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Inconsistent Spelling / Video Games

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    Final Fantasy 
  • Final Fantasy V:
    • The main character, known in Japanese as Butz, has received two different Clean Dub Names: Bartz in the games proper, and Batz in the sequel OVA.
    • The Big Bad, Exdeath, was X-Death in the PlayStation translation. In several cameo appearances, including one in Final Fantasy XII, the name "Exodus" is used.
    • Most infamously, Faris' real name, Sarisa, was mistranslated as Salsa on the PlayStation.
    • Final Fantasy V went a long time without an official translation, and fans tended to disagree on what the English equivalent of the name "Kururu" was. The PlayStation translation used Cara, but all subsequent official releases have used Krile.
    • The PlayStation translation also had Lenna as Reinanote , Dorgann as Drogan, Kelger as Kelga, and Xexat as Zeza.
    • There has long been debate over Gilgamesh's "bad" sword equivalent of Excalibur. The first game it appeared in was Final Fantasy V, but the first translation of this was in Final Fantasy VIII, in which they chose "Excalipoor", a name that made sense considering the horrible quality of the weapon. They later flipped back and forth on using "Excalipoor" and "Excalipur", though they appear to have finally settled on the former.
  • One of the examples of Ted Woolsey's video game translations is the comic recurring enemy Ultros from Final Fantasy VI, who was originally named Orthros. Square Enix seems to go back and forth on whether to keep it or not. A reference to him as a mark in Final Fantasy XII and his appearance as an Optional Boss in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and the GBA and PSP versions of Final Fantasy use "Orthros," but when the GBA version of Final Fantasy VI came out in America with a fresh script, they went back to "Ultros."
    • Another name issue in FFVI is the Atma/Ultima weapon. While Ultima makes sense for all the future games and is therefore now the standard, Atma actually still works because it refers to the soul in Hindi. Therefore, a boss that has its lifeforce entirely in magic would make sense being a soul weapon. However, Atma Weapon was obviously only chosen for space considerations, and only appeared in the SNES version of FFVI where "Ultima Weapon" wouldn't fit. "Atma" doesn't even match the katakana for "Ultima." It's even lampooned in Final Fantasy X-2, where the bestiary entry for Ultima Weapon chides the player, "Whatever you do, don't call it Atma."
      • There is now a type of object in the Final Fantasy XI Abyssea add-ons called an Atma, possibly combining a Shout-Out with the Hindu meaning.
    • Note that Square Enix officially romanizes "Kefka" as "Cefca" (Japanese materials to this day maintain the spelling), but the name is always changed to "Kefka" overseas. It's a very strange case because in Japanese, the hard C needed for this sound would be "ke" and the kana supports "Kefka." Unlike the Aerith/Aeris example, they've continued to leave his name alone in non-Japanese localizations. This was lampshaded in the GBA translation: at a certain point in the game, one of the guards in Figaro Castle will talk about how a certain faction of the Cult of Kefka argue about whether to spell Kefka's name with Ks (as in Kefka) or Cs (as in Cefca).
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • "Aeris vs. Aerith" is a Trope Codifier that can spawn enough debate to melt the polar icecaps. It is always romanized as "Aerith" in Japanese and used internationally in more current works, and some fans even use Earisu (the phonetic transliteration of the Japanese writing, エアリス). Aerith was subsequently chosen as a romanization because it sounds like "earth" when romanized, something that Word of God confirmed at the time of the game's release in Japan. "Aeris" was chosen for the first English release because Sony handled the English release and their team felt it sounded betternote . Things got complicated by Square (later Square Enix) once they took over localization of their own titles again — by the time of Kingdom Hearts, Square had switched it back to "Aerith" outside of Japan. Some fans (including the ones editing Wikipedia and Final Fantasy Wiki) have struck a sort of compromise and use "Aeris" in regards to the game Final Fantasy VII and "Aerith" when referring to all other games she appears in. It doesn't help that "Aeris" is a Latin word with many other connotations that could be reasonably applied to the character, though these were unintentional since even the Japanese developers intended to get the "earth" homophone (and early concept art shows other spellings such as "Erith"). The name can also be romanized as "Alice", "Aerys", or "Alys", but Aerith was chosen because of the "Earth" pun.
    • In Castilian Spanish, Sephiroth was spelled "Sefirot," which is the Spanish name for the Kabbalah term the character is named after (Sephirot or Səphîrôṯ). However, just like with Aerith, Square Enix's localization team changed his name to the Japanese Romanization in later games.
    • There are multiple signs in Tifa's bar which give her name as "Tyfer." And is her last name Lockhart or Lockheart?
    • Barret (Baretto) is a play on the Japanese pronunciation of "Bullet." His name is spelled "Barrett" in some material, including the demo release (which itself has an obvious Meaningful Name connotation, as the spelling used by the gun manufacturer). It even appears as "Bullet" in some early translations and "Ballet" in the game's code and debug room.
    • The truck stolen by Aeris when getting the team out of Midgar has "Midgul Motor Vehicles" written on the side. "Midgul" appears several times around Midgar in various places in the backdrops.
  • Several characters in Final Fantasy II, mostly due to Character Name Limits:
    • "Mingwu" eventually settled on "Minwu", and the Origins release changed Guy's name to "Gus" for some reason.
    • Ricard Highwind has had his name bounced around constantly. Even ignoring the outright name changes, he's "Richard" in Dissidia Final Fantasy, and a Mythology Gag in the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV gives the name of Kain's father as "Richard", alluding to a Dawn of Souls Mythology Gag naming the child Ricard acts as an adoptive father to "Kain."
  • In Final Fantasy IX, the main character Zidane has been a strong victim of this trope. His name is meant to be "Gitan," which is French for "gypsy." And in the French version, his name was changed to Djidane because Zidane is the name of France's most popular football (soccer) player. For the same reasons, he's called "Yitán" in the Spanish translation.
    • It doesn't stop there for FFIX — many Mythology Gags were ruined thanks to inconsistent translations.
      • The location romanized as "Gurugu" in Japanese is obviously a reference to the volcano from Final Fantasy. The translation used "Mount Gulug", which matches neither "Gurgu"note  nor "Gulg"note .
      • The name of Eiko's Eidolon, Madeen, is supposed to be a reference to the Esper Maduin from Final Fantasy VI (both are romanized as "Madin" in Japanese).
      • The boss "Hilgigars" is clearly supposed to be "Hill Gigas", a recurring enemy in the series.
  • The Final Fantasy games set in Ivalice started out with a lot of this, sometimes in the same game. As of the re-translations it's mostly cleared up, generally for the better.
    • The most famous example being the original release of Final Fantasy Tactics. The queen is most frequently referred to as Ruvelia, but occasionally the pronunciation is inverted to Luveria. The latter is chosen for the rerelease, but spelled as "Louveria." And don't get the fanbase started on Tietra/Teta, Orran/Olan, Zalbaag/Zalbag, Isilud/Izlude...
    • Bonus points for Omdoria/Omdolia, where it's possible to see both names on the same screen.
  • From Final Fantasy Adventure, a combination of Japanese Ranguage and the translator not really doing the proper research managed to corrupt the name of one of the bosses, Ifrit, into "Iflyte." The "Iflyte" misspelling also showed up in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Other Examples

  • Action 52 has a game called Bubblegum Rosy, as spelled on game selection. Or Rossie on a player select screen. Or Rosie in a manual.
  • Another Code: Ashley's last name varies between "Robins" and "Robbins". The original PAL releases of the duology, as well as the international version of Recollection, uses the former. Meanwhile, the NTSC release of Trace Memory uses the latter, with this spelling carrying over into some other appearances, such as her Spirit in the North American version of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • The Atelier Series gets a whole helping of a ton of the issues mentioned on the main page, featuring both a character with the katakana of "Norudisu" (leading Tokyopop to spell it as both "Nordith" and "Nordis" during the print run of the Atelier Marie & Elie spin-off manga) and the fact that the setting for the first three games (if not many of the others) is a variation on Renaissance Germany, with many words being pronounced in a kind of pseudo-Gratuitous German fashion. Gust Inc., makers of the games, like to call the principality "Salburg" (and even run a website with that name); Tokyopop goes with "Zarlburg" due to the katakana used to represent the German pronunciation of "s".
  • Lisa from Backyard Sports has a last name that has been said to be either Crocket or Crockett. Neither of which are meaningful. Even the developers aren't sure.
  • Baldur's Gate, in the original English with no translation involved, can't decide (in the dialogues) whether its Big Bad Wannabe is called "Rieltar" or "Reiltar" Anchev. When you actually see him, it's "Rieltar".
  • Beyond the Beyond, Camelot's pre-Golden Sun RPG, has a couple of instances of spelling confusion:
    • One of the Secret Characters is supposed to be named Lorelei, but Character Name Limits only allow for six letters, so her name is rendered in-game with the "i" removed (and in an official screenshot without the second "e").
    • Tont's thunder-elemental summon spirit is named "Tolle", when it ought to be "Thor" as he strikes the ground with a hammer that resembles Mjölnir.
  • BlazBlue:
    • As Guilty Gear's Creator-Driven Successor, BlazBlue did something similar with its installments in regards to how character names are displayed on the character select screen (see that entry below), the Murakumo Units notwithstanding. Calamity Trigger used hyphens like GGXX, inserting them between not only given names and surnames but also rendering Hakumen's name as "Haku-men" (which led to a large number of players thinking that's how his name was spelled for quite a while despite nowhere else in the game following suit). All titles starting with Continuum Shift switched to equal signs (or, more accurately, double hyphens) for the same general effect (ex. Ragna=The=Bloodedge, Jin=Kisaragi, Iron=Tager, Litchi=Faye=Ling, Celica=A=Mercury, etc.). Note that it wouldn't be until Central Fiction (the fourth entry) that Hakumen's name would finally be unhyphenated whereas characters like Taokaka and Hazama had no such problems from the beginning. The crossover spin-off Cross Tag Battle also retains the equal signs, but only for the BlazBlue characters.
    • One file within Continuum Shift is an unused character name graphic◊ which reads "Tubaki Yayoi", a misromanization of Tsubaki Yayoi's name due to how the "tsu" sound is often transliterated from Japanese.
  • Bleach: Brave Souls has two instances where character names differ from the source material's official translation. While Moe had just a minor change to his first name ("Moeh"), Ulquiorra's last name was inexplicably changed from "Cifer" to "Shifar".
  • Bomberman:
    • A recurring villain in the series is Bagular/Bauglar/Buggler. While all are legitimate translations of the name "Bagura," Hudson Soft seemed to have a hard time picking which one to go with. The confusion only gets worse when two games were released at the same time (Bomberman Hero and Bomberman World), each one referring to the character by a different name... or two (Hero had both of the first two spellings).
    • Bomberman Fantasy Race has the name as Bugglar in the credits in both English and Japanese. The translators chose to translate it as Burglar, however for whatever reason.
    • The Dummied Out boss select room in Bomberman '94 spelled it "Buglear."
  • Brandish:
    • The series Hot Witch poster girl is commonly known to English-speaking audiences as Dela Delon. When Falcom remade the first game for the PlayStation Portable as Brandish: The Dark Revenant and XSEED Games handled the localization, her name was instead given as Dora Doran... which somewhat better matches the katakana from the Japanese release (ドーラ・ドロン). note 
    • Another notable character from the original trilogy is Umber, a female fighter who debuted as a boss in Brandish 2: The Planet Buster before becoming playable in Spirit of Balcan. While none of the Brandish installments past the original and its remake made it out of Japan, there exist two separate Fan Translations of the second game. On very rare occasions will you see her name spelled as Umbar (not to be confused with the Middle-Earth port city), while the katakana used in-game (アンバー・ガルシア, Anbā Garushia) suggests her name should've been Amber, furthered by the fact that her theme in the third game is titled "Stay Gold" — indicating some color-based wordplay that was Lost in Translation. Her surname (Garcia) is sometimes given as "Galsia" as well, not unlike the Garcia/Galsia issue in Streets of Rage (a comparison that would also be made in a weekly digest by Anime News Network from 2011 covering how Falcom held a poll that year to determine which three female characters from its stable of IPs would be immortalized as Nendoroid figures to celebrate the company's 30th anniversary*).
    • The fourth game, Brandish VT, features a White Magician Girl whose name is given in katakana as クレール, which typically is rendered in English as Claire/Clair. Though pixiv Encylopedia's entries for both Brandish VT* and the character herself* do indeed translate to Claire, Hardcore Gaming 101's article covering the game and an unfinished fan translation go with Clare. There's also a reverse example present where one character's name is "officially" Garahad. Naturally, a large number of fans ignore this and call him Galahad instead.
  • Bubble Symphony aka Bubble Bobble II: Its flyer stated the name for the orange female bubble dragon as "Cururun."◊ The game itself says it's "Kululun."◊ Chalk one up to C/K and R/L confusion, though there's a reason to avoid trusting the flyer anyway.
  • Castlevania can beat you over the head with this one if you're not careful.
  • Despite being an English-language series, Command & Conquer suffers from this. Character names are often not consistently spelled in the manuals, credits and in-game tooltips. Shephard/Sheppard, Slavik/Slavic and even the incorrect spelling of CABAL as KABAL in the credits of Tiberian Sun, even though it's an acronym.
  • Compile's little round mascot has appeared under two different names: Randar (Golvellius: Valley of Doom) and Lander (The Guardian Legend).
  • One of the four heroes of Crisis Beat is Keneth Kurova. No, NOT Kenneth, there's only one "N" in his name. Maybe it's because the character is Russian.
  • Viktor Vektor, V's friend and ripperdoc in Cyberpunk 2077, has multiple spellings of his name: His given name is either "Viktor" or "Victor", while his second name is either "Vektor" or "Vector". It's spelled "Victor Vector" on his tattoo and "Viktor Vektor" in the contacts menu/V's phone, but the official artbook takes the cake because it spells his name as "Vicktor." Further confusing matters, the in-game character glossary spells it as both "Viktor Vector" and "Viktor Vektor." Sebastian Kalemba, the head of animation at CD Projekt and Viktor's face model, said that "It's Victor in the passport and ID and Viktor for friends." His article on the Cyberpunk Wiki went with "Viktor Vector."
  • Darkstalkers:
    • Lord Raptor's name is spelled "Lord Rapter" in the third game, Vampire Savior. Despite being a Japanese game, this is a purely Western example; Lord Raptor's name in the Japanese version is named Zabel Zarock.
    • Le Malta, Raptor's underling/companion, gets hit with this trope as well, occasionally being rendered as "Le Marta" or "La Malta." There's also some confusion as to whether or not there's a space in his name, though "Le Malta" is generally accepted as the correct spelling over "LeMalta."
  • The Detectives United series is a bit inconsistent as to whether James's last name is Blackthorne or Blackthorn.
  • To go with the franchise's notoriety for Inconsistent Dub, the Digimon games also dip into this. For example, in the early games up to late 2000s/early 2010s, a green-colored, goblin-based Digimon is called Goburimon in English, only to then be spelled as Goblimon in later games (yet certain occurences also have the former name used).
    • For one jarring example, the English version of Digimon World Dawn uses the name Rekisumon during its only enemy encounter (it is an evolved Starter Mon owned by the player's opposing version rival). Anywhere else, even when owned by the player in that game (or Dusk), it is spelled Lekismon.
  • Prier/Priere from the Disgaea and La Pucelle games. Her name is only spelled with the last "e" in the former, where she appears as an Optional Boss. Not helping the situation at all is that both versions work within the Theme Naming of the series (Prier = "To Pray," Priere = "Prayer").
  • Double Dragon:
    • The first NES game has an enemy character whose name spelled in Rowper in-game (as well as in the Japanese flyer) and Lopar in the manual. (In fact, the manuals for the PC versions, used this spelling as well.) In reality, the spelling is actually meant to be Roper, after a supporting character from the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon, as the other recurring enemy character in the game is called Williams, making them Williams and Roper. It doesn't help that Battletoads & Double Dragon actually uses the spellings Lopar and Roper for two unrelated enemy characters, one of them being a misnamed version of the first game's final boss Machine Gun Willy.
    • Marian (the Lee brothers's girlfriend) had her name spelled Marion in the third NES game. In the manual for the Master System port of the first game, she went by Mary-Anne instead.
    • The manual for the Neo Geo game refers to Burnov and Dulton as "Blunov" and "Dalton" respectively.
  • Dragon Quest:
    • Dragon Quest III: Dub Name Change aside, there's still some disjointment between proper spellings of a few towns, the biggest being Sioux/Soo, Jipang/Zipangu, and Assaram/Ashalam. The last of those gets a few raised eyebrows.
    • Dragon Quest IV: Depending on the translation, Psaro's second-in-command's name has been spelled "Amon" or "Aamon".
    • Dragon Quest V: Mirudraas or Mildrath? Jami or Jahmi? The official localization offers no answers, as they went for full Dub Name Change into Nimzo and Kon.
  • Fatal Fury:
    • Not a character name, but Fatal Fury (and The King of Fighters after it) has Geese Howard's first Desperation Move. Because of how he yells the name, translators have spent ages trying to work out if it's "Raging Storm" or "Raising Storm". Fatal Fury Battle Archives says "Raging"; Capcom vs. SNK says "Raising." Most move lists go with "Raising Storm". Fans, on the other hand, universally go with "Raging Storm". Or a long string of profanities, but that's almost certainly not the official name.
    • Kevin Rian from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, is supposedly a distant relative of Blue Mary of Fatal Fury and KOF fame, even though Mary's surname is romanized differently in the KOF series (Ryan).
  • The Fate Series has this when it comes to Saber's real name. Most works use the name "Artoria", a feminine equivalent to the name "Artorius", while Fate/Grand Order specifically uses the name "Altria". In Japanese, both names are pronounced as "A-ru-to-ri-a", but in English, there's a rather big difference in how they're pronounced.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • The protagonist of the original game, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, appears to have been named for Mars (the Roman god of war), and was named as such in the OVA, yet the Super Smash Bros. series (and subsequently the official localization of the remake Shadow Dragon) localized his name as Marth. The Japanese aren't any help in this — the debug menu for Melee has "Mars" in English, but the artbooks◊ put out for Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, as well as the official◊ trading card◊ game◊ clearly have "Marth".
    • Nintendo screwed up with the name of the Dragon King. It's spelled "Deghinsea" in Path of Radiance, then spelled "Dheginsea" in the North American English version of Radiant Dawn (but back to "Deghinsea" in the British version of Radiant Dawn). Similarly, the character known as "Kysha" in Path of Radiance and the British version of Radiant Dawn became "Kyza" in the North American English version of Radiant Dawn.
    • Not a character this time, but the Trueblade's Mastery skill is "Astrum" in the British version of Radiant Dawn, deviating from the "Astra" from all other localizations.
    • The Shadow Dragon remake also had a few changes between both English dialects. (Formatted as "North American name/British name")
      • Characters: Navarre/Nabarl note , Caeda/Shiida
      • Locations: Archanea/Akaneia, Dolhr/Doluna, Macedon/Medon
    • The fourth game, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, was never released outside Japan, which meant many of its names took a long time to localize. One in particular has been localized two different ways: Eldigan's sister is Raquesis in Fire Emblem: Awakening, but Lachesis in Fire Emblem Heroes.
  • The First Funky Fighter mangles the name of the video game company Nakanihon Lease to "Nakanihon Wreath" on the title screen.
  • Freeciv: Some historical characters have had their names mistransliterated, such as Seni Pramoj, whose name is given as "Seni Pramoya."
  • Friday Night Funkin' has one such example with a song title, interestingly enough. Nobody can seem to figure out if one of Week 4's songs is either "Satin Panies" or "Satin Panties." Not even the devs.
  • Galaxy Angel has this all over the place. The most prominent examples:
    • The protagonist's name has been spelled in official sources as Tact, or Takuto (which is the phonetic pronunciation of the katakana タクト), but an in-game screenshot of a letter he wrote makes out his first name to be "Takt". His surname also varies between "Mayers" and "Meyers".
    • The heroes' ship is mostly referred to as "Elsior", but early sources also spelled the name as "Elle Ciel".
    • The Moon Goddess' name. Is it Shatyarn, Shatyan, Shatoyan, or Shatoyarn?
  • In the Sega Master System version of the first Ghostbusters game, Gozer is transliterated "Gorza".
  • Granblue Fantasy: The game's translation has a few inconsistencies like Vaseraga's scythe being named either Grynoth or Groanus and Eustace's rifle being named either Phlamek or Flamek. Most of the game's text points to the latter as the official translation, but the few inconsistencies haven't been addressed yet.
  • Guilty Gear:
    • For some odd reason, Guilty Gear XX inserted hyphens for most of the characters with known surnames on their lifebars and during the Versus Character Splash (ex. Sol-Badguy, Ky-Kiske, Chipp-Zanuff, Anji-Mito, etc.) This naming convention would be dropped in future GG installments.
    • The former leader of the Holy Knights who fell prey to a Mentor Occupational Hazard in the first game? Kliff Undersn. That has not stopped people, including on This Very Wiki, from misspelling his surname as Undersen or Andersn. Even Arc System Works has goofed a few times and used the latter spelling.
    • I-No, a major antagonist who made her debut in XX, gets this quite often. Expect to see "I-NO", "I-no", "INO", and "Ino", though the last two at least have the justification of following the Japanese characters used for her name (イノ, Ino).
    • A.B.A, the gloomy homunculus lady first introduced in Isuka before becoming a Canon Immigrant in the mainline titles, has no period after the second "A" in her name (sort of like that famous Swedish group she's named after), but fans will often spell it like that anyway. Even her place of birth gets this treatment; officially (as evidenced by the stage names provided in Isuka and Slash/Accent Core), it's Frasco, but one of the Library entries in Xrd renders it as the appropriate-but-still-incorrect "Flask."
  • In HAL Wrestling for the Game Boy (a Spiritual Successor to Pro Wrestling), one wrestler's name is spelled both "Super Cyber" and "Super Civer."
  • The X-Bot boss from Heavy Weapon. Most players call it "H-Bot", but the PC data files of the game reveal that it is supposed to be called "X-Bot". This confusion is due to the font used (Keypunch) for the boss subtitles, in which the letter X looks like the letter H.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic: After the fan-favourite hero Solmyr became an Ascended Extra in the fourth game, the spelling was changed to Solymr, implying that his name in the third game was the result of a typo. However, the third game's popularity meant that other future entries go with the Solmyr spelling.
  • Hidden City's official social media page frequently refers to Rayden Storke as Raiden Stork.
  • House of the Dead has two involving agent Thomas Rogan:
    • Some arcade cabinets misspelled his name as "Rowgun", despite the game itself sticking with Rogan.
    • Very strangely, in House of the Dead 4: Special, if G gets a high score, he'll remark that he's probably "better than Logan." Since there is no other character named Logan in the series, he's probably referring to his old partner.
  • The Nintendo Entertainment System version of Hydlide only describes the plot in the manual, unlike the original PC-88 version. The English manual renamed the Big Bad Boralis, though his name is still displayed as "Varalys" in the game's status window.
  • Iron Helix: The opening cutscene spells the planet's name as "Calliope", while the manual and Game Over screen spell it "Calliopé".
  • Jak and Daxter's Erol had his name's spelling changed to Errol in Jak 3, then back to Erol in the Interquel Daxter. Some fans have joked that the extra "R" stands for "robot", given his "enhancements" in the third game.
  • One of the original bosses from Kid Icarus (1986), Tanatos, returns in Kid Icarus: Uprising as "Thanatos". According to the God of Death himself, "The extra H is for Hamazing!"
  • One of the Ansem Reports in Kingdom Hearts II mentions the names of his apprentices. In the North American version, Dilan, Aeleus and Braig are written Dilin, Eleus and Bleig. This was corrected in the British version.
  • Kirby:
    • Kirby's Dream Land had a blimp-like boss named Kaboola, which was absent in the Kirby Super Star sub-game Spring Breeze, which was mostly a remake of Kirby's Dream Land (some other features were also absent). The remake of Kirby Super Star for the Nintendo DS, Kirby Super Star Ultra, added the sub-game Revenge of the King, which is basically a harder version of Spring Breeze. In it the formerly missing boss returned with an altered appearance, as well as an altered name: Kabula.
    • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' True Final Boss is Zero Two (ゼロツー). In localized versions of the game, as well as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, its name is spelled 02 note . Later entries like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would settle on "02", likely to make more clear how it's supposed to be pronounced.
    • Before the Kaboola/Kabula incident was the case of Mr. Frosty, who was inexplicably named "Mr. Flosty" in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.
  • Klonoa:
    • Gantz/Guntz from Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament and Klonoa: Beach Volleyball respectively.
    • The character who is known as "Joka" in the original game is changed to "Joker" in the Wii remake of Door to Phantomile.
  • The Legacy of the Wizard manual names the mother, son, grandmother and grandfather "Meyna," "Roas," "Jiela," and "Douel" respectively (though the mother is "Mayna Worzen" in the credits), whereas the intro screen for the MSX2 version (Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family) names them Maia, Royas, Geera and Dawel.
  • The main characters of The Legend of Valkyrie, who have made several cameo appearances in other (Bandai) Namco titles, have varied in spelling between Valkyrie/Walküre and Sandra/Xandra.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The series makes a point of giving normal Anglo names strange Romanizations — for example, Renado and Jovani from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess could've easily been "Leonard" and "Giovanni" respectively. What makes this even worse is that the Japanese website for the game used such "normal" Romanizations until the English release neared and everything was switched to the "weird" Romanizations.
    • The Zora/Zola species sees its name differ between games. This worked, though, because they look and behave like two separate species (Zora = tail-headed/nice; Zola = scaly and crested/Always Chaotic Evil [though the Zola King in A Link to the Past and Oren in A Link Between Worlds aren't so bad]). In Oracle of Ages, both types are referred to as Zoras; according to an NPC in the Zora village, they're the same species, with "Ocean Zoras" being the friendly variety, and "River Zoras" being the enemy type.
    • Ganon's name was written as "Gannon" in every version of the original game released before The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition compilation came out for the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. The whole mess spawned the "Gannon-Banned" meme, the former Trope Namer for Fandom-Enraging Misconception.
    • "Rupee" is spelled "rupy" in the first game, while the CD-i games call them "rubies".
    • The dragon bosses appearing in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Ocarina of Time were actually intended to be one and the same, both being known as Barubajia in Japanese. The former got translated as "Barba" in the initial English release, while the latter became "Volvagia".
  • Like a Dragon: The leader of the Geomijul's name is spelt inconsistently between games. She is referred to as "Seong-hui" in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, where she is introduced, and "Seonhee" in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, where she is Promoted to Playable.
  • Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals has an odd example. Artea is always referred to in dialogue by his proper name, and was even named correctly in the prior game. But as a party member he's labelled "Arty".
  • The localization of Lunar: Dragon Song is plagued with inconsistent transliteration of NPC names, some of which (Laban/Raiban, Balam/Bram) are bound to confuse players trying to figure out who they have to Fetch Quest for.
  • In Magical Cannon Wars, none of the characters have the same name in the dialogue as they do in the credits so apparently nobody could decide what their names were.
  • As an example of this trope occurring even when transliteration is not involved, the infamously bad OHRRPGCE game Magnus can't decide on whether its Squishy Wizard is named "Quio" or "Ouio."
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, you might notice that the starfish character appearing in both goes by the name of "Stafy." Well, his game series is finally being brought overseas as... The Legendary Starfy (i.e: Starfy).
  • Mega Man:
    • Dr. Light (ライト) had his name variously rendered as Light, Right, or Wright in the early games; it wasn't until 4 that it was standardized as Dr. Light in the English games. Similarly, Dr. Wily (ワイリー) was sometimes referred to as Dr. Wiley (or even Dr. Willy) in the early games.
    • Mega Man 2 had Clash Man, which was romanized as Crash Man in the NES game, but come the release of Mega Man II for the Game Boy, was kept as Clash Man. Subsequent English releases, such as Mega Man & Bass, reverted back to Crash Man.
    • In Japanese, Dr. Light is officially spelled Dr. Right, with the "Right & Wily" logo on the batteries in Magnet Man's stage in Mega Man 3 being the first example of this being demonstrated in-game. When the Light's Lab logo first appeared in English (at the end of each of the eight Robot Master stages in Mega Man 9), it became a capital "L". The Mega Man Battle Network games address this: the main protagonist's grandfather is called Tadashi Hikari, which pretty much translates to "Right Light" in English.
    • Even Special Weapons aren't safe, as evidenced by Dust Man's Dust Crusher becoming the Dust Crasher in Mega Man: The Power Battle. Note that The Power Battle released after Mega Man 7, which had an enemy also known as Dust Crusher. However, both are valid translations of the katakana (ダストクラッシャー, Dasuto Kurasshā), as would be "Dust Clasher" for the same reasons as the above-mentioned Clash Man.
    • In Mega Man X5, Volt Kraken/Squid Adler chastises the player character for what they did to his friend, someone named Octopardo, which had most players replying "Wait, who?" Turns out it was actually referring to Launch Octopus, a boss from the first game, using the Japanese name of the boss (Launcher Octopuld) and mis-romanizing it. The Legacy Collection 2 re-release of X5 would catch this mistake and fix it.
    • It's fairly common for fans to misspell the name of the boss of the Teleporter Base stage in Mega Man Zero 4 as Random Bandom. Officially, it's Randam Bandam, as the boss is the Zero series' successor to Mega Man X's Rangda Bangda, and the intended spelling becomes more apparent when comparing the Japanese characters used; the X series boss is ランダ・バンダ ("Randa Banda"), while the Z4 boss is ランダム・バンダム ("Randamu Bandamu").
    • The hard hat mooks seen in almost every incarnation of the series have been called Mettools, Metalls, and Mettaurs. The last one is now the official name. The original game's instruction manual called them Mets for short, which several fans use to split the difference.
    • Then there's the question of spacing: Is any given boss's name one word or two? Megaman or Mega Man? Officially, it's two words, but the titling of several games as well as the Mega Men in Legends and various NetNavis — the latter of whom exist in their own continuity — actually having their names spelled as one word (or rather, two words sans the space; ex. MegaMan.EXE, ProtoMan.EXE) has led to much confusion, even at This Very Wiki.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Frank Jaegar note  was originally spelled Frank Yeager in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake before the spelling was changed to what it is now in Metal Gear Solid (incidentally, Yeager is an Americanized variant of the last name Jaeger). Likewise, his codename was originally Grey Fox (the British English spelling) in the older games before it was changed to Gray Fox.
    • Otacon's chosen nickname is spelled differently to the Fan Convention he's named after, Otakon. It's not clear if if this was a deliberate change, considering all the games in which he appears have a credit to Otakorp in the staff roll.
  • Metroid's intro spells the planet the game takes place on as "Zebeth", as opposed to the manual and future games, which use "Zebes". A few enemies are also spelled differently in the manual compared to how they are spelled in later games (Reos, for example, are spelled as "Rio").
  • In the English version of the NES port of the original Might and Magic, the world Varn (an acronym for Vehicular Astropod Research Nacelle) that the game is set in is mistranslated "Barn", apparently due to the back and forth transliteration.
  • The Mole's World franchise's villain is known as "庫拉" ("Kula") in the original Chinese. His name has been translated in English as both Kula and Kura.
  • Monster Girl Quest!:
    • The names of the games themselves fall into this trope, as the exclamation mark is almost always omitted (i.e. "Monster Girl Quest"). And the sequel trilogy, Monster Girl Quest! Paradox RPG, is sometimes called "Monster Girl Quest: Paradox".
    • For a character example, さんとす's name has been translated as "Garfunkel" in the original trilogy and the more accurate "Santos" in Paradox. The former is a Woolseyism as it's a reference to Garfield, while the latter is a reference to Sanrio (the company behind Hello Kitty).
  • Monster Monpiece: Fia has a monster card that depicts her, and on it, her name is spelt "Fear".
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Is the thunder god with the pointy hat Raiden or Rayden? Justified in that "Raiden" is a legitimate Japanese name, but the pronunciation would be "rye-den", not "rey-den" like the MK character. The developers may also have been forced to alter the spelling to avoid confusion with the other Raiden and/or the Shoot 'Em Up series Raiden.
    • Depending on the game, the name for the Hell world may be either Netherealm or Netherrealm (with two R's, much like the series' development team).
  • Mother:
    • EarthBound features a villain named Pokey in the U.S. version, who threatens to come back for revenge in the ending. He makes good on his promise in Mother 3, and this incarnation makes a cameo as a boss in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Problem? His name was originally meant to be Porky, referring to his bloated belly and pig-like nose, and the pig theme continues with his army in Mother 3. Brawl uses the name Porky, obscuring the connection to the EarthBound villain.
    • You cannot grasp the true form of the name of the first two games' final boss. EarthBound Beginnings used "Giegue", while EarthBound used "Giygas", leading many to believe that they were two different entities.
  • When Mushihime-sama Futari Black Label was released as DLC for the Xbox 360 version, its title was bizarrely Romanized as Mushihimesama-hutari-Black-Lavel.
  • Before 1995, Namco published all of their games in home consoles, handhelds and even computers under the namesake of Namcot.
  • Neptune from the Neptunia series (this is only exclusive to the western releases).
  • No Umbrellas Allowed: Most of the name translations from Korean to English are consistent, but Stabilizer Junghan Hong is spelled "Jeonghan" outside his office.
  • When Pac-Man was first released in Japan, it was known in Japanese as "Puckman" (pronounced Pakkuman). However, the name had to be changed for its English release because the "P" could be vandalized making the name offensive to people. Namco found another romanization of the same pronunciation, and "Pac-Man" has since become the official English spelling of the name in Japan.
  • Since Persona is a setting that takes place in Japan and features a lot of Gratuitous English, this extends to a lot of romanizations of the Japanese names' romaji. One name (even in the series' modern era) has been inconsistent within official translations: Persona 3 and related works use "Aigis" for the name of the Robot Girl working for S.E.E.S. (later the Shadow Operatives), whereas BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle uses "Aegis." Note that while "Aegis" is how the name is romanized in Japanese (based on the shield carried by Athena and Zeus in Greek myth to fit the Theme Naming of the characters' Personas), both spellings are considered valid academically and the "Aigis" spelling matches how her name is pronounced ("Ai-gi-su").
  • Phantasy Star: In Phantasy Star Online, there is a weapon named Rika's Claw. Phantasy Star Universe has a weapon named Falclaw. Both weapons look identical... because they reference the same character, a Newman named Rika in English versions of Phantasy Star IV and Fal in Japanese versions. Similar, but less severe, violations include the weapon named Sato in PSO which is named Shato in PSU and Chato in Phantasy Star Zero. Maybe it's an inside joke on the part of the localization team.
  • The Cute 'em Up spin-off of Power Instinct has this issue with its very title. The ST-V cartridge label calls it Purikura Daisakusen, while the Sega Saturn CD jacket romanizes it as Prikura Daisakusen. To aggravate the Title Confusion, both of these use the Officially Shortened Title, and its namesake heroine, Kurara, later became "Clara" in Matrimelee. Even the main series has its weird variant romanizations, e.g. Gouketuji Ichizoku 2, Gogetsuji Legends.
  • Puyo Puyo:
    • Suketoudara's name was originally spelt "Suketoutara" in the MSX and PC-98 versions of Madou Monogatari 1-2-3. The Enemy Roll Call in the 1992 Puyo Puyo spells it properly, but in the same game his preview window says "TARA".
    • In the English translation of Puyo Puyo Fever, one of the characters is usually referred to as Rider, but depending on where you look she's also called Rita or Ridel. The English version of Puyo Puyo Tetris goes with Lidelle, a more accurate translation of her Japanese name.
  • The PC Engine version of Puzzle Boy has "© ATLAS" on the title screen. At least Atlus didn't develop or publish this version of their game; Telenet Japan did. Similarly, the PC Engine port of Todd's Adventures in Slime World, released in Japan under Telenet's Micro World label, identifies original developer Epyx as "EPIX" in the copyright notice on the title screen.
  • In Remember11, the first main character has her name spelled "Cocoro" in the opening credits, but the translation in the game itself uses "Kokoro", which renders it using standard romanization spelling
  • It is not uncommon for Oswell E. Spencer, the mastermind behind the Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil, to have his first name spelled as Ozwell. This stems from a translation error in the English localizations of The Umbrella Chronicles (where, for added confusion, an in-game broadcast about the fall of Umbrella refers to him as "Oswald"), RE5, and — most recently — Resistance. (オズウェル, the katakana used for Spencer's given name, is pronounced "Ozuweru.") While the Resident Evil Wiki, Capcom Database Wiki, and Project Umbrella all opt for spelling his name "correctly," the various characters sheets here at TV Tropes instead go with Ozwell.
  • Rival Schools:
    • In the arcade version of Rival Schools, Shoma has his name romanized as "Syoma", which is from a non-Hepburn romanization system used by the Japanese. It was changed to "Shoma" in the PlayStation version.
    • The sequel, Project Justice, cleverly uses this trope to differentiate between similar characters. In the story, the hero Batsu is plagued by a look-a-like who is actually by Big Bad Kurow going around ruining his good reputation. The fake Batsu can be fought against and eventually can be a playable character, so to differentiate him from the real Batsu, Capcom named the fake "Vatsu".
  • In Samurai Shodown III, Rimururu's name is spelled "Rimnerel" on the instruction card.
  • Sands of Destruction has a couple examples. In most cases, the American game is taken as the "official" canon for English-speakers, with The Anime of the Game and the later manga adaptation seen as Alternate Continuity:
    • The Hero is named キリエ・イルニス. 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."
    • The Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal is トッピ・トプラン. 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 Redhead In Green アガン・マードル 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.
    • The Half-Human Hybrid is ナジャ・グレフ. The game translates it as Naja Gref, though the anime spells his first name Nadja.
  • Shantae:
  • In Shepherd's Crossing, your talking duck Exposition Fairy has his name spelled "Brammy" in the first game and "Brummy" in the second game.
  • The North American version of Shining Wisdom had to do this for legal reasons. Sega (who had most Shining games) had the license to use the names, but the game itself was licensed by Working Designs, Sega forced them to rename everything that appeared in Japanese/European versions; for instance, Parmecia became Palacia.
  • In SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, Genjuro Kibagami had his name spelled as "Genjyuro Kibagami," while Juli becomes "Juri" (which would unknowingly make things a bit confusing when, years later, there actually was a SF character named Juri). Meanwhile, Demitri Maximoff became "Demitri Maximov."
  • Sonic Advance 3 features a new enforcer of Eggman's created from the data of Emerl, the Robot Buddy from Sonic Battle. As reiterated in the Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia art book released in 2021, his official English name is Gemerl, though some versions of the game and some fans instead go with G-Mel or G-merl, both of which are slightly closer to the original Japanese (ジーメル, Jīmeru).
  • SOS: One of the survivors is spelled as "Claiver Matthews" in-game, but ends up as "Kleiver" in the credits. Same goes for Luke Haines, as his surname is misspelled as "Heinz" in the credits
  • In the manual of Space Harrier 3-D, Uriah is spelled "Euria."
  • Star Fox:
    • Star Fox Command retconned Panther Caroso to Panther Caruso for unknown reasons.
    • The original put all boss names (save for the secret Slot Machine) in the manual and in game. One of them is an outright spelling difference, Professor Hangar/Hanger.
  • Story of Seasons:
    • Seen on the title screen of Harvest Moon 64: "©1999 Natume Inc." The company is more commonly translated as Natsume, although both "tsu" and "tu" are valid transliterations of the kanji in question.
    • Maria from Harvest Moon 64 was renamed "Mary" in Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, which was carried on in future titles. Fans usually don't mind because it helps distinguish the two versions of Mary, who has some personality differences between the two titles.
    • Puzzle De Harvest Moon caused a stir when the blonde female protagonist of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature For Girl was listed as "Clair", when she's historically been referred to as Canon Name "Claire." The former was a typo.
  • A few Street Fighter and Final Fight examples.
    • Rolento note  from the original Final Fight had his name spelled "Rolent" in the SNES sequel, Final Fight 2. The "Rolent" spelling doesn't show up in any other game, except in his ending in Street Fighter Alpha 2. Even stranger: his intended name, according to then-Capcom senior manager Seth Killian, was Laurence/Laurent.
    • "Shadaloo" note , the name of M. Bison's organization in the Street Fighter series, is alternatively spelled "Shadolue" or even "Shadowlaw."
    • On the credits of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Cammy's and Dee Jay's names are spelled "Cammie" and "DJ."
  • Streets of Rage:
    • Owing to Japanese Ranguage, one of the common Mooks across the series is named Garcia but often sees his name mangled into "Galsia" in the English releases. Streets of Rage 3 actually got this right... only for SOR4 to go back to Galsia.
    • According to Yuzo Koshiro, Axel's signature Blitz attack is supposed to be Ground Upper as opposed to Grand Upper, named for how Axel drags his fist along the ground before punching. This spelling was used in Sonic Gems Collection, but the Mr. X Nightmare DLC in the fourth game gives the move's name as Grand Upper, suggesting Grand Upper is — at least for now — the official spelling.
  • Latooni Subouta from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation is one of the more egregious examples in the franchise due to the fact that her given name in Cyrillic (which is always used in official materials) is "латунь" which when written in the Latin alphabet becomes "Latun'" (pronounced with a soft "ny" sound), missing the syllable that katakana gives her. The Kingcom fan translation of Original Generations would make it into Latune, which is closer to the proper pronunciation while still keeping to the katakana translation.
  • In the PC-98 version of Super Pitfall, Quickclaw is spelled "Quick Crow."
  • In the manual for Syphon Filter, Girdeux is misspelled "Girdeaux."
  • An example born out of the game's TV adaptation slightly changing the name of the character in question: Tlaloc/Traloc from Tak and the Power of Juju.
  • Of the entire cast in Tail Concerto, Stair and Therria gets hit with this the most, as later promotional releases and appearances would flip-flop between how they're spelt in that game, or for the alternate "Stare" and "Terria". Stair gets an added third name to the mix, as the prototype translation tried to spell her name as Stea instead.
  • Technosoft spelled their name "Tecno Soft" in their earlier Japanese games. The H was first added to their name in the exported Sega Genesis versions of Thunder Force II, Thunder Force III and Herzog Zwei.
  • Tekken: Dr. Bosconovitch's name is sometimes spelled "Vasconovich". In Tekken 3, his name was spelled as "Boskonovitch", but it resumed its original T1/T2 spelling in Tekken 6 (thanks to his daughter Alisa) and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
  • In the Terra Cresta franchise, the series' Big Bad, Mandler, is sometimes referred to as "Mandora", "Mandoler", or "Mandra".
  • Mathematicians call a Tetris piece a tetromino, by parallel with "domino." The Tetris Company once called it a "tetramino" before settling on "tetrimino."
  • The world of Them's Fightin' Herds is officially called "Fœnum", though more often it is written as "Foenum", probably for convenience.
  • In Thunder Force III, the upgraded version of the Twin Shot has been spelled out as both "Sever" and "Saber". The latter spelling is a bit funny because the upgraded Back Shot is called "Lancer."
  • The Tomb Raider series features numerous examples. It's Lara, not Laura; Werner, not Verner; Larson, not Larsen; Sophia Leigh, not Sophia Lee; Father Dunstan, not Father Duncan; Alister, not Alistair, Allister, or Alasdair; and Amanda Evert, not Amanda Everett.
  • Owing to the fact that it took until a 2019 Compilation Re-release and a 2020 Video Game Remake for Trials of Mana to finally make it out of Japan, the game was understandably hit with this for the better part of two decades*, most notably regarding the name of one of the game's six heroes. In Seiken Densetsu 3, her name is given as Rīsu (リース). Among non-Japanese Mana fans, most settled on either Lise (due to the popularity of a high-profile Fan Translation released in 2000) or Riesz, with the former sometimes being tweaked to Liese, Riese, or even Leace. All official English translations, as well as the character's appearance as a Guest Fighter in Million Arthur: Arcana Blood (which released worldwide around the same time as Collection of Mana), ultimately went with Riesz. Most of the fandom would follow suit, with a few holdouts preferring Li(e)se instead.
  • Valis:
  • There are debates over whether "Zeikfried" in the first Wild ARMs game is supposed to be "Siegfried". "Siegfried" has been used once officially, in the third game, but Alter Code F reverted back to Zeikfried.
  • Zap Dramatic can't make up his mind if one of his games is titled Sir Basil Pike or Sir Basel Pike.
  • Zeliard has quite a few place, boss, and item names that are inconsistently translated:
    • Helada > Herada
    • Glory Crest > Crest of Honor
    • Plata > Burata
    • Silkarn > Shirukaano
    • Tarso > Taruso
    • Alguien > Algaien
    • Esco > Esko
    • Enchantment Sword > Sword of Fairy Flame
  • An odd example that crosses over into Real Life: Prior to English language dubs of video games and anime being handled by professional voice actors living in North America (and even after), more perceptive players might notice that certain titles ex. primarily or exclusively feature (English) voice acting — or at least Voice Grunting — from a pool of American and other English-speaking expats living in Japan. One of these VAs is Rumiko Varnes, a bilingual narrator originally from Los Angeles. While she's usually credited as such, some games, such as Bloody Roar Extreme, instead give her name as "Rumiko Burns." This can be chalked up to how the Japanese language doesn't distinguish between the letters "B" and "V".

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