' loves this trope a lot. Shalon/Sharon is one, even if latter is proven, but some fans still spell it the former. Even more is Bezarius/Vessalius, Nightlay/Nightray, Lainsworth/Rainsworth, Liam/Reim, Reo/Leo, El(l)iot(t), Vinsent/Vincent, Lotti/Lottie, Vaskerville/Baskerville, Gl(l)en, Lacey/Lacie, etc... the list goes on. However, because the spelling "Lacie" was seen early in-series and is an obvious anagram of Alice (a prominent character with a connection to the word "Lacie"), the incorrect spelling Lacey isn't often used.
* Since ''Manga/PilotCandidate'' is a series with lots of AerithAndBob going on, this was bound to happen. The most common example: Kizna or Kizuna?
* The ''Manga/{{Planetes}}'' manga (Tokyopop) and anime (Bandai USA) have different romanization schemas for two important names: the Von Braun's experimental drive is called "Tandem Miller" engine (presumably named after its creator) in the latter, while the former calls it "[[http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2009/Summer-2009/Thoughts_on_fusion.pdf Tandem-Mirror]]" (on account of its design depending on mirrors). There's also the character Hakim/Hakimu (both versions used in the manga) as well as Hakeem (anime).
* The third Astrea school in ''LightNovel/StrawberryPanic'' was, in fan translations, translated as [=LeRim=], [=LeLim=], and the official Lulim.
* ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'':
** Berlitz didn't have a [[LastNameBasis known first name]] until the third version of ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' was announced. It's clear that her name is "Platinum" but many fans write it as "Platina", mainly due to viewing "Platinum" as [[GenderBlenderName too masculine a name]] for her.
** The Pokedex holders are always named after the game's. In most gens this was perfectly straightforward. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, etc. Then came the sequels to ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2''. For the first time the main series used numbered sequels. Fans had no clue how the mangaka would name Nate and Rosa's counterparts, and even once they appeared fans were stumped on how to even spell them. The official spellings are "Lack-Two" and "Whi-Two". The English translations streamlined their weird [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname codenames]] by [[DubNameChange renaming them]] "Blake" and "Whitley".
* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** People in and outside of the fandom tend to spell Musashi's English name, Jessie, as "Jesse". That actually makes sense - Team Rocket's names are meant to be a pun on Jesse James, the famous outlaw. Their names in Japanese are Musashi and Kojirō, referencing Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, two samurai who famously fought to the death over a love rival.
** The villain from the second movie was never named in the dub (he's credited as The Collector), and has two different names (Geraldan and Lawrence III) in different promotional materials. Most fans just use a direct romanization of his Japanese name: Jirarudan.
** Ash's rival from the Indigo League Tournament, Richie or Ritchie?
** Many fans write Cilan's Japanese name as "Dento" despite it being "Dent" in canon.
* ''Franchise/PrettyCure'':
** The ''Pretty Cure''/''Precure'' franchise can't even decide what it's ''called''. The English text in the original logo ("PRETTY CURE") doesn't actually match the Japanese text ("purikyua," i.e. "Precure"). [[Anime/YesPrecure5 For one universe]], the English text was dropped from the logo, seemingly making it officially Precure, except that merchandise continued to romanize it as Pretty Cure, and the various theme songs very clearly pronounce it ''both'' ways, depending on what best fits the meter. Even the characters themselves don't seem to be able to decide, as demonstrated early in ''[[Anime/YesPrecure5 Yes! Whichever 5]]'', where Nozomi first tells Karen about "purikyua," and Karen immediately responds "Puritikyua?". Finally, it gets explicitly spelled out "P-R-E-C-U-R-E" in the second ending of ''Anime/FreshPrettyCure''... the series which ''also'' restored the English text to the logo, now spelling out the entire title as "FRESH PRETTY CURE." Even when the songs are sung in English, they can't make up their mind - the English version of ''Fresh's'' "[=H@ppy Together!!!=]" also uses the P-R-E-C-U-R-E spelling that the Japanese version uses while the English version of ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'''s "Tomorrow Song ~Ashita no Uta~" uses "Pretty Cure" in its lyrics.
** Past that, despite the miracle of official websites with consistently-spelled names in the [=URLs=], you'll occasionally see references to "Lynn", "Ulala" or even "Oolala" (though oddly not "[[Anime/CodeGeass Kallen]]" or "[[Manga/MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch Caren]]"). And some sites insist on turning Rin into the flat-out wrong "Karin" for some reason ([[PortmanteauCoupleName shipping?]]).
** It's extremely common in Japanese to shorten long, clumsy romanized words into 3 or 4 syllable "native" words. (e.g. ''waapuro'' for word processor, "jipan" for jean pants, "sutamen" for starting member, etc.) Shortening ''Pretty Cure'' to "purikyua" is merely following that tradition.
** There's also the question of whether [[Anime/FutariWaPrettyCureSplashStar Mai]] becomes Cure Egret or Cure Eaglet... and in response, some fans have jokingly said that Saki becomes Cure Broom. Well, [[AnimeHair her hair does look like a broom]].
** Also, [[Anime/FreshPrettyCure Tart]] or Tarte? Wester or Westar? Souler or Soular? Love as Lovey?
** It continues with [[Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure the next season, too]]. Do we call her Shypre or Chypre? Is he Kobraj or Cobraja? (It does not help when he signs it one way and the promotional materials give it the other way.)
** And in [[ConspiracyTheorist what we can only assume is]] an intentional move to prolong the argument for nefarious purposes, the logo for ''Heartcatch'', which is the season immediately following ''Fresh'', spells out its title as "HEARTCATCH PRECURE!"
** ''Anime/SuitePrettyCure'': Is the resident {{Dark Magical Girl}}'s name Siren or Seiren? Is her alias called Ellen or Elen? Maybe it's Eren? Fandom doesn't seem entirely clear on this but the writers certainly meant Seiren as the Japanese almost always refer to Greek myths by the original Greek pronunciations rather than Latin-derived pronunciations like ''siren''. Her alias is a little trickier as ''Eren'' is a Japanese name but is written in katakana which gives the impression it's ''Ellen''. The spelling ''Eren'' does appear on-screen though.
** Having seemingly avoided this trouble in ''Anime/SmilePrettyCure'', minor confusion returns in the newest season, ''Anime/DokiDokiPrecure'' with the character Alice Yotsuba. Cleared up fairly quickly as the ''very first'' commercial in the broadcast showed a bunch of trading cards with her name spelled out thus. The oddity comes from the fact that "Alice" is spelled in Japanese using ''hiragana'', which doesn't usually allow interpretation (unlike katakana, which was used in Ellen's name for example).
*** The ''Doki Doki'' villains: Ira/Era, Mamo/Marmo/Mammo, Bel/Bale/Bell/Pell, Leeva/Leva/Riva...
** ''Anime/HappinessChargePrettyCure'' and the name of the American-based Pretty Cure team: are they the Bomburger (a portmanteau of "bomb" and "burger") Pretty Cure? Or are they the Bomber Girl Pretty Cure?
** ''Anime/GoPrincessPrettyCure'' had a minor one between two official websites naming the [[SixthRanger newest Cure]]: Cure Scarlet with one or two "t"s?
** ''Anime/MahoGirlsPrecure'' had one with one of its main heroines: Is it Riko or Liko? Initially, many people, including initial fansubs, have thought it was "Riko" (going with the idea that Japanese doesn't have a real "L"-sounding character). However, official merchandise began using "Liko" as the spelling and it was made canon in Episode 40 in plain English lettering. However, some groups, such as the moderators of the Wikia page for Pretty Cure, adamantly keep it as "Riko" despite evidence to the contrary. Interestingly, the North American Toei Animation web site describing Precure ''does'' use "Riko" over "Liko".
* The minor, anime-only ''Manga/ThePrinceOfTennis'' character Oota Shou is often referred to as Oota Kakeru, as this is another possible reading for the kanji in his name. The official data sheet for his school confirms the name should be read "Shou."
* All the character names from ''Anime/PrincessTutu'' suffered from this in some of the subtitle releases, from going from Mytho to Mute and to the strange insistence to keep romanizations from Lillie to Ririe.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' has quite a few. They're mostly all the same since it's usually just fussing over long vowels by adding or removing a 'u', but there is one exception: Kyuubey/Kyubey/Kyuubei/Kyubei/Kyubee/Cubey[[labelnote:♥]]from the "Kyu" in "Cute" or "[[spoiler:In'''cu'''bator]]"[[/labelnote]]/QB.
** Considering what seems to be the etymology ([[spoiler:Incubator]]), it should probably be [[spoiler:Cuba]], but that spelling doesn't seem to be used a lot. Understandably.
** It certainly doesn't help that Kyubey's name is spelled ''very'' strangely even in Japanese: キュゥべえ. That's a mixture of katakana and hiragana with a small vowel, which grammatically doesn't make any sense at all.
* "Raidiin"/"Anime/{{Raideen}}", licensed "Raydeen", and the remake ''Reideen''.
* Perhaps partially because China plays a fair role in the series, meaning that both Chinese and Japanese names get mentioned for the same thing, ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' has a number of these. Nyucheizu/Joketsuzoku for the village of [[LadyLand Chinese Amazons]], the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Spring of Drowned Yeti Riding Ox While Holding Crane And Eel]], which results in various spellings of "Niuhomanmaolenniichuan", Happosai's old friend/rival, whose nickname is "Lucky" but whose name has been spelled Lukkosai, Lukkyosai, Rakkosai, Rakkyosai...
** The Joketsuzoku main characters, meanwhile, have had their names spelled all kinds of ways by the fandom beside their obvious PunnyName, particularly in fanfiction (Mousse and Cologne often become Mu Tsu and Kuh Lon, for example). Shampoo's had it the worst, with Shan Po, Shan Pu, Xian Pu, and other such interpretations.
** In the first Ranma video game, Cologne was spelled Colon.
** The anime-only twins from Joketsuzoku are officially referred to in the English dub as Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung, but other variations can persist (such as Lin-Lin and Ran-Ran, Rin-Rin and Run-Run, etc.)
* The sequel to ''Manga/{{Chirality}}'' is titled ''Ragnarock City'', and it is spelled this way on the cover of the original version. Despite this, when Central Park Media included an about-the-author page for Satoshi Urushihara in the final volume of ''Chirality'', they spelled it '''''Laguna''' Rock City''.
* ''Manga/RaveMaster'' get's this full blast. It's not even an issue of fans disagreeing. ''one of the names isn't consistent in the official translation''. One of the generals (Who might be named Jade) is called four diferent names throughout the official translation. Two of which occur in the same chapter, and one of ''those'' is actually the name of a diferent charcter. On a more standard note, Everyone agrees that Iulius's name is actually Julius. And, back to the less average, one of the major support characters, Sieg Hart, is called Seig about ten times when mentioned in a later manga done by the same artist.
** On a more baffling note (considering that Sieg is a name and Seig isn't), it's not impossible to find people who try to spell Elie's name with two Ls. This despite the fact that multiple plot points revolve around the ways and places that her name appears, including the extraordinarily relevant fact that it flips to make the number 3173, and that thanks to a tattoo with block letters that comes and goes on her arm and an engraving on her necklace, it is actually drawn into the images, leaving no room for dispute on how it's to be spelled.
* "Anshii" vs. "Anthy" from ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'', even though "Anthy" is a genuine name in Greek with a [[ThemeNaming story-relevant meaning]], while "Anshii" is nonsense generated from the transliteration.
** Likewise, in ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' the points where Miki's name seems to change to and from "Mickey" are intentional; "Mickey" is a romanization of the nickname "Mikki" and is pronounced differently from "Miki", even if the difference is hard for English speakers to hear.
* Virtually all of the character and place names from the ''Manga/{{Bastard}}!'' anime are taken from the names of 80's Heavy Metal bands. In the dubbed version, most of these are warped into unrecognizable variants. This was mostly to avoid getting sued by the bands for trademark infringement when the anime was released in the U.S. We know how touchy some metal bands can be when it comes to their legal rights (I'm looking at you, Music/{{Metallica}}... sorry, Meta-rikana).
** ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' had a similar problem, with characters such as [[{{Music/Enya}} N-ya/Enyabba]] and [[Music/VanillaIce Iced]].
* The English releases of the series that made up ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' -- ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'', ''Anime/SuperDimensionCavalrySouthernCross'', and ''Anime/GenesisClimberMospeada'' -- deliberately used different spellings for the characters and races whose names weren't changed. For example, Roy Fokker instead of Roy ''Focker'', or the Invid instead of ''Inbit''.
** The name change from Focker to Fokker is justified as the animation gives clear indication that his name is an homage to World War I aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker (designer of the Red Baron's iconic triplane). It is the Japanese in this case who did no research or even if they did, someone else on staff just couldn't be bothered with spelling the name right.
* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' proper has plenty of this:
** Almost none of the Zentradi characters escape this. Mostly because the eventual official spellings of their names are completely impossible to reproduce in Japanese (the only ones that did were the three spies Warera, Rori, and Konda, because the portmanteau of their names is a [[PunnyName pun]] in Japanese).
*** ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'''s Millia was a notable offender. Her first name has been spelled Millia, Milliya, Milia, Miliya, Miria, and Miriya. Then there's her Zentraedi surname, which has been translated most often as variants of "Fallyna", though some subtitles inexplicably translate it as "Parino"; this could be taken from the one time it was used in ''Robotech'', where it was given as "Parina"
*** Other notable examples are Zentradi leader Gorg/Golg Dolza/Bodolza/Bodolzer/Bodolzar/Bodol Za/Boddole Zer (official translation: Boddole Zer) and his subordinates Breetai Kridanik/Britai Kridaniku/Vhrlitwhai Kridaniku and Exedore Formo/Exsedol Folmo. THEN, ''Anime/MacrossDoYouRememberLove'' dumps the surnames altogether and assigns each Zentradi a number...
*** Zentraedi ship and mecha classes are almost as bad; even though they have official spellings, it seems like the writers went out of their way to make the spellings as bizarre as humanly possible: Nousjadeul-Ger, Queadlunn-Rea, Golgantzchartz, ''Nupetiet-Vergnitz'', ''Fulbtzs-Berrentz''...
** Then there's Lynn/Linn Minmay/Minmei. Episode 5 of ''SDF'' spells her given name "Minmei" on the door sign, but spells it "Minmay" on the letter. Also, the pinyin spelling is Líng Míngmìi.
** ''Anime/{{Macross 7}}'''s BigBad, Geppelnich, is one of the worst. Potential spellings include Gepplenitch, Geppernitch, Geppernich, Geperuniti, or Geperunitchi. TheDragon for the second half of the series, Gavil, and his monstrous minion Gravil similarly have their names sometimes translated as Gabil and Grabil.
** And continuing the proud tradition, one character name in ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' is [[AMysteryInsideAnEnigma an enigma wrapped in a mystery]] for spelling. There has been ''absolutely no consensus'' exists as to how the name should be pronounced in English, without any obvious pattern of ThemeNaming. Besides a literal transliteration of the katakana ("Kuran Kuran"), Klan Klein, Klein Klan, Klan Klan, Klein Klein have all been offered. It's officially, according to a magazine article, "Clan Clang". WHAT THE HELL?!
*** The FriendlySniper suffers a similar problem with his name: it's spelt in-universe as "Michael Blanc", but his first name has been pronounced as "Mikhail" (by most of his friends), and "Michel" (love interest, as an apparent nickname). Also, with the way his surname is pronounced in Japanese, romanisations of "Blanc" or "Buran" are valid interpretations, particularly with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29 latter's aerospace connection]].
*** [[IdolSinger Sheryl Nome]]'s name, on the other hand, has a perfectly well-known official spelling that somehow ''still'' gets messed up on occasion, most glaringly in the Lion Opening Title where it's written as "Sheryl Noam". This wasn't even the first TitleSequence, this was the one that started up with ''EPISODE 18!'' They fixed this in the Blu-Ray releases, surprisingly, but her music disks in the same episode still have the "Noam" misspelling. The artist, when this was pointed out, replied that those discs were in-universe bootlegs.
* Most of the characters in ''Manga/TheRoseOfVersailles'' have fairly easily recognizable French names -- except for one, who is variously referred to as Gerodere, Girodelle, Girondelle, Girodel, Girodet, Giradel and Jiroderu. It's not just a fan thing, either -- most of those variants have appeared in official translations of the manga or anime.
* ''[[Anime/RuneSoldierLouie Mahou Senshi Ryui]]'', where the name of the main character, a sorcerer who acts like a brawler, can be translated as Ryui or Louie.
* The ''Anime/SaberMarionetteJ'' manga refers to the third Saber doll as "Lynx", the anime uses "Luchs". "Luchs" is the German word for lynx, and all three of the Saber Dolls are named after German fighting vehicles from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, retaining the Wehrmacht's RealLife ThemeNaming.
* In ''{{Manga/Saki}} Achiga-Hen'', the {{tomboy}}ish member of the Senriyama team's last name, Eguchi, is consistently spelled one way, but her first name is often spelled many different ways- Cera, Cela, Sera and even Sara.
** There's an InUniverse example that becomes a plot point. Ai Arctander, [[spoiler:Saki and Teru's maternal grandmother]], apparently has the same surname as an international pro player named Arctandar. When [[IntrepidReporter Nishida]] asks an old woman who knew Ai, the old woman says that Ai's name was mis-spelled during the registration process. It's also a straight example, considering that scanlators are currently not entirely sure about how to spell this apparently foreign name.
* The official translation of the ''VideoGame/SakuraWars'' [=OAVs=] renders the names usually romanized "Reni" and "Ratchet" as "Leni" and "Lachette." To this day, many fans are angry about this (despite the fact that "Leni" is an actual German name whereas "Reni" is not).
* Even ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'' has this, mostly because there's very little official sources to use for spelling the names. "Speedy Cerviche" is officially the title character's name. It's based on "ceviche", which is a kind of seafood salad. For years, many fans adopted the name "Service", using Italian phonetics, because it made the tidy pun of "Speedy Service". It's strange that this should happen in the ''English dub'' of a franchise, but there you go.
* ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'':
** The villain's name is usually spelled "Berg Katse" in official materials, but some insist on using "Berg Katze", the German term for a mountain cat which his name is derived from. Rarely but occasionally, the spellings of "Berk Katse" or "Velk Katse" may come up due to how his name is romanized (beruku katse).
** "Cross Karakoram" [[note]]The location of the Galactor base and where Joe takes his last stand at in the finale[[/note]] used to have the fan translation variations of "Cross Karakolm" or "Cross Karacolm" from those who hadn't realized that it referred to the mountains near the Tibet Plateau. ADV's dub, meanwhile, switched the order of the name to be "Karakoram Cross".
** In the ''Gatchaman Fighter'' sequel, the villain is officially named Count Erun Egobossler. However, earlier fan translations gave him the more Germanic-sounding "Helm", and this spelling can still persist in some areas.
** Ken's first attack "Bird Run" has sometimes been interpreted as "Birdrang", due to the similarity in sound.
*** A special technique performed by him in ''Fighter'' is either called the "Hypershoot" or "Hypersuit".
** The city that the ISO is based in is officially "Utoland", but ADV's dub inexplicably changed it to "Jutland", causing confusion.
** An auto-pilot robot in ''Gatchaman II'' has had its name vary between "Piemur", "Pimer", "Pilmur", "Pilma", and "Paima".
** Jun's name in the Italian dub of the series was spelled as both "Pretty Jun" and "Pretty Jane" in various merchandise.
** The name of Ken's birth country is phonetically "Hontowaru" in Japanese, but has acquired many romanizations: "Huntwall", "Hontworl", and "Hontwhal" being among a few. An obscure manual for the ''Gatchaman'' movie gave the English spelling as "Hontwal", but aside from that, there is little consensus on how to render it. ADV's dub used the "Hontworl" variation.
** ''Anime/GForceGuardiansOfSpace'' renamed Ryu to "Hoot Owl", although fans and official materials seem to vary between spelling his nickname "Hootie" or "Hooty".
* Cz/Shiizu and Celia/Sillia/Seria Mauser in ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess''. This being despite the running theme of naming characters after firearms (and related terms).
* The official translation of ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'' lost something in calling the protagonist's [[HeterosexualLifePartners best friend forever]] Arisu. Since much of the series' plot hangs on themes of disconnect and dissociation (sometimes to the levels of [[MindScrew schizophrenic psychosis]]), an opportunity was missed to emphasize them in a subtle way. Consider, if you will, the whole l/r thing and think about what their names are. Lain. Alice. "Arisu" isn't any weirder than any other Japanese name to American ears, so why should she say "Isn't that weird?" when she introduces herself [[spoiler:at the end]]. Everyone around the two of them has nice normal Japanese names, but they've got English names. They're ''different.'' It's just one more reason they're fated friends (and possible (([[HideYourLesbians but never explicit]])) SchoolgirlLesbians). [[AliceAllusion Not to mention all the times Arisu/Alice gets thrown down the metaphorical rabbit hole]]. This gets more confusing for Crunchyroll fans, as their episode synopsis' call her "Alice" despit the subs using "Arisu".
* What is the nickname of the ElegantGothicLolita in ''Seikon No Qwaser''? Is it Kate, Katya or Katja? Same with Sasha's full name. Is it Aleksander Nikolaevich Her or Alexander Nikolaevich Hell?
* In ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'', the real name of the Flame Haze codenamed "The Specialist of Everything" is "Wilhelmina", a Dutch name. Pioneer botched her name, spelling it as "Wirhelmina."
* ''Manga/ShamanKing'' has Ren/Len/Lian. The first is the best-guess roman spelling, the third is [[WordOfGod Takei-Sensei's given proper reading]], and Len is his name in the dub.
* ''Manga/ShouwaGenrokuRakugoShinjuu'': The title itself has 2 long sounds that may or may not get eradicated (in "Showa" and "Shinju"). The names "Kyoji", "Yotaro" and "Yurakutei" (although the latter is a surname) also have this problem.
* ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' had its main character's name generally rendered as Aaeru, with some groups of fans insisting that this was a Japanization of 'Aelle' until the official romanization turned out to be 'Aer'.
* Names in ''{{LightNovel/Slayers}}'' often differ among the translations of the various parts of the franchise, and among translations into different languages. Some examples:
** Zelgadis and Xellos officially have an extra "s" on the ends of their names, but due to the prominence of the anime in other countries, the former two stuck. Similarly, there's Amelia and Ameria; while the latter is canonical in Japan, oddly enough, official Japanese guidebooks by the author have used the former spelling. The same goes for Chaos Dragon Garv/Gaav, and Hellmaster Fibrizo/Phibrizzo. In Spain and a few other European countries, Lina is Rina, Filia is Phiria, and Sylphiel is Shilfeel.
** For places, there's Sairaag and "Sylague", and Saillune (the correct spelling) and Seyruun.
** In the Latin American dub, Gourry's name was pronounced "Gaudy".
** Finally, Gorun Nova (the alternate name of the Sword of Light that Gourry wields) is occasionally referred to as "Goln Nova."
* ''Manga/SoulEater'':
** It's mainly Eruka, Americanizing (or Germanizing it, if you're picky about name origins) it could make variants like Elke or Elka, both being pronounced the same way.There shouldn't be any problem on this one, since it's meant to be an anagram of ''kaeru'', which means frog.
** Crona/Chrona/Krona...how do you spell it? Don't know, but most fans are too distracted with [[AmbiguousGender trying to determine what gender he/she is]] to care about the name.
* This occurs in-series in ''Literature/SoundEuphonium''. In the final episode, classmates give around luck trinkets that they made. A background character notes that they messed up her names romanization due to the l/r issue.
* Most fan translations of ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' initially rendered the main characters' names as "Craft" and "Horo," but the official English release has them written "Kraft" and "Holo". Kraft Lawrence also faced some initial confusion about which was his first name, since Lawrence can serve as both.
** Due to Holo's style of writing her name in cursive [[http://gallery.fanserviceftw.com/post/view/1653?search=korbo Korbo]] entered the debate as a meme.
** Further confusing the issue, Krafts name is spelled out as "Craft" on an envelope addressed to him in season 1 and the English version of ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'' uses the spelling [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/zhp/chars/snap311.jpg Horo]].
* ''Manga/{{Spiral}}'' has the Kanon(e) case: it's spelled "Kanone" in the anime and [[AllThereInTheManual one artbook]] (the character being non-Japanese), the Yen Press publication of the manga uses the phonetic transliteration and spells it "Kanon". There's also Kirie/Kyrie.
* Unlike many examples here that ignore ThemeNaming, the ''Anime/StrainStrategicArmoredInfantry'' fansubs initially ignored on-screen references to "Sara Cruz", calling her "Sara Crewe" ''because'' of the theme. There's also Ermy, who is supposed to be named after Ermengarde St. John, but whose name was on the fansubs as "Amy". And the fact that everyone's last name is a variation on that of their Hodgson Burnett counterpart (usually a SignificantAnagram) makes them somewhat clumsy and difficult to pronounce, so "Gelh", "Johannits", "Reberth" and "Shoebbeypower" had a lot of alternatives before they were written onscreen.
* ''LightNovel/SundayWithoutGod'' combines this with GenderBlenderName, which only adds to the confusion:
** First up is Julie Sakuma Dmitriyevich. Or is it Yuri? "Dmitriyevich" is about as Russian as you can get, but his given name in katakana is spelled differently (ユリー) than the Russian male name usually is (ユーリ). In fact, ユリー is usually how the feminine German name Julie is spelled in Japanese, and since "Sakuma" is a Japanese surname, it's likely his name is meant to be a combination of different ethnicities. For even more confusion, Crunchyroll and Hulu's official subtitles use "Julie," while Sentai's dub uses "Yuri." And that's not even getting into the name order differences (in short, his patronymic should come after his ''given'' name, not surname).
** Secondly, Alice Color. Or is it Alis? Crunchyroll's official subtitles and fansubs use "Alis," but in episodes 11 and 12 his name is shown on-screen as "Alice Color," and the subs on Sentai's BD/DVD release also use "Alice."
* Intentionally done in the American releases of ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'': the character Aeka is spelled as Ayeka, so the audience knows the vowels are pronounced separately. This has the unfortunate result that the name became even more badly mangled than it would have been if the original Romanisation had been used: ah-eh-ka became eye-yay-ka.
** An old VHS subtitled release of ''Universe'' called Ryoko "Royce" for reason...but only in the blurb on the back of the box. The actual episodes had the correct subtitles.
*** Fans, however, tend to spell Ryoko's name as "Ryouko"
** In one old picture of the Tenchi manga, Washu's name was spelled "Wasyu". And, like Ryoko above, fans tend to write her name as "Washuu"
* In ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', the official translation refers to the HumongousMecha as "Gunmen", confusing fans that had long since been calling them "Ganmen". Then there's the pronunciation of "Simon" (which is Romanized that way despite not being pronounced like the name Simon). The original uses "she-moan", while the dub uses "see-moan"; these both [[{{Narm}} lead to humor]] as they both sound dirty ''and'' like the girl's name "Simone"). There's also Rossiu/Rosshiu.
** Another thing is that the last word in the "[[CallingYourAttacks Giga Drill Break(er)" is "Breakah"]], leading to confusion as to whether it's suppose to be "Breaker" or just "Break".
** The difference between Gunmen and Ganmen may be a case of {{Woolseyism}}: "Ganmen" is Japanese for "Face" and refers to the fact that all of them have faces (some have two); Gunmen is an english pun.
** Later on, the [[spoiler: mass-produced mecha built from Gurren Lagann's schematics]] are translated as Grappal by one segment of the fandom, and as Gulaparl in another. Strangely, it has never been translated as the obvious "Grapple". It makes perfect sense with the katakana, and--bonus!--it's a word, like Gunmen, Drill Breaker, and the majority of the rest of the TTGL English. Regardlessly, the official name is "Grapearl".
*** The name of the mecha is sometimes given as an abbreviation of its status as a [[spoiler:"Gu"rren "La"gann "Pr"ototype]].
** It doesn't help that a lot of the names were romanized ''very'' differently then how they are pronounced, often to keep with ThemeNaming. For example Viral is the official Romanization even though it's pronounced "Vee-ral", and "Thymilph" (after "thymine") even though it's pronounced "TEE-Mil".
*** That sounds more a case of wrong pronunciation than wrong spelling, really.
*** You want wrong spelling? The Nyoro~N fansubs of TTGL spelled his name as "Chirumuf." Way to miss the point, guys.
** Then there's Yoko's village's name. Based on an in-universe alphabet and a bit of television footage of her winning a beauty contest of some sort, some concluded it was Rittonar; the official translation has gone with Littner.
** Lordgenome/Lord Genome (the former being his actual name) is something between this and IAmNotShazam. According to WordOfGod, it was ''supposed'' to be Lord Genome, but they changed it because they thought Japanese viewers would think his first name was Lord and his last name was Genome, rather than being a Lord named Genome.
*** Although it seems like having the word Lord in your name and not as a title [[RuleOfCool is pretty cool.]]
* ''[[Manga/RosarioToVampire Rosario + Vampire]]'' has a main character consistently labelled "Moka" on merchandise and in the show, and, as she's been passing as a human, she ''should'' have a Japanese-sounding name - still, her name is supposed to evoke "mocha", so some people just call her that.
* Creator/{{Tokyopop}} seems to like these.
** ''[[Franchise/DotHack .hack//]]'' has them in droves. Characters' names are phonetically spelled (Lios/"Ryos"), spelling idiosyncrasies are inconsistently used ("[=BlackRose=]"/"Black Rose"/"Blackrose"), character names are switched around...
** Besides not being able to decide which romanization system to use in ''Anime/KidouTenshiAngelicLayer'', they also referred to Ranga as "Lanka", despite the fact that her name can't even be ''written'' that way.
** The translators had to correct the name "Blanche" - they intended to use "Branchir". This was because the translator had completely missed the point that the angel is ALL WHITE.
** Tokyopop gave the name of the main character of the ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' spinoff manga ''G-Unit'' (''[[MarketBasedTitle Last Outpost]]'' in America) as "Odin Bernett", despite the fact that it appears as "Adin Barnett" in both merchandise and in the manga itself.
** The ultimate offender under their label has to be ''Manga/TokyoMewMew''. The girls' ThemeNaming presented a problem that the translators dealt with by calling, say, Minto/Mew Mint simply "Mint", Retasu/Mew Lettuce "Lettuce", et cetera. The AnimeChineseGirl, Hwang Bu-ling, found herself as both "Pudding Fong" (to match her super callsign, Mew Pudding) and "Fon Purin" (the katakana of her loan-word name; although most of her friends call her that, she refers to herself as Bu-ling, as does everyone capable of pronouncing Chinese names). The StalkerWithACrush, Quiche, whose name is actually ''supposed'' to be written in English, got "Kish" instead for no apparent reason. And don't even get me started on the ''weapons''; they had a different name every time they were used. (For the record, they're [[GratuitousEnglish quasi-English]] puns: Strawberbell [or Strawbellbell], Mintonarrow, Lettastanets, Puringrings, Zakuross.)
*** However, the ThemeNaming is not completely preserved in translation - while all of the girls have food names, some are katakana which are romanized to clarify their meaning in the English translation (as mentioned above, such as Mint and Lettuce) while others keep their original Japanese names (Ichigo and Zakuro, "Strawberry" and "Pomegranate" respectively) even though they are also named after food.
*** The fansubbers mostly make the same mistakes, with the exception of the aliens, whose names were basically just romaji-fied: Quiche = Kishu, Pie = Pai, and Tart = Taruto. The 4Kids Macekre ''Mew Mew Power'' threw ThemeNaming out the window and changed everyone's names anyway (Ichigo = Zoey/Mew Zoey, for instance). If you want to preserve the ThemeNaming, it would really be best for the girls' names to be Ichigo/Mew Strawberry, Minto/Mew Mint, Retasu/Mew Lettuce, Bu-Ling/Mew Pudding, and Zakuro/Mew Pomegranite.
** One of Tokyo Pop's early and most JustForFun/{{egregious}} errors was during their translation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'' in which one particular character's name was romanized (rather than translated properly) TWO DIFFERENT WAYS in the SAME ISSUE of the magazine.
** Tokyopop's release of ''Manga/RozenMaiden'' can't seem to keep Suigintou's name straight, changing the romanization sometimes multiple times within a single volume and sometimes just plain getting it wrong (what romanization system would call her Suiguintoh--or, perhaps even worse, Suigeintoh?). Her owner's name changes from Megu to Meg and back, and in a finishing touch of incompetence, when the dolls in the last volume begin to refer to each other by the colors of the roses they are associated with (Black Rose, etc.), Tokyopop chose to leave these untranslated. In case you wondered who the hell Kurobara, Shirobara, etc. are and what they have got to do with anything.
** The original version of ''[[Manga/FutureDiary Mirai Nikki]]'' has Yuno's nickname for Yukiteru written as ユッキ (Yukki), but the official localization romanizes it to "Yuki" (which in katakana would be ユキ, without the consonant-delaying ッ).
* ''Manga/TorakoAnmariKowashichaDameDaYo'' features among its case a girl named Megumi Udou. While Megumi's real name is cut and dry, the trope comes in with her nickname. She is nicknamed for the fact she has a vibrator in her at nearly all times. As a result, depending on which translation you're reading at the moment, she'll typically be called either "Bullet" or "Rotor".
* ''Manga/{{Touch}}'' has Kazuya Uesugi. Fan-translators can't seem to decide whether it's Kazuya or Katsuya. How this became an issue with the manga, at least, is unknown; the furigana given for the kanji of his name is かずや—Kazuya.
* ''Manga/TowardTheTerra'' mostly isn't too bad about this, but the official English subtitles do have a few odd quirks thanks to having all names taken directly from the translation of the manga, which was done well before the anime was made and without any kind of pronunciation guide. Most notably, Jonah Matsuka's name is officially translated as "Makka," an error stemming from confusion about the use of the small "tsu" character.
* Many Japanese ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' names suffer from this, and it's a running gag within the fandom. Deathsaurus (used by Hasbro and Shout Factory's subs of the Victory anime)/Deszaras (Used by Takara and used in Madman's subs for the Victory anime)/Deathsanras (used by Omni Productions' HongKongDub)/[[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Deathsaurus Debt Source (if you're in a particularly snarky mood)]] is a key example, as is Minerva/Minelba/[[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Minerva jailbait]]. There is also Bardigus/Vuldigus/Barudigasu, a misspelling of "Bruticus," the Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 character Ruination is basically a PaletteSwap of.
** ''Desuzarasu'', the literal Japanese pronunciation of Deszaras, sounds much closer to the Japanese word ''karasu'' (for "crow") than "saurus" (which would be ''saurusu'' in Japanese). It's definitely not meant to be Deathsaurus, even if that's the official American romanization now... is what people thought, until [=BotCon=] 2015, where someone finally thought to just ask designer Koujin Ohno what the name was supposed to be, and he explicitly broke it down as "death" plus "saurus." Sometimes things are just weird.
** Also, Violen Jigar/Violent Jaguar/Violenjiga/Violent Jigga/Violent Chigger/Bio Ranger Iga/Vio Lenja Igar/Violin Juggler. Humorously, Bio Ranger Iga and Violent Chigger were used as alternate timeline counterparts of the character in the Ask Vector Prime Facebook page.
** Illumina II has "IRUMINA II" written on its side.
** Beating them all is Rartorata/Rartorarta/Rartalarta/Roto-Rooter/Ratatouille/Nancy, who has the drawback that his name is a "nonsense word" to begin with. (It ''may'' be from the scientific name for a lionfish.)
*** Leave it to Injector to get a Japanese name as weird as the rest of him!
* The Roman alphabet name of the mage character from ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' is officially "Fay D Flourite". Every part of that is its own kind of translation headache.
** Based on the katakana pronunciation (rhyming with "eye" and "lie"), his personal name was initially spelled "Fye" (in early volumes of the English manga) or Fai (in fan forums).
** There is no period after "D" because it's an infixed title (for "royal sorceror"), not an initial for a middle name.
** His surname was interpreted as "Flowright" in early volumes of the official English manga, based on the katakana pronunciation. The WordOfGod spelling is itself erroneous, as the name refers to the mineral ''fluorite'', the sacred crystal in his wizard's staff.
* ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'' has Arcadia/Acadia (the name of a country and the surname of its royal family), Lisesharte/Lizsharte, Krulcifer/Kurulucifer Einfolk/Einvolk, Celistia/Celestia, Philuffy/Philphie, Shalice Baltshift/Sharis Bartshift, Tillfur/Tillfar, Noct/Nokuto, and Barzeride/Balzeride. Some of these are officially confirmed in light novel illustrations that contain the English text: "Lisesharte Atismata", "Krulcifer Einfolk", "Celistia Ralgris", "Philuffy Aigram" and "Airi Arcadia". However, some translations still use the incorrect versions of the names .
* The {{hentai}} OVA ''Urotsukidouji'' features a German villain whose name is probably supposed to be "Münchhausen", but when the Japanese try to pronounce it it comes out as "Myunhihauzen" (which does not sound German at all), and this pronunciation carried over into the American dub.
* ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'':
** It has a single-appearance character with the name ベリアル (Beriaru). This is based on the Hebrew term "Belial", but in the story where this character appears, he considers Ataru's VSign to be his initial, because of the B / V ambiguity in transcription of Latin characters to kana. Animeigo's subtitles render the name as "Velial", whereas Viz's translation of the manga used the completely different name "Virility".
** While the main female character's name is clearly spelled out "Lum", some international translations preferred referring to her as "Lamu" (such as an English dub aired in the Philippines).
* In ''[[Manga/ViolinistOfHameln The Violinist of Hamelin]]''... or is it "Hameln"? Perhaps just "Hamel"? In the anime, the fansubs can never decide. This is because in the manga, the hero ''Hamel'' is heading north to the demon capitol ''Hamelin'', in reference to the fairy tale ''The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The anime, however, left the northern capitol out almost entirely, never calling it by name. This lead the fansubbers to call Hamel "Hameln" in the subtitles because they have no idea what the title is referring to, and the main character is their best bet. The word in the title is spelled "hamerun", but the character's name is clearly pronounced "hameru" without the "n". Because of the overall musical theme with some mythology mixed in, there was a lot of theme naming, so the franchise didn't suffer much otherwise, except for a few things: Trom Bone (or is it one word, Trombone? The world may never really know, though it seems to be two officially) has a sword attack that's called the "Scissor Slash" at times and (hilariously) "Jesus Slash" at others. The BigBad of the series suffers at times too: his Japanese name, Maou Kesutora, is a pun on "orchestra," as "maou" is the word for the ruler of the demons (essentially, Satan) and "oukesutora" is the Japanese transliteration of "orchestra." The pun is lost to the English-speaking audience, however, so which is it: Chestra or Kestra? Most people seem to agree on "Chestra," but it hops all over the place.
* Maiko of ''Manga/WanderingSon'' is translated as that according to fans however one scene of the manga had her name written in english as "Mai''c''o".
* In the ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' fandom it's not uncommon for people to write the title as [="WeiB Kreuz"=], apparently mistaking the Eszett (Sharp S) for a stylized capital B. For the record, ß = ss, so "Weiss Kreuz". Also, on occasion "Schwarz" (German for "Black") gets written as "Schwartz" which is either 1) a surname derived from a German nickname for someone with black hair or a dark complexion; apparently a combination of Schwarz and the Yiddish Shvarts (meaning dark or black) or 2) [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} The Schwartz]]
* While the names of the characters in ''Manga/TheWorldIsStillBeautiful'' have fairly straightforward romanizations, this still happens:
** Livius' uncle, who depending on the media, is translated as Bardouin, Bardwin, and Baldwin. The Crunchyroll translators go with the Bardwin, to better reflect his role as a wandering minstrel prior to his return to the kingdom.
** Kitora vs Kitra. Kitora is how both names are written and pronounced in Japanese. Most manga scanlators use Kitra while most anime subs use Kitora.
* ''Manga/{{Working}}'' has Popura/Poplar. She does state she was named (ironically) after the poplar tree, yet official media for the show gives her name as "Popura", since her name is not written the way the word "poplar" is written in Japanese.
* ''Manga/XamdLostMemories'' (亡念のザムド) seems to have various different spellings for "ザムド" which is romanicized as "Zamudo", but ends up translated as "Xam'd" in English and "Xamdou" or "Zamned" in Japanese.
* In the French translation of ''Manga/YoureUnderArrest'' by Pika Édition, in chapter 2, the woman in the Mercedes 300SL tries to avoid getting a ticket by claiming that her father is a member of parliament. Natsumi jokingly responds that her father is "the great wrestler Haruku Hogan" (should be Hulk Hogan).
** It also spells the name of automobile manufacturer Mazda as Matsuda.
** Not a proper name, but in chapter 56 it rendered "trick or treat" as "torikk oa toriiitt" due to round-trip transliteration.
* ''Manga/YourLieInApril'' has Kaori's name example. Kaori's is usually romanized as "Kaori" but in Japanese, instead of "かおり／カオリ", it's spelled "かをり” which is romanized as "Kawori" and it's even romanized that way in episode 11 on a sign on Kaori's door saying "Kawori's room".
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'' averts this with the character of Ishizu. While it's often thought that her name was originally Isis (Ishisu in Japanese pronunciation), her name actually is Ishizu in both Japanese and English. It was probably just supposed to be a vaguely Egyptian-sounding name, and the similarity to Isis was most likely merely coincidental.
** Meanwhile, the big bad of the Battle City story arc has his named rendered as "Marik", rather than "Malik" (which is an Arabic word meaning "ruler").
** Dear God, with most of the cards in the Japanese (OCG) version of the [[TabletopGame/YuGiOh card game]] have English names as opposed to native Japanese ones by this point in time, it's a miracle the translations don't come as garbled text when they are localized as far as names go, considering the series's lack of a grasp on the English language. The "Koa'ki Meiru" archetype as known in the English (TCG) version could also be romanized as "Core Chimail" or "Core Chimera", and if you want it push it overboard try "Coral Shemale". It's thought to be "Core Chimail" as a portmanteau of "Core" (Koa), "Chimera" (Kimeira) and "Mail" (Meiru).
*** Try cards with made up fantasy names to begin with having arguably no proper romanization. Northwemko, Norsewenko (official name: "Divine Grace - Northwemko", romanised "Nōsuwemuko"), Catlepolpas, Cat O' Bell Paws. The second one there (romanized "Katoburepasu") is almost certainly supposed to be Catoblepas. It's a creature from Greek mythology. (And the card is officially called "Catoblepas and the Witch of Fate" anyway). Additionally, cards with generic names like "Dryad" end up broken down into katakana in the English version and become "Doriado". According to an employee of Upper Deck Entertainment, [[http://www.pojo.biz/board/showpost.php?p=1943645&postcount=1 this was actually not a mistranslation]].
** In ''Yu-Gi-Oh'''s {{fanfic}}-writing fanbase, this transliteration discrepancy [[FanNickname is conventionally dealt with]] by calling Yami Ma(r/l)ik "Marik" and normal Ma(r/l)ik "Malik."
*** Doujin refer to Atem as either Atemu or Otome quite commonly, even though Atem is the name of an actual Egyptian god (usually spelled Atum, though can also be spelled Atem or Tem).
** Also, Jonouchi/Jounouchi/Jyonouchi/Jyonochi/etc. due to different romanization schemes. In one episode of the anime, his name was actually written in English letters as Jyonouchi Katsuya.
** Similar to the Isis/Ishizu example above, Seto (the priest from Atem's time, not Seto Kaiba)'s name is a literal romanisation of the Egyptian god Set (which is a victim of this trope in itself, being alternatively spelled Seth, Setesh, Sutekh, Setekh or Suty). They kept it as "Seto" in the English dub presumably to fit the mouth movements.
** The Italian translation of the manga fucks up a lot, giving pearls like "Happy"[[note]]Harpie[[/note]], "Dynausor"[[note]]Dinosaur[[/note]], "Weburn"[[note]]Wyvern[[/note]] and "Kierce Haward"[[note]]Keith Howard[[/note]].
** Also, the "Des" cards (Des Accelerator, Des Chironex, Des Frog, Des Koala, Des Lacooda, Des Wombat, Des Croaking, Des Kangaroo, Des Counterblow, Des Volstgalph, Viser Des, Des Dendle, Des Mosquito). These names don't make a lot of sense unless you realise that it's supposed to be "Death".
** Also, Buster Rancher is clearly supposed to be Buster ''Launcher''.
** The name of the villain from the Doma Arc who uses Guardians is properly spelled "Rafael", not "Raphael"; the two spellings are often confused among fans because the second is far more common.
** A quite literal example in the case of Nesbitt, one of the Big Five. Many sources spell his name "Nesbitt" (to the point that it's spelled that way in the fanmade song "Super Giga Mecha Nesbitt"), but a video game spells it "Nezbitt". Similarly, the fifth of the Big Five sometimes has his name spelled Lector, while the game spells his name Leichter, leaving some confusion as to the true spelling of their names.
* On the ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' side of things, there are at least two people in the world who think that Yubel's name is actually supposed to be Juwel, as in the German word for jewel. (Remember that in German, J's sound like Y's and W's sound like V's.) Considering that ''all'' of her alternate forms also have German names, this might not be too far off base.
** Also in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', Edo Phoenix's name is written out with English letters in the anime many times. Despite this, some fansubbing groups still spell his name as Ed Phoenix.
* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' Gets even worse in terms of this, as when it comes to the HalfIdenticalTwins, the fandom, the anime, and the dub all have differing opinions. Consistently inconsistent, and English spellings in the Japanese anime spell the names as Lua and Luka, while they're pronounced as Rua and Ruka. The dub doesn't help matters, switching the names to Leo and Luna. Trouble is, another character shows up later who ''is'' named Leo in the original anime. While most fans agree on Rua and Ruka, the inconsistency is splattered all over the place.
** In all fairness, the Japanese version of the show showed their names written down on their entry form as "Lua" and "Luca".
** At least one fansub has an infuriating tendency to completely ignore on-screen spellings of character names, even though the same spellings are used consistently multiple times throughout the series. Thus we get Jack Atlas instead of the correct Jack Atlus, Bomber instead of the correct Bommer, Rex Godwin instead of Rex Goodwin, and so on.
* And then we get to ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'', with its introduction of Excess... err, ''Exceed''... no, wait, '''''[[WordOfGod Xyz]]''''' Monsters.
** The name of the world whence all the evil people come is spelled out on-screen in the series as "Varian", and cards related to it have the letter V in their name (e.g. [=CNo=]. 39 Kibō'ō Hope Ray V/Number C39: Utopia Ray V). Yet all fansubs and Wikis insist on using "Barian" for some reason.
** Yuma's rival's name is spelled Kaito in the Japanese anime (whenever his name is written on-screen), though the dub spells and pronounces it Kite. Similarly, his brother is officially Haruto in Japan, but Hart in English.
** The names of Mr Heartland's two underlings (who later undergo a HeelFaceTurn) are... interesting. Ostensibly, they're named after the French words for left and right, Gauche and Droit, but officially, according to on-screen text in the Japanese version of the anime, their names are Goshu and Dolowa - though at one point Gauche's name was spelled Gauche on-screen in the anime, further complicating things. Fansubbers often spell Dolowa's name as Droite, even though that doesn't match the pronunciation (since the t is silent, it should be Droit - Droite would have the t pronounced according to French pronunciation rules). The dub completely changed their names to Nistro and Dextra respectively.
** Different sources can't agree on whether [[spoiler:Shark]]'s true name should be Nash or Nasch. Similar things happen with the other Varians: Gilag or Girag? Alit, Alito or Arito? The dub uses Girag and Alito, but fan spellings are all over the place, and the anime itself spells their names as Gilag and Arito.
** In Japan, the Number cards are called Numbers (Nanbāzu), even when it's being used in the singular. Fansubs are divided as to whether to always sub it "Numbers" (consistent with the Japanese pronunciation), i.e. "one Numbers, two Numbers" or to sub it as "Number" when being used in the singular and "Numbers" when in plural, i.e. "one Number, two Numbers". (For instance, Number 39: Utopia is written as Ｎｏ．３９ 希望皇ホープ in Japanese, pronounced "Numbers Sanjūkyū Kibō'ō Hope".)
** ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' has Serena, whose name is always spelled "Serena" whenever it appears on-screen in the anime. There are still fansubs who insist on spelling it Selena, even in episodes where ''the character's name is clearly displayed on screen''.
** The official spellings of Yuya's counterparts' names are Ute, Hyugo and Joeri. Fans tend to opt for Yuuto, Yuugo and Yuuri instead, partly because the official spellings look weird and partly because it emphasises their connection to Yu(u)ya.
* ''Anime/YukiYunaIsAHero'': Yuuki Yuuna or Yuki Yuna? Togo, Togou, or Tougou? The official title at least cleared up Yuna's name.
* For much of ''Manga/{{Yuureitou}}'' a characters name was thought to be "Rika" by fans. It wasn't until near the end people came to the conclusion it was "Reiko".
* ''Franchise/{{Zoids}}'' has ''tons'' of this in pretty much every series.
** Van/Ban, Fiona/Feene, and Zeek/Zeke/Zeeg are just off the top of my head (and I'm sure that Zeek has more names than that, including some starting with a "J").
*** Judging by the dialogue in one episode (and the katakana spelling), Fiona's name is actually meant to be 'Fine' (the Italian word for "end").
*** The Schubaltz/Schuvaltz brothers should apparently be named "Schwartz".
*** Reese has at least ''half a dozen'' different names (''without'' taking ones starting with an "L" into account, mind you!), and no two sources seem to use the same one.
*** There are at least ''thirty four'' different spellings of Rease's name, including Reeza, Lieze, Riis and Rysse. The "official" spelling is Rease (it appears in the game ''VideoGame/ZoidsLegacy'', as well as on the box of a Japanese figurine), but nobody seems to use that one.
** There's also Leena/Rinon (the former is used in English in the show) and Brad/Ballad
** Nobody seems to be sure how to spell Re Mii's name in Genesis. The subbed version never quite decided between Garaga/Galaga.
** It even happens occasionally with Zoids themselves (despite their names being written in English on the model kit boxes).
*** Is it Heldigunner or Hel Digunner, and is there supposed to be a second "l" there?
*** It's spelled 'Heldigunner' for the 1989 model, but 'Hel Digunner' for the 1999 model.
*** Possibly the most ridiculous is 'Sabretiger' (1986) versus 'Saber Tiger' (1999), which are spelled differently in both English and katakana. And don't even get me started on Gojulas The Ogre versus Godzullas G Orga...
* ''Anime/SandsOfDestruction'' has a couple examples. In most cases, the American game is taken as the "official" canon for English-speakers, with TheAnimeOfTheGame and the later manga adaptation seen as AlternateContinuity:
** TheHero is named キリエ・イルニス (Kirie Irunisu). The English game renders this is Kyrie Illunis, while a Japanese trailer romanized his given name as Kylie. The Funimation dub renders his last name Illnis, which unfortunately sounds like "illness".
** His LoveInterest is named モルテ・アシェラ (Morute Āshera). All official translations agree her name is Morte, though this doesn't stop a couple of fans from insisting on spelling it Morute instead. The game spells her last name Asherah (some fans drop the final H), while the anime dub spells it Urshella.
** The AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal is トッピ・トプラン (Toppī Topuran). His given name has been spelled Taupy (English game), Toppi (anime subtitles), and Toppy (Japanese trailer), while his surname is either Toplan or Topuran.
** The RedheadInGreen アガン・マードル (Agan Mādoru) got off easy: everyone agrees his first name is Agan, and the only time his last name is given is in the game, where it's spelled Mardrus (despite "Mardol" or "Mardor" being a more literal translation; he seems to have skipped the Religious and Mythological Theme Naming so many of the other characters got, so there's not even a Western frame of reference for his name).
** The DraconicHumanoid is リ・ア・ドラグネル (Ri A Doragunēru). The game gives this as Rhi'a Dragunel, though the anime and one Japanese trailer (and some fans) spell her first name Lia. Other fans preserve the PunctuationShaker and call her Li'a or Li-a.
** The HalfHumanHybrid is ナジャ・グレフ (Naja Gurefu). The game translates it as Naja Gref, though the anime spells his first name Nadja and some fans spell his last name Guref or Gurefu.
** The team the {{Villain Protagonist}}s belong to is the 世界撲滅委員会 (Sekai Bokumetsu Iinkai). The game translates this as World Annihilation Front, while the anime and unofficial manga {{Scanlation}} call it the World Destruction Committee. In a departure from "game as canon" thinking, the anime is considered more correct by fans - partly because it's a more literal translation of the kanji, and partly because the Japanese name of the franchise is ワールド・デストラクション[[note]]World Destruction[[/note]]. However, fans are less likely to cause backdraft over the two because it ''does'' create a tidy distinction compared to the {{Hero Antagonist}}s, the World Salvation Committee: you can easily talk about "the Front" and "the Committee" and readily distinguish the two without typing out as many words.
* ''Manga/{{Aruosumente}}'': Is it Legna (which makes more sense, as that'd be [[SdrawkcabName Angel spelled backwards]], incidentally also the protagonist's InSeriesNickname) or Reguna? Artian or Aleutian? Lante or Rante? Deberto or Deebert? Rucetta or Richter? The only ones not plagued by this problem seem to be Dante and Jasmin.
* Even the title of a series gets this. There are quite a few people who insist that ''Manga/MonochromeFactor'' should be spelled ''Monocrome Factor'', because one Japanese shounen-ai manga (which was known for "fashionably" romanising titles) spelled it that way once - their argument being "It's the first Japanese magazine that gave the title in romaji, so that must be the official spelling".
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** The Thousand Year Blood War Arc has suffered much less from translation lag [[note]]Viz is now only 8 months behind the Japanese releases[[/note]] but the prevalence of [[GratuitousGerman shaky use of German]] has still resulted in confusion.