Inconsistent Dub

Sailor Moon: Moon Tiara Vaporize!
Luna: Serena, weren't you supposed to say "Moon Tiara Magic"?
Sailor Moon: Yeah, but apparently American children are too stupid to notice.

— Sailor Moon Abridged Episode 4, pointing out an actual inconsistency with Sailor Moon's first North American dub

When a dub uses inconsistent naming or story telling in translation. Usually done either because of poor translation, tricky romanization or because of Executive Meddling. Unlike Dub-Induced Plot Hole, this doesn't include Dub Induced Plotline Changes that later don't make sense because of either cultural/language differences or new developments in the plot. This just changes the exact same thing over and over because the localization team can't seem to decide (or because different localization teams handled the dub without a consistent "show bible" to draw from). There may not even be anything wrong with the last name they came up with.

This often happens in anime where characters practice calling their attacks, as many anime dubs feature a character who has tons of attacks in its source given all the same name in the dub, or where a single attack gets renamed Once an Episode.

Inconsistent fansubs exist, but are much rarer; while it may have been a problem when hardsubbing (making the subtitles an actual, permanent part of the video) was the norm, the growth of softsubbing (which entails using subtitles that can be freely turned off in the manner of a DVDs) has made it a simple matter to correct and re-release an episode to keep terminology consistent.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• The 4Kids dub of Ojamajo Doremi often cut any reference to Japanese culture, to the point of removing an entire episode taking place at a Buddhist temple and changing sushi into cheesecake, even though most American kids in the target audience would know what sushi is... But left an episode focusing on Shōgi completely intact. Furthermore, numerous instances of characters wearing kimonos are kept intact in most of the dub, but one later episode airbrushes all kimonos into looking like winter coats. Hell, that same episode was also inconsitent with itself, as one character in that episode kept her kimono and even her Japanese name.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Sometimes onigiri (rice balls) are changed into donuts, sometimes they're cookies, you never know. In one episode they actually called them rice balls, possibly experimenting to see if their target audience familiarises with them. Until 4Kids dropped the Pokémon license, they painted over them in later episodes so they looked like subs or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, even in an episode where a plot point involved a rice ball rolling away. Ever see a sandwich roll down a hill? How about vertically? And then jumping several inches? The "rolling down the hill" incident was the final episode of season 7, and it was also the first case of visually editing the onigiri. Before that the onigiri were left alone visually, but they were called sandwiches/cookies/donuts/popcorn balls/eclairs/etc. 4Kids continued this bizarre visual editing through season 8 until they lost the show (after which they've been left alone and consistently been called rice balls by TPCI).
  • The Elite Four member Lorelei was renamed "Prima" in the dub. This didn't introduce inconsistencies to the anime itself since she only appeared once, but many viewers didn't realize she was the same character from the game. Word of God has it this was because a two-syllable name (she is called Kanna in Japanese) was required to match the lip-sync. Meanwhile, Pokémon Puzzle League, a game which used characters from the anime, stuck with the name Lorelei.
  • Similarly, the S.S. Anne is called by its Japanese name of "St. Anne" in the anime, likely because of the number of paint edits required to change it.
  • In the Made-for-TV Movie The Legend of Thunder, two of the main characters are named Eugene and Vincent. The problem is that when the same characters appeared earlier in the TV show's dub, they were called "Eusine" and "Jackson". Eusine's case was especially bad since he was a character from the games themselves, so the error was even more glaring.
  • The Brazilian dub is particularly egregious. They almost never seem to keep the attack names the same, even getting to the point of mixing them up.
  • The same happens in the Latin American Spanish dub, especially since season 10. Attack names switch back and forth between literal translations of the English names to the names used in the [European] Spanish games. It is worse with cities, which change from literal translations to made up names to European Spanish names to unaltered English names. And Pokémon pronunciations change from one episode to another, and even during the same episode, Pokémon names are pronounced differently depending on the character.
  • The Norwegian dub of Pokémon: The Series started out by translating all terms and attacks from English into Norwegian. While the recurring terms were generally translated consistently, attack names that popped up every 20 episodes or so were all over the place, and words that have no direct parallel in Norwegian, like "Gym" and "badge" tended to jump between equally correct translations constantly. By season 9 they started keeping most terms in English, and aside from this sounding relatively dorky in the first place (with mispronunciations being common), the translators often had trouble differing between actual Pokémon terms (like "Flying Pokémon") and just generic descriptions (like "bird Pokémon" and "forest Pokémon"), keeping them all in English. Other times, they'd translate obvious game terms, like the names of the Battle Frontier facilities, while leaving terms like "nurse" in English.
  • The French dub is high quality overall, consistently using the correct French names for everything (except for a few early episodes where Agent Jenny went by her Japanese name, K-you, making it sound like her name was Agent Caillou). However, there are two versions of the French dub: one for Europe, using the French names, and one for Canada, using the English names for characters and Pokémon. They're both the same dub, however, with the names replaced in the Canadian version. However, they forgot to change a name here and there in the Canadian version. Kinda weird having Ash or Misty suddenly being referred to as Sacha or Ondine out of nowhere.
  • The Spanish dub did a Tropes Are Not Bad version of this, where most moves kept their game names, but "Counter" was correctly translated as "counter attack", not "something that counts".
  • The Italian dub:
    • In earlier seasons, Meowth's name was pronounced "Meh-o", while in later seasons it's pronounced as something like "Meow" because it's closer to the international pronunciation.
    • In earlier seasons, many moves were called with different names than the ones used in the Italian game translation. The most memorable were the ones for Thunderbolt, Water Gun and Vine Whip, whose game names are "Fulmine", "Pistolacqua" and "Frustata" but in the anime for years they went as "Superfulmine" ("Super Thunderbolt"), "Getto D'Acqua" ("Water Stream") and "Stretta con Liane" ("Vine Wrap"). Halfway through Season 7 most of these mistakes were corrected, but "Superfulmine" was kept around until Season 11.
    • A very particular case is the one about Swift. Sometimes is "Comete" ("Comets", the name used in the games), but most of the times is also called "Attacco Rapido" (Which is the name of Quick Attack, a completely different move) or "Velocità" ("Speed"), and in at least a pair of occasions they went with "Millestelle" ("Thousand Stars"). This problem was rampant in Season 10, when Ash's Aipom spammed Swift in most of the episodes.
    • When the first episodes of Black and White were aired as a preview, they mispronounced Snivy's name as "Sneevee". When the whole series aired later they redubbed the lines to give the correct pronounce, but a pair of episodes after that use the "Sneevee" pronunciation again.
  • The English dub has some of this due to the differences between 4Kids and PUSA. This is most blatant when Misty appeared in Alola. 4Kids changed Misty's personality a bit but PUSA follows the Japanese script, not the 4Kids interpretation of the characters. As a result, Misty's character is rather off compared to how fans of the Original Series know her. She has Call Backs that make sense in Japanese but not in the dub, such as her bragging about her attractiveness or calling her Pokémon "beauties" and "steadies".
  • When Vincent mentions Kenta and Marina in an episode, their names were localized as Yoshi and Dani respectively. However, they were called Jimmy and Marina in the dub of The Legend of Thunder!
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Nobody can seem to remember their Pokémon's nicknames for the first three arcs.
  • The translators can't decide whether or not (EN) Blue's sister is named May or Daisy (her game name is "Daisy" but the name "May" comes from The Electric Tale of Pikachu). Especially bad since the English release was over a decade behind the Japanese at that point.
• The English dub of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny transforms Kira's calm character into a naïve and cocky person with some lines. In the original Japanese "I won't fight (ZAFT). Don't make me fight (ZAFT)." was changed to "I won't kill. Don't make me kill." even though he already made it clear he would shoot down anybody in his way in Gundam SEED. The video games series Dynasty Warriors takes this to the extreme when he says "Thanks to this sword Lacus gave me, I can start kicking butt!"
• Examples from Tokyo Mew Mew:
  • Mew Lettuce has one attack, Reborn Lettuce Rush. Mew Bridget from 4Kids Entertainment's Mew Mew Power was given two attacks; the second one just being the same attack flipped the other way.
  • 4Kids made Pudding/Kiki a homeless girl in her first appearance, but when her house was shown, they had the characters say that just thought she was homeless and then dropped the whole thing.
    • The Portuguese dub is anything but consistent. After episode 26, suddenly, all the voices changed, and the character names changed, all the attack names changed, etc to match the Japanese version more closely than the first half of the series (which was based off the 4Kids dub). The French, Hebrew, and Serbian dubs also continued past the point where 4Kids left off. They were mostly consistent on that regard, but the Serbian dub had other problems, such as the characters' attack names changing almost every episode!
    • The Tokyopop translation of the English manga is also bad with this. Ichigo's age changed from 11 to 12 to 13, and back to 11. Her weapon name also changed from "Sutoro Bell Bell" to the slightly more accurate "Strawberry Bell Bell" after the first chapter (the correct name is just Strawberry Bell). Kimera animals were also called "Chimera animals" in the first volume and Kirema animas in all subsequent volumes.
• As noted in the page quote, The '90s English dub of Sailor Moon practically turned this into an art form. Expect any attack, villain organization, MacGuffin, etc to have multiple names. Most egregiously Moon Princess Halation from R was called Moon Scepter Elimination from its first appearance until dub episode 65, then after a 3 year hiatus that ended with the show Uncancelled, it was called Moon Scepter Activation for the final 17 episodes of the season, Moon Princess Elimination in the R movie and finally Moon Scepter Elimination once more in the first episode of S.
  • The consistency problem got even worse in the last two seasons due to production of the show being rushed in order to get 77 episodes dubbed and aired within a 6 month time frame.
  • Even the manga has its moments, most noticeably a page in the Dream Arc when it was first printed in Mixx/Tokyopop's Smile. The Outer Guardians kept their names - Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru. While Haruka is playing with Hotaru, she calls her Jenny. This happens only on that one page and never happens again. Another page referred to Haruka as "Alex Haruka" and "Alex", which thankfully also got corrected in later printings.
  • While we're on the subject of Sailor Moon, the By the Power of Grayskull! and Calling Your Attacks phrases in the Russian dub are a complete mess. First, the fourth and fifth seasons were dubbed by a different team, which scrapped almost all previous established translations. And even in the first three, they were often translated inconsistently. More weirdness arises when you notice that all five transformation spells used by Usagi, after going through some translation variations, were set to exactly the same phrase. Talk about logic.
  • Pales in comparison to the Brazilian version. While later seasons were slightly (but only slightly) more consistent, Sailor Moon R was a total mess (done by a different studio than the first season) to the point that brazilian fans still make fun of it to this day. Nearly every single attack name had at least two variants, though mainly the "Moon Princess Halation" attack which had a different name per episode (one of them even had the same attack called by two different names!!). A favorite was "By the Powers of the Moon Princess' Tiara!". Because her tiara has everything to do with the attack.
  • In the first season of the Brazilian Dub, the term "Sailor Senshi" was usually translated as "Sailor Guerreiras" (Sailor Warriors). After the Uncancelling and studio swap, suddenly they were... "the Sailor Moons" (which made the In the Name of the Moon speech ridiculously Narmy, since Sailor Moon said her name three times ^note "I'm a Sailor Moon! Who fights for love and justice! I'm Sailor Moon! Sailor Moon will punish you in the name of the moon"). After 70% of the R season it was changed to sometimes-Sailor and sometimes-Sailor Guerreiras, and so it stayed for all subsequent seasons.
  • The French manga is terrible for this. Attack names are translated differently almost every time (or not translated as the case may be — sometimes they're left in their original English form), and on a couple of occasions, even the characters' names are inconsistent. (For example, Setsuna, who is called Severine in French, is once referred to as "Setusna".)
  • One especially bad English dub example is the Moon Gorgeous Meditation. When Sailor Moon gets a proper animation for it, it's named accurately. However the first two or three times she uses it before Pegasus gives her a power-up, it's referred to as "Super Moon Target." In the Japanese original, she didn't say anything.
  • And then there's the many different names for the Legendary Silver Crystal. Sailor Moon Abridged had a field day with this in episodes 18 and 19.
  • The Swedish dub had several examples of this, the most egregious of which was Sailor Moon's catchphrase when transforming in the first season, which in any given episode could be any one of "Moon prism, transform me!", "Moon prism!", "Moon prism power, transform me", "Moon prism power" or "Moon power, transform me".
  • Although the Latin Spanish dub is mostly consistent, it still has some inconsistencies. The most notorious example is that between episodes 66 to 68 Chibiusa's name varied randomly between Rini and Chibiusa, but in the rest of the series her name stayed as Rini.
  • The first Greek dub of ANT 1 is known to have many translation errors, the most notorious being the fact that Sailor Mercury was called Sailor Kronos during the first two seasons. Because Kronos in Greek means Saturn, this caused problems when dubbing the third season due to Sailor Saturn's debut, so Mercury was renamed Sailor Ermis and Saturn adopted the name Sailor Kronos. Even after this, Mercury was still called "Kronos" in some scenes.
• In the English dub of Rurouni Kenshin, the actors inconsistently pronounce the Japanese names of characters and techniques.
  • Yahiko's name, the first time it was uttered, the character itself pronounced it as Yah-ee-co. Every subsequent use of his name is pronounced as Yah-he-co.
  • In the Hispanic American Dub, the Sakabato has three names. the Correct but less used "Espada de filo invertido" (Inverted blade Sword), something just plain wrong "Espada de Doble Filo" (Doublle edge sword), and the one they decided to use the most "Espada sin filo" (Edgeless sword), not a true translation but it works. Kaoru in the first episode has one scene she has remorse for not having asked Kenshin his name before he left, yet in the next scene she calls him by name without he even telling her, and then latter she finally does ask him for his name.
  • In the Brazilian dub, Kenshin's alias was translated at first as "Battousai, the Slasher", but later became "Battousai, the Killer". Interestingly, the Oniwabanshuu was first (consistently) adapted as "The Oni Gang", but in one of the later fillers it reverted back to "Oniwanbashuu" out of nowhere.
• Naruto:
  • In the English dub, Naruto says, after his battle with Neji, that he couldn't graduate because he couldn't master the shadow clone jutsu. What he was supposed to say was just 'clone jutsu': the shadow clone jutsu is a forbidden technique not taught to academy students.
  • In the uncut English dub, Rock Lee takes a bottle of sake believing it to be his medicine, yet Guy and Tsunade call it "elixir" a couple times before correctly referring to it as sake. They called it "elixir" because the T.V. broadcast couldn't mention alcohol, so the mistake was most likely not caught before the episode was released.
  • English dub: At first, the hero of Jiraiya's novel was translated as saying "Give up, huh? Yeah, about that..." instead of "Give up trying to make me give up!" When Naruto defeats Pain, he says the latter translation instead of how it was translated before. This, unfortunately lessens the emotional impact of the scene somewhat since you don't find out Naruto was quoting his master's novel until a later scene where Nagato reads the book, and the hero says the latter translation.
  • English dub: During the first few episodes of the Wave Arc, "sharingan" was pronounced "sharingan", as in the original Japanese. It soon switched over to "sharingan", where it remained for the rest of the show.
  • When ANBU was first mentioned in the Swedish release, it was called LönnSpec, short for Specialstyrkan för Lönnmordsteknik (The special force for assassination technique). In all subsequent mentions, it was changed to Hemliga falangen, "The secret phalanx."
  • The English dub initially rendered Naruto's "dattebayo" verbal tic as "believe it," but it was dropped after a few arcs because everyone agreed it got annoying real fast. This became a problem in Shippuden, when it was revealed that Naruto unwittingly inherited the catchphrase from his mother, whose sometimes ended her sentences with "dattebane." The English dub rendered it as "you know?", and then had Naruto use the verbal tic sparingly afterwards to maintain consistency.
• Cannon chips in MegaMan NT Warrior wavered between "Cannon" or "Laser Blast". They had a continuity for about three instances on whether the chip was used in "summon" mode or "weapon" mode, but that scarcely excuses it, especially when they neatly broke that. Oh, and "High Cannon" and "Mega Cannon" are called fairly consistently. They did that with the names of the characters too, with powers and character names diverging incredibly from the English translation of the very game series it's based on, leading to many characters having two completely different English names.
  • The English dub of Mega Man Star Force was no better. Misora Hibiki became Sonia Strumm in the game and Sonia Sky in the anime dub. Harp was Lyra in the game but still combined with Sonia to become Harp Note, yet the dub changed the name to Lyra Note. Then there was a random moment where MegaMan called his attack as "Rock Buster."
  • The 2nd game uses "Gospel" (After Bass's Evil Counterpart for Rush) for the villains and doesn't change it in the English version (where the original "Gospel" is known as "Treble" in the main series). The fact that their logo is a giant G and "Treble" not being a good name for an evil organization is believed to be behind this. In the anime dub, the name was changed to "Grave", since the censors probably didn't approve "Gospel".
• The Digimon dubs quite a problem with this, with the names and attacks of characters alternating between the ones used in the show in Japanese and the ones used in the merchandise (or previous show appearances) in English. Digimon Adventure 02 is terrible about the same characters - not different Digimon of the same type, but the very same characters - using different names for the same attack. (Bonus points if the name was used for a different attack last time we heard it.) Since Digimon is big on Calling Your Attacks, to the point where it's often speculated that a Digimon cannot use an attack without saying it, it's very glaring when yesterday's Flaming Fist is today's Fire Rocket.
  • Different attacks would also be called the same thing a lot as well. WarGreymon's Terra Force is the giant fireball throw, Great Tornado is his spinning drill attack, Mega Claw is his hack-and-slash technique. The dub called ALL of those attacks Terra Force at some point or another, except when it called Great Tornado Mega Claw.
  • In later dubbed series, this occurs ridiculously often between the dub of the television show and the US merchandise - for example, Dynasmon is referred to as Dunasmon in the card game, while Crusadermon retains his original name of LordKnightmon. As of Digimon Frontier, it's clear that Bandai of America simply stopped caring - of all the Digimon introduced in Frontier, absolutely none of them are listed as having the same attacks in the merchandise as they do in the anime, or in the Japanese media for that matter! Then there are the name inconsistencies - aside from the aforementioned Dynasmon and Crusadermon, Bandai also makes mistakes about "Lanamon"^note Ranamon in the dub anime and Japanese material, "Sephirothmon"^note Sakkakumon in the dub anime, Sefirotmon in Japanese material, "Velgrmon"^note Velgemon in the dub anime, Velgmon in Japanese material and most annoyingly of all, "Kerpymon"^note Cherubimon literally everywhere else, and for good reason; this name is unfortunately as old as 02. The kicker here? According to Adventure dub director Jeff Nimoy, Bandai actually gave the dubbers what names to use for things, at least in the Adventure days, so either they stopped caring and doing that... or they were deliberately fucking with the dubbers by changing names after giving them.
  • The Disney dubs of the various movies were made well after the original Saban dubs aired and contain a lot of inconsistencies in localization. For instance, in the Tamers movies, Japanese flags are removed and Okinawa is referred to as just "the island" in spite of the TV series having no issues with referencing Okinawa or the Japanese setting, and the Barbie doll nudity is covered with glints of light in spite of the Saban dub of the TV series keeping it unchanged. Kai is also given a different voice than what he had in the series.
  • In the first airing of a 02 dub episode, a bunch of YukimiBotamon were referred to by this name, but the on-screen text showed "SnowBotamon" (English name used in Bandai's merchandise). Later reruns corrected the text, but the confusion remained.
  • In Tamers and Frontier, the show writers seemed to be much freer to go their own way with terminology. Characters often get new names and attacks, or retain their Japanese ones, when The Merch was totally different. This is often seen as a good thing, though - the folks who'd made the trading cards had no idea what the animators would go on to make the attacks do when brought to television. Once things were left to the writers, we saw the end of the oddities that came from using the Bandai names sight unseen in season one, such as attacks that could not possibly have been named with the eventual onscreen actions in mind (Twin Fang = Saber Leomon firing his hair.) and seemingly meaningless names that were actually direct Romanizations of straightforward Gratuitous English ones (Kurisarimon = Chrysalimon), or even keeping the Japanese ones where the Bandai merch ones were lackuster or just different.
  • Meanwhile, in Digimon Data Squad, Falcomon's dub-Ultimate form, given the name Crowmon in the show, is inconsistent with the name it had been given in previous games: Yatagaramon. In addition, the aforementioned Crusadermon was - allegedly at the behest of Toei Animation - renamed LoadKnightmon - not Lord, Load. However, they actually let him be a guy this time.
  • Data Squad also switched some of the Royal Knights' attack names to the Japanese ones, instead of ones established in previous American series; for example, what was Gallantmon's "Shield of the Just" in Digimon Tamers became "Final Elysium" in Data Squad. But at least they didn't suddenly start calling him Dukemon - something that would not have been out of character for that season.
  • In Data Squad, it's like nobody had watched the previous series. Monster-of-the-week Digimon are almost guaranteed to use the Bandai of America names and attacks in defiance of the long-established terms - often with Mons who were much more than monsters of the week in series past. By this point, Digimon who have appeared in most series and had their names and attacks kept consistent are very few and far between; Agumon is the only one which immediately comes to mind, and as the one in Savers is a different subspecies it would actually have had an excuse to have different attack names!
  • The Brazilian dub has all the aforementioned flaws but is much worse. The dubbers can't decide whether to keep the Japanese names or the Bandai of America ones. One scene in Digimon Adventure 02 is particularly egregious:
    Kari: He is coming back!
    T.K.: As Myotismon? Or Venom Myotismon?
    Malo Myotismon: None of that. I am Belial Vamdemon!
    Digimon Analyser: Malo Myotismon, the final form of Myotismon (...)
  • Digimon Fusion, also suffered from this, namely when it comes to deciding which names they want to use for Digimon and the pronunciation of said names.
    • In one episode, Frigimon is dubbed as its original Japanese name, Yukidarumon, but it's changed right back to Frigimon in the next episode. Syakomon pronounces its name as SY-a-ko-mon, but the wording that appears right as it introduces itself spells it as Shakomon, not Syakomon. Most egregiously, when Mikey (Taiki in the Japanese version) uses Agumon's Digicard, Agumon's name ends up being spelled Augumon as soon as its name appears on the screen!
  • The Italian dub of Fusion, known as Digimon Fusion Battles, is filled with issues when it comes to naming Digimon. Some of them keep their western names like in the earlier series (Puppetmon, Frigimon), others have their western names except pronounced differently than in the older series (Beelzemon pronounced BELL-zemon rather than BEEL-zemon, Deputymon pronounced De-POO-timon rather than DE-putymon), other keep their Japanese names even when they used the western names in earlier series (Vamdemon, Dukemon). And the ones who always kept the Japanese names? We have again some pronounce changes (Cyberdramon is Cy-BEAR-dramon rather than Cyber-DRA-mon, Submarimon is Subma-REE-mon rather than SOOB-marimon) or even get misspelled from the original Japanese (Lilithmon is now Rirismon, Baalmon is now Barmon)
    • Another inconsistency in the Italian dub is how they treat the term "DigiXros". In casual dialogue it's localized as "Digifusione" ("Digifusion"), but when it's actually done they still say "DigiXros"
  • For some reason, the German dub of Digimon Frontier made all Holy Four Angel Digimon female and gave all of them female voice actors. But Patamon, the weaker and reborn version of Seraphimon, had the same male voice as the Patamon from Adventure.
  • The German dub of Digimon Data Squad gave some of the Digimon their Japanese names, despite some of them having had the Western names from previous series. Most notable are the members of the Royal Knights.
• Transformers: Armada referred to the giant battleship Decepticon as both Tidal Wave and Shockwave, depending on the episode.
  • The show had more than its share of dub errors, though. Particularly, Megatron's partner Mini-Con is named Leader-1, in homage to Challenge of the GoBots, but the name "Leader-1" would be applied to almost every Mini-Con at least once. Also, many a Mini-Con reverted to the Japanese name (Swindle gets called Grid once, etc.).
  • Energon couldn't even bother to keep things consistent between lines of dialogue, let alone from episode to episode. In addition, for multiple episodes, no one could decide which Autobot was Cliffjumper or Downshift. It boggles the mind, really: production was rushed, and the translation that was incomplete, true, but an incomplete translation explains only times when a line didn't match the Super Link original. Here, there were times when the lines made no sense whatsoever as a response to what had just been said, or directly defied what we were witnessing onscreen at the same time. Worse, Cliffjumper even acquired Downshift's voice once.
  • This mostly fell by the wayside by the time Cybertron rolled around, chalking this up to Screwed by the Network. However, Cybertron had a few inconsistencies with Energon due to not originally being a sequel, which makes this particular example straddle the line between this trope and Too Long; Didn't Dub. There is, however, a straight-up example in Crosswise, who was called Smokescreen in the first few episodes he was in, though this was fixed for later broadcasts of said episodes. He was going to be a new Smokescreen, you see, but once they decided Cybertron would be a sequel to Armada and Energon... well, Armada Smokescreen looks nothing like Crosswise, acts nothing like Crosswise, and existed too much to have actually been frozen in Arctic ice for millennia prior to Professor Suzuki discovering him in Cybertron, which is Crosswise's origin.
  • In a subtitle example, one fansub group making Transformers: ★Headmasters English subtitles at first used the Japanese names for characters and factions. About halfway through, they switched to the American names.
  • The Hungarian dubbing of Armada and Cybertron topped the faults of the English version by making absolutely sure that at least one character in each Armada episode would deliver a line in another character's voice, and confused the Mini-Con names even further (for instance, Sparkplug didn't get a name for 10+ episodes). Cybertron (dubbed years earlier and by completely different people) also kept changing its voices around a lot, and handled the infamous Override gender-switch by having the character be male at first, then suddenly changing "him" into a female with no explanation.
  • An interesting inversion happened with regards to Unicron Trilogy Jetfire: In Japanese, he was called Jetfire in Armada, Skyfire in Energon, and Dreadrock in Cybertron, but was called Jetfire in all three series in English.
• The English dub of Cardcaptor Sakura suffered from this due to its fragmented episode run on Kids' WB!. Any cards that came from episodes not shown were explained through flashbacks that often portrayed the capture as happening differently from the actual episode. When the rest of the episodes were shown in other Anglophone countries, the flashbacks ended up making it look like Sakura was bad at remembering things.
• Examples from Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • There were a few times where it took a while for them to figure out how to translate card names. Celtic Guardian's first appearance referred to it as "Elf Swordsman" (which is its original name), and Harpie Lady was referred to as "Harpie's Lady" a few times early on.
  • In the Italian translation of the manga, Celtic Guardian is randomly called "The Elf Warrior", "Elf Knight" or "Elvish Knight", and Harpie Lady became "Happy Lady".
  • "Monster Reborn" was called "Reborn the Monster" for a large portion of the first series. Lampshaded in The Abridged Series in which one episode Yami refers to the card as "Reborn the Monster", and both times a message is seen on screen showing "Monster Reborn".
  • Again in the Italian version of the manga, In the first panel Ghost Kotsuzuka is named, the named is translated as "The funerary ashes ghost". In every other panel, it's just Ghost Kotsuzuka.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub was considered one of the best dubs, but had the bad luck of changing dub studios and directors (fortunately, the main voice cast didn't change). Despite eventually correcting Reborn the Monster to Monster Reborn, the Latin American Spanish dub keep naming the card the same way ("Renace el Monstruo") for quite a time. Then, for some reason, they started to call the card "Resurrection of the Monster" (probably a garbled version of its Japanese name, "Resurrection of the Dead." Also, they used to name Obelisk the Tormentor using a literal translation (which, in this case, was okay), Obelisco el Atormentador, but the second time the card was named, it was called "Obelisk el Atormentador" for no reason. After a bit of time, they named the translated card "El atormentador Obelisk". And the Dark Magician Girl, who at first was called "Maga Oscura", which was okay, after some studio change, they started calling her "La dama del Mago Oscuro" (which can be translated as "Lady of the Dark Magician", and the way it sounds implies they are a couple). Probably the translators were Shippers.
  • In the Italian dub Dark Magician Girl is usually called "Giovane Maga Nera" ("Young Dark Magician"), but in the Pyramid of Light movie she is instead called "Ragazza del Mago Nero" ("Dark Magician's girlfriend").
• The English translation of the Azumanga Daioh manga has quite a few cases of this. Perhaps the most notable example is that the subject Yukari-sensei teaches is initially changed to Spanish, but later on is kept as the original English (probably as the translators realized that the substitution would ruin some gags later on).
  • The English dub of the show has it just as bad. Yukari becomes a "language" teacher. One of the foreigners becomes Spanish, while the one who sets up the Blah, Blah, Blah joke imitates the Engrish of the Japanese version. All other instances of Engrish are mutated into generally easy French and Spanish phrases, with at least one instance where the characters just add an "-o" to the ends of normal English words (though this was obviously intended to get by on the Rule of Funny). It only actually really ruins one gag, though.
    Yukari: AI HABU NASHINGU MOA TSU TIICHI YUU!^note "I have nothing more to teach you!"
    Tomo: SANKUSU, MISU YUKARI!^note "Thanks, Miss Yukari!"
  • Additionally, while Chiyo is always referred to as "Chiyo-chan" in the dub, Chiyo herself refers to "Miss Osaka", and "Miss Sakaki", etc. On the other hand, "Yukari-sensei" being called "Miss Yukari" is understandable, especially since one episode (in the original Japanese version) has Tomo(-chan) calling her "Miss Yukari" in English.
• Almost every manga TokyoPop has ever translated, ever. This goes double for Sailor Moon.
  • Their anniversary re-release of Magic Knight Rayearth actually fixed the issues with this it used to have, and also repaired some things that were omitted or intentionally mistranslated in the original release. Said release was already one of the best from the period when they were still called "MiXX Comix", which isn't saying much.
• ADV's English dubs of the two Zone of the Enders anime (the OVA "Idolo" and the TV series "Dolores, i") are a consistency freak's nightmare. Nearly every instance of name-dropping from the three video games is horribly butchered: the organization BAHRAM is called Bufram, villain Nohman is addressed as Norman, the events of the first game are said to have happened on a colony called Antiria instead of Antillia...there's even one brutally egregious case of "Orbital Flame" instead of "Orbital Frame" in the first episode (though later episodes do not repeat this mistake). On the upside, the English voicework apart from these annoying inconsistencies is excellent; at the very least it's leaps and bounds beyond the borderline "Blind Idiot" Translation made by Konami for the two PS2 titles...
• The Death Note English dub at first varied between leaving the word shinigami untranslated and translating it as 'god of death'. They eventually went with the former. This was probably intentional, so it would be clear what the word shinigami meant. The same thing is done in the manga. The words 'gods of death' are also used in a message from Kira to L while written in English in the manga. The word 'shinigami' could not have been used in that context.
• The half of the episodes of GaoGaiGar that were dubbed were very inconsistent about a lot of pronunciations. For instance the the last syllable in the titular mecha is sometimes pronounced "gar" and other times it's "ger". Sometimes it seems to vary by character.
• The Bleach dub can't seem to make up its mind whether the little girl modsoul is named Linin, Rinin, Rilin, Lilin, or something else entirely. Officially, it's "Lirin", but the voice actors seem to make a point of pronouncing it ambiguously, making it sound almost like "Ririn".
• The dub of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has a minor, but still incredibly bizarre case where the name in the dialogue for a certain mecha contradicts the subtitles that were shown half a second earlier. The mecha that transformed at the end of the 25th episode was called "Super Galactic" by the translation of the Boss Subtitles, but then all the people called it "Super Galaxy".
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha suffers from this, with Fate's familiar being named either Alf, Arf, or Aruf depending on the disc. Although the season one dub consistently calls Nanoha's weapon the Raging Heart, the subs start with Raging and then switch it out for Raising, which was also used for the A's dub.
  • In the Japanese version of episode 12, Fate calls her Thunder Smasher attack Thunder Buster. The English dub fixed that mistake.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the Belkan Intelligent Device Graf Eisen has the abilities "Panzerschild" (armor shield) and "Panzerhindernis" (armor obstacle), and the intelligent device Laevatein has the ability "Panzergeist" (armor spirit). Geneon's subtitles translate "panzer" as "tank" for Graf Eisen's abilities, but translate it as "armor" for Laevatein's ability. The fact that there aren't any tanks in this show, and that these are all defensive abilities, might suggest that it should be "armor" (or "armored"; the correct adjective forms would be "gepanzert", "gepanzertes", and "gepanzert", respectively).
  • During the final battle scene of the The Movie 2nd A's commentary, the cast (including Fate herself) mistakenly call Fate's Plasma Zanber Breaker "Jet Zanber", which is a completely different attack.
• It's not an inconsistent dub (in fact there isn't a dub at all), but there's contradiction among the subtitles, the eye catches, and various other things at two whether GunBuster (both the machine and the series itself) is supposed to be two words (Gun Buster), one regular word (Gunbuster), or a CamelCase word (GunBuster).
• The Ranma ½ manga by Viz ran into this during the "Aging Mushrooms" (called "Mushrooms of Time" in the English version) storyline. After consuming one of the titular items, which make you as old as the mushroom is long (in centimeters,) Ryouga turns into a little 6 year-old kid. Later on, he's fed a 3cm mushroom and becomes a three year-old, and he gets back at Ranma with the "Explosive Pulverization" technique (the Bakusai Tenketsu, which Viz itself had always translated as "Breaking Point") and he gains a three year-old's lisp. Even worse, when he eats a 10cm mushroom, he keeps the lisp even though he didn't have one when he was six.
  • The Hiryuushoutenha ("Flying Dragon Ascend-to-Heaven Blast") gets a new translation every time it's called out.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • The manga had some problems with this, especially in the first few volumes. They're fairly minor for the most part but there are two gratuitous instances: Chamo is variously referred (by the same characters) as an ermine, rat, weasel, or ferret, before they finally confirmed him as an ermine. Then there was the early incident where Negi's father was referred to as the "Southern Master" for a volume before the translators realized that it makes no sense and switched to the correct "Thousand Master". Fortunately, later editions of that volume fixed it.
  • Takamichi's note for Negi on Evangeline is supposed to read "talk to me if she becomes a problem," since she's an evil vampire with a personal vendetta against Negi, specifically. The official English translation is "Ask her advice if you're in trouble," making it seem as though Takamichi was trying to get Negi killed.
  • Chachamaru's surname was said to be "Rakuso" at first, then "Karakuri" later on.
  • They really couldn't decide on what Nodoka's nickname was either: the early volumes used "Library Girl" or "Librarian" before switching over to the more literal "Bookstore".
  • Fortunately, the later Omnibus editions of the early volumes fix all of these problems, due to being re-translated by the same people doing the current translations.
• The Dark Horse translation of School Zone can't seem to decide whether it should be Yokai, Youkai, or Monster. In the summaries of previous volumes and character bios, they even manage to render it as Yosuke — apparently confusing Nanka Youkai with Nanka Yosuke, the person it's possessing. There is also a character who's named Yoshiko in the first volume, and Miko in the later volumes.
• The Shaman King Brazilian dub suffered from this in spades; the only attack that got a consistent renaming was Ren's Chuuka Zanmai ("Golden Tower in Action" in the dub), every other had a different name per episode. For example, Yoh's trademark attack (Shinkuu Budda Giri) was called Budda Slash, Budda Attack, Amida Style Attack, Amida Attack, Shinkuu Budda Giri, and "Haaaryyyaaahhhgggh!".
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • There is a joke of sorts wherein characters generally believe that May Chang's pet miniature panda is some kind of cat. Some of the English dub episodes had it be correctly identified as a panda, whereas a later episode used the cat confusion.
  • They also weren't sure whether a country should be called Ishval or Ishbal, and then they tried to stick an R in there somewhere once. See the series' Spell My Name with an S entry for further giggles.
  • Some number of episodes into the dub of Brotherhood, the characters abruptly start referring to the Gate (as it had been called not only up to that point in the show, but throughout the entire Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)) as "the Portal" for no adequately explained reason.
  • While the Australian translation is generally quite good with consistency and manages to translate most names correctly, it can't decide whether the name of the lizard chimera working under Greed is Bido or Pete. Also Xerxes was called Lebis the first time it was mentioned but was changed appropriately in every subsequent mention. The American version is much worse...while not in the anime, the manga translation referred to the country as "Cselksess." Where they got that from is anyone's guess.
  • Also in the Australian version, the Briggs mountains were called the "Bux" mountains when first mentioned. They also got Julio Comanche's (The Silver Alchemist) first name wrong, calling him Joliot.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion and Rebuild of Evangelion.
  • The name for what Kaworu (and in 3.0 Asuka) call mankind is "Lilim" in the ADV dub of the series and "Lilin" in the Manga Entertainment dub of the NGE movies. For Rebuild, Studio Khara fixed this before it even came up: the preview at the end of 1.0 flashed "Lilin" on the screen, well before the word first came up in dialogue in 3.0.
  • In NGE, Adam's form at the Second Impact is called hikari no kyōjin, which was correctly translated as "giant of light". However, Rebuild 2.0 has a scene clearly reminiscent of the Second Impact in NGE, in which Eva-01 takes a form with the same Japanese name, which Studio Khara adapted to English as "Radiant Giant". The names of the latter form only appear in All There in the Manual, and the forms probably have no relation to each other other than being a Mythology Gag.
  • The localization of the manga adaptation is somewhat inconsistent about whether to include honorifics; for example, Rei calls Shinji "Ikari-kun" in some scenes and "Ikari" in others.
  • In the English dub, "Eva" is pronounced like "ey-va" in the series, while in End Of Evangelion it's closer to "evva". Going by the Greek/Latin form of both "evangel" and "Eve", it should be pronounced "ey-va". Going by the Japanese, it's either or.
• One Piece:
  • The manga was affected by the 4Kids dub starting up, changing Zoro's name to Zolo, despite letting other characters keep their original names (for example, Smoker is called Chaser on the 4Kids dub, but is called "Smoker" in the manga). Considering there was also copyright problems with Zorro, it probably would've had to happen eventually, and it's been that way since, making this a relatively minor example. Or not as since Funimation gained the anime rights, they've been calling him Zoro with no legal troubles at all, along with every piece of One Piece media except for the official manga.
  • The English manga is inconsistent with Buggy the Clown's Verbal Tic, hade ni, which Funimation consistently translates as "flashy" (for example, "Die flashily!"). Most of the time it's not even used, but other times it's been translated as "gloriously," "humor me," and "lavishly."
  • For years, all official translations referred to the island at the end of the Grand Line as "Raftel". However, Chapter 967 of the manga, released over 20 years after the start of the series, establishes it's actually supposed to be "Laugh Tale", something translations would reflect going forward.
  • The official translation is also inconsistent on whether or not they want to translate Character names. For example, the leaders of the Mink Tribe, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, both have their names translated in the official sub/dub as "Dog Storm" and "Cat Viper". Yet there are plenty of other characters whose names can technically be translated that are left alone, such as Nami which can translate to "Wave", and Bartholomew Kuma whose name literally means "Bear".
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • The Hungarian dub had trouble with the name of the Kamehameha, going through at least six different names, including "Lifeforce Wave", "Highest Power", "Magical Force", "Magic Ray", "Personality Beam" and the simple "Lightning", and switching back and forth between them, sometimes within the same episode. Since Hungarian dubs are usually pretty good compared to most, it's possible that this was a quirk carried over from the French dub.
  • It probably was, since the Spanish dub is also based on the French one and also has that issue ("Cameame Waves"? "Vital Wave"? "Infinite Light"?). The opposite also happened, with "Vital Wave" (The "normal" name for the Kamehameha) also being used for the Kikouhou, the Taiyou-ken, the Kaioh-ken, several unnamed ki attacks, and more. The Taiyou-ken (Solar Fist) also went by several names, such as "Solar Beam", "Solar Fist" (Gasp!), "Photoelectric Waves" (Said by Goku, go figure) and the crowner, "Final Flash". By Cell. One episode BEFORE Vegeta used the real Final Flash. Not even the titular McGuffins are safe, being "magical balls" (Most things are simply "magical X" on this dub for some reason) but sometimes becoming "crystal balls" or even "dragon balls". There's also calling Saiyans "Space Warriors" and Super Saiyans "Super Warriors", but then using "Super Warriors" for vanilla Saiyans in some movies, and actually calling them "Saiyans" (In English) on early GT. Even the manga fell to this one, calling them "Saiyajins" in Gratuitous Japanese at first, and by extension "Super Saiyajin" later on... until the Androids arc, where they used "Super Warriors" like the anime. Sometimes. To the point of using both terms on the same page. The manga also called the Genki Dama "fireball" on its first appearance and "Energy Ball" everywhere else. And that's not even getting to current video games being translated from the USA versions resulting in even more name changes for minor characters.
  • Since then, Dragon Ball Kai got dubbed in French and is better than the original in all aspects. Closer to the Japanese original, secondary characters are named and characters keep their voice actors. Most importantly, 99% less translation errors.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub had also its own share of inconcistencies: First, in early episodes, both Pilaf and Shen Long had no name (they were referred to as "The Emperor" and "The Dragon God", respectively), until the Red Ribbon saga when their names were finally said. Uupa on his first appeareance was called Nube (lit. "Cloud") and was a girl; by the next episode he was aptly renamed Uupa and got a gender change. Later, in the Z series, Dr. Gero was strangely called Dr. Maki and after a few episodes he reverted to his Japanese name. But maybe the worst offender is planet Namek, which during the Saiyan and Freezer sagas was named "Planeta Namekusei" ("Planet Planet Namek", in a weird case of Gratuitous Japanese). After the arc had ended the planet got renamed as Planeta Nameku. Also, secondary characters changed voices every now and then.
  • Due to a complex licensing situation, people in the UK got five different dubs of the series on Cartoon Network alone. This created countless inconsistencies regarding names, voices and music.
  • In the English version of Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo went by the pseudonym "Ma Junior" at the World Martial Arts Tournament, with his reasoning that it was what he used last time he entered the tournament. In the Dragon Ball dub, he went by the name "Junior" (No "Ma") instead. Also, in the edited version of Dragon Ball Z Kai he uses the "Special Beam Cannon" on Raditz, only for it to be the "Makankosappo" in the next episode's flashback. This was averted in the uncut dub in that case, however was later invoked when Goku uses the "Solar Flare" and Krillin does the "Taiyou-ken".
  • Mr. Satan was called "Hercule" (sourced from his French dub name) in the broadcast version of the English dub, and in most video games and merchandise. The uncut version of the dub, as presented on DVD, usually refers to him as Mr. Satan, but the remastered version accidentally used a few takes calling him Hercule.
  • Raditz was said to be faster than the speed of light, yet much later on Goku's instant transmission was described as allowing him to move at the speed of light. (Both of these are inaccurate FYI, as in the original Piccolo just said that Raditz was amazingly fast and Instant Transmission, like its name implies, is actually instant).
  • Another oddity of the Hungarian dub was Frieza's name, which was at first translated as Dermesztina ("Freezetina"), but was changed to Dermesztő ("Freezer") when it became apparent that he's a guy. Some changes also took place when they started dubbing Dragon Ball GT — most of the French carryover names were left as they were, but the Trunk was restored to Trunks, as was Mr. Momo to Mr. Popo. Also, Vegeta finally began calling Son Goku by his Sayan name Kakarot, while in the dub of Z, he constantly referred to him as Songoku, save for a single episode in which Kakarot was rendered as Cachalote (pronounced "Kaah-shaah-low" in the dub) — another oddity of the French dub, which all other redubs based on the French version shared.
  • Yet again an inconsistency stemming from the French localization: Maron is sometimes called Marlene.
  • In the Danish version, spawned from the French version, most of the translation errors of that version are fixed... but a new one is added in the form of the so-called Gendi Kama.
• In the Italian dub of Dragon Ball, King Piccolo was renamed "Al Satan"... which was already used as Gyumaoh/Ox King's dub name. When the latter reappeared in the last episodes of the show, his name was changed to "Gyuma", a shortened version of the Japanese name.
• For years, the Italian dub of the Dragon Ball anime referred to Androids 17 and 18 as cyborgs, calling them C-17 and C-18 (of course, the C is for "Cyborg"). Starting from the Universe Survival Arc of Dragon Ball Super, they started to call them androids, while still calling them C-17 and C-18.
• The Slayers: Super-Explosive Demon Story manga, as translated by Central Park Media, has some inconsistencies in how names are spelled:
  • The silver beasts are initially called "Zanafer", then later called "Xanasphar". (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Zanaffar".)
  • The city with the Flagoon tree is initially called "Sylarg", then later called "Sairaag". (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Sairaag".)
  • The priestess from that city is called both "Sylphiel" and "Sylfeer", seemingly at random. There was even one page that had both spellings used on it. (Most other versions of Slayers spell it "Sylphiel".)
• Saint Seiya
  • The Latin American dub, despite its otherwise excellent quality, has this problem with the techniques of a few characters. For example: Shaina's technique was called "Thunder Claw" in the original Japanese, while in the aformentioned dub she would go around shouting "A mí cobra!!" and/or "El poder de la cobra!!" (lit. "To me, cobra!" and "The power of the cobra!") as a direct reference to the visuals accompanying the technique. Particulary egregious is the case of Shiryu who had the same technique with four different names.
  • In the Asgard Saga, Hilda's castle Valhalla was pronounced waruhara in the Japanese version. Ergo, the dub would call it either Waruhala, Warukaya, Varukaya, and once, but only once, Valhalla.
  • The Netflix English dub switches to calling the Saints "Knights" and their cloth "Armor" beginning with episode 42 due to Executive Meddling from Netflix to match their reboot. However, alternate takes were recorded with the correct terminology for future use in case the dub got reissued elsewhere.
• Eureka Seven has a couple of minor inconsistencies. For a large part of the series, the name of the Scub Coral aliens is translated as "the Coralian" (in the plural), before it's switched over to "the Coralians." Also, Dewey's flagship is called the Galaxy on at least one occasion, but is later kept untranslated as the Ginga.
  • Matthieu mispronounces Eureka's name in episode 6.
• The English dub of FLCL seems incapable of making up its mind as to whether or not to use honorifics. One scene they'll be all over the place, the next, nada. Might be more Rule of Funny though.
• The first volume of the Rave Master manga names Haru's Morph Weapon sword by its Japanese name, "The Ten Commandments." After that however, it's always referred to as the "Ten Powers" instead.
• The English dub of Inuyasha has been known to switch between using "Lady" or leaving the honorific "-sama" untranslated. When it's really bad, they do this in the same sentence. This was part of the dubs Early-Installment Weirdness along with other characters using the same antiquated speech as Kaede and some mangled Japanese names/words. The dub would settle into its groove by the time Sango joined the cast.
  • The English dub of the original series was pretty consistent with translations of Calling Your Attacks. The dub of The Final Act, being released primarily straight to DVD wouldn't bother with any of the new attacks introduced. This leads to "Wind Scar" appearing alongside "Meidō Zangetsuha".
  • Fun fact about the Brazilian dub: at first the series was translated by Fernando Janson, who kept the terminology pretty consistent throughout the first half of the series. For the second half, he shared his translation duties with Fred Correa, who apparently did not bother to research the established translations of terminology and made up new ones (sometimes inconsistent within themselves). Thus, the second half of the Brazilian dub is known for being consistently inconsistent: for example, the term "han'you" (Viz: half-demon) would change between "half-youkai" (Janson), "semi-demon", or simply "hybrid" (Correa). Attack names also became a mess; Inuyasha's Bakuryūha (Viz: Backlash Wave) would vary between "Explosive Wave" (Janson), "Frontal Attack" (????) and, in one bizarre instance, "Bakuryuja" ^note  That was probably due to an overlap confusion with the LA Spanish script; "j" has the same sound as "h" in Spanish, but definetly not in Portuguese . But you can tell which translator is working on the episode you're about to watch: if Inuyasha opens the episode with (the accurately translated) "I'll destroy Narak[u] with the Tessaiga!", it was Janson. If he does so with (the bizarrely reinterpreted) "We'll destroy Narak[u] with our steel teeth!", it was Correa.
• The second English adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (entitled G-Force: Guardians of Space) was a rush job, as Turner wanted to get the show done as quickly as possible for less cost. It is unknown how many writers besides Fred Ladd must have worked on the dub, but translation and dub name inconsistencies were prone to crop up:
  • Director Anderson is referred to as "Anderson" in some episodes, while others refer to him as "Commander Todd".
  • The country of Hontwarl was called "St. Pierre" in the first episode it appeared in, while the next two episodes suddenly called it "Satania".
  • In an example of attempted censorship, Dirk's parents are initially said to have "almost" been killed by Galactor, while the flashback scene of their deaths was edited out. A later episode states that Dirk's parents were in fact assassinated that many years ago, possibly because the writers realized they could no longer hide that plot point.
• The English dub of Gate Keepers translates the villain Akuma Hakushaku's name as "Baron Akuma." In the sequel series, Gate Keepers 21, he is called "Count Akuma" instead.
• [adult swim] bumps for Lupin III: Part II were inconsistent in how they mispronounced the title character's name — the ones that didn't pronounce it as "Loopin the Third" instead parsed it as "Lupin Three", as if it were the third series in a franchise simply named "Lupin".
  • The Italian dub of the red jacket series renamed Fujiko "Margot". The problem is that every other Italian dub of Lupin III media (including the earlier green jacket series) always kept her original name.
• The English dub of Cyborg 009 used "Professor Gilmore" and "Doctor Gilmore" very interchangeably, along with the actors experiencing difficulty over whether to pronounce 008's actual name (Pyunma) as "poon-ma" or "pyoon-ma". The dub of the "Gilmore's Notes" episode also had its script heavily diverge from the original, with the dubbed Gilmore claiming that he never got to meet the four first-generation cyborgs (001-004) as they were frozen before he came on to the project. A later episode would show this not to be the case. He also claims in the dub that 003 is over 80 years old, when she'd more likely be chronologically in her 50s for the time period that the adaptation takes place in (2001-2002).
  • The Pu'Awak sister Dinah was referred to as both "Dinah" and "Deena" when her name was brought up, owing to some possible mispronunciation trouble. The Latin American dub went with calling her "Deena".
  • The scriptwriter that handled the "Gilmore's Notes" episode, rather than re-using the sound and lines for the stock footage clips, opted to write new dialogue for the clips— some of which did not match up to what was said in the previously-dubbed episodes. For instance, one line of 004's was rewritten to have him say to 009; "Look at me, I'm just a freakshow!".
• Sgt. Frog: Tamama Impact is usually referred to by some variant of "Crazy Rage Breath", but occasionally they still call it Tamama Impact. Kogoro's transformation word also flips from "Attach-O!" to "Adhesion", the literal translation of the Japanese.
  • In the Italian dub:
    • The Tamama Impact is called "Tamama Attack" in the first season and "Tamama Impact" in the subsequent ones.
    • Koyuki's surname is changed from Azumaya to Gashitana for no apparent reason in later episodes.
    • Saburo's radio persona is usually called "DJ Mutsumi" as in the original version, but in some episodes is randomly changed to "Romantic DJ"
• The Italian dub of the Time Bokan Royal Revival OAV was for most of the time faithful to the dubs of the shows that aired back then, except that the names of the two henchmen from the first series were switched around. And three side characters from Yattodetaman were called with their Japanese names rather than the Italian ones. Cue enraged fans.
• The Italian dub of Cardfight!! Vanguard has issues with the names of some clans and cards. Sometimes you see stuff like the names of the various incarnations of Tsukuyomi being switched around, sometimes you have Nova Grapplers being translated literally as "Combattenti Nova" rather than the usual "Lottatori Stellari" ("Star Fighters"), and then they can't just call Oracle Think-Tank with the right name: the correct translation is "Oracolo Esperto" ("Expert Oracle"), as used in the actual cards, but in the anime you usually hear either "Guardiano dell'Oracolo" ("Guardian of the Oracle") or "Esperto dell'Oracolo" ("Expert of the Oracle"), and the former is actually a wrong version of "Guardiano Oracolo", the translation of the "Oracle Guardian" family of Oracle Think-Tank units.
  • Also, Blaster Blade and Battleraizer were translated as "Distruttore delle Lame" ("Destroyer of the Blades") and "Distruttore da Battaglia" ("Battle Destroyer"), being unaware that "Blaster" and "Raizer" were going to be important keywords later on. As a result, all the following "Blaster" and "Raizer" units keep the keyword in English with the effect getting a side note accounting that the first two units lacked the keyword in Italian. The anime, on the other hand, didn't care and kept translating the "Blaster" keyword as "Distruttore", giving different names to many cards: for example, Blaster Javelin is the literal "Blaster Giavellotto" in the card game and "Distruttore dei Giavellotti" ("Destroyer of the Javelins") in the anime.
• In the official Crunchyroll subtitles for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Georgie is referred to as Josie in the preview for episode 10.
• The Italian dub of Yo Kai Watch translates the name of Next HarMEOWny (Jibanyan's favourite idol group) differently in almost every appearance they make. Between the anime, the manga and other pieces of merchandising such as books or magazines, they were called "Miao Armoniche", "Micine Armoniche", "Micine Miao Armoniche", "Le Gattine", "Vicina Armiaonia", "Super-micie", "Armiaoniche" and some other names too.
• In the English dub of Bakugan, Marucho is a boy in most episodes, which is his right gender, but in episode 11 he's referred to with female pronouns for whatever reason. The Romanian dub (and perhaps the dub of every language with gendered adjectives) is worse with this, because it translates him as a girl more often than the English dub does and in one episode he's dubbed as both a girl and a boy.
• In the Italian dub of My Hero Academia, the exact pronounciation of "Quirk" isn't clear: most characters pronounce it correctly, but some (All Might in some earlier episodes, Recovery Girl and Endeavor) pronounce it "qwork" instead.
• The English localization of Yuri is My Job! flip-flops between whether its names are in Japanese or Western order. At the end of Chapter 6 in Volume 1, Mitsuki's name is shown as "Yano Mitsuki," on her student ID (the Japanese order), but in Chapter 8 in Volume 2, which returns to that scene after the Whole Episode Flashback, the same student ID has "Mitsuki Yano."
• The Persona 3 manga initially has all the high-school age characters on a First-Name Basis- for example, Mitsuru calls Yukari by her first name in the first volume, long before they become friends. At the start of Volume 9, which starts shortly before the endgame, some of the cast start using last names- for example, Mitsuru calls Junpei "Iori." Something similar happens in the Persona 4 manga, around the start of Volume 10, which begins just after November 5.
• The English dub of the anime version of High Score Girl mostly calls Japanese consoles and games by their North American names, although later on the Turbografx-16 is referred to as PC-Engine, and the Super Famicom/NES version of Final Fantasy VI is still called Final Fantasy VI despite being renumbered III for North America.
• The English dub of The Legend of Snow White had a complete cast change after the first fourteen episodes, and along with the different voices, Snow White's squirell friend's name changed from "Pik" to "Pikki" and the forest's magical fog changed from "the Seven Colors Fog" to "the Rainbow Fog."
• The English dub of Asteroid in Love is inconsistent on name order. For example, Ao introduces herself to Misa as "Manaka Ao" in the third episode, while introducing herself as "Ao Manaka" while on Ishigaki island during the eleventh episode.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri starts off calling his partner "Ninokuru-senpai" or just "senpai", both of which the English version simplifies to "Ninokuru". After Matsuri switches the former to "Soga-senpai" a few volumes in, the English translates either phrase to "Soga" or "Ninokuru" for a while before settling on "Soga" for both.

Asian Animation

• Western releases of Eena Meena Deeka can't decide whether to call the fox character Bhukkad or Foxie.
• The English dub of Happy Heroes isn't consistent with its own title. Is it Happy Friends, Happy Heroes, Happy Hero, or Happy Superman?
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
  • The English dub usually calls the characters Weslie and Wolffy, but the names Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf are used in a couple dubs, such as the dub of season 1 and the dub of the spin-off Pleasant Goat Fun Class.
  • The English title for one of the seasons is either Joys of Seasons or Joy of Seasons.
• Tayo the Little Bus: The South Korean show's English dub prounounces characters' names differently from season to season. Examples: Lani is pronounced "Laney" and Citu is pronounced "Cito." It can be very jarring, especially due to the large cast.

Comic Books

• The Icelandic translations of Disney comics, while keeping the names of major characters consistent, regularly change the names of all minor characters who only pop up here and there, the different translators seemingly not bothering to check if this character's name has been translated before. This happens now and then in Swedish editions too. When The Carl Barks Collection were published in Sweden, exisiting translations were used wherever possible, but the editors did go back and make sure that things like Scrooge's money bin and Number one dime had consistent names throughout.
• New Gods: In Brazilian Portuguese media:
  • The first publication to feature Lightray identified him as "Raio-de-luz", a literal translation of his original name. Later, his name was changed to Magtron. By 2019, comics started to refer to him by his untranslated English name.
  • The Lump was initially called "The Tumor". In Mister Miracle (2017), he is instead referred to as "The Knee" (From the common idiom "knee-face", which refers to a newborn child's lack of defined facial features). In 2020, his name was changed once more to "The Mass".
• Tintin:
  • The Hebrew translations of the series are inconsistent both within and between albums as to what Captain Haddock is called. This applies to both his title — which bounces between the anglicism "Kepten" and Hebrew translation Rav haḤovel — and his name, which is usually a straight translation of the word for the haddock fish (Ḥamor haYam — literally "sea donkey"), but is sometimes written phonetically as "Hadok".
  • One of the 7 victims of the Inca curse is called Marc Charlet in the original French version, in English, he's called Mark Falconer in "The Seven Crystal Balls" but is suddenly called Carling in "Prisoners of the Sun".
• Two example in the French translation of Bone:
  • The name of the Crown of Horns keeps changing between "Couronne de Cornes" (Crown of Horns), "Couronne d'Épines" (Crown of Thorns) and "Couronne d'Aiguille" (Crown of Needles) in each book.
  • The name of the Locust is translated as "Seigneur des Criquets" ("Lord of Locusts", albeit with a French word that sounds completely different than "locust") for most of the story. But in the last book, they inexplicably call him "Locuste", a more literal translation of his original name.

Comic Strips

• The Spanish translation of Garfield, on the strip's own site, took a few years to figure out how to translate Doc Boy's name. Sometimes he was the literal Spanish translation ("Chico Doc"); other times, his name was unchanged. The translation also went back and forth on whether or not Pooky the teddy bear's name was left alone or changed to the phonetic "Puky".

Fan Works

• Citadel of the Heart flips between either using the Japanese terminology for anything Digimon related, or using the English Dub terminology. Digimon Re: Tamers, on the other hand, decides to invoke this trope as a means of using it for Foreshadowing purposes, making certain characters stand out between one another by having this be a part of their characterization, among other examples. Henry uses his English Dub name because he's shedding the family name, whereas the original names for his family members are kept as they were in the Japanese version. Ruki and her family, as well as Renamon, maintain all of their Japanese names and terminology all the way down to Renamon using said terminology as her own Insistent Terminology (such as referring to Rookie Level Digimon as Child Level Digimon, calling her own attacks by their Japanese names, etc.). Then of course Impmon's entire backstory as to why he uses the Dub terminology is because he's native to the US servers of the Digital World in which the Dub terminology is considered the correct terminology to use, and Impmon's general characterization is a somewhat boorish Eaglelander. Jeri's name is a more mundane case; at birth, when her father was registering her name for her birth certificate, he misspelled her name from the original (Juri) and ended up with Jeri and never bothered to correct it.

Films — Animation

• An intra-language version of this sort of thing happens in Ralph Bakshi's animated version of The Lord of the Rings. The voice actors refer to the character of Saruman as "Aruman" half of the time. This was an originally an intentional change, to make sure the character wouldn't be confused with Sauron, but they flipped between names at random. Also, in spite of Tolkien's detailed notes concerning the pronunciations of certain character names, in the book itself, many of the voice actors pronounced them differently — and in different ways depending on the actor.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
  • The Brazilian dub changes the title of the first movie to Meninas de Equestria. This is all fine and good... but then Rainbow Rocks came along. The official preview on the Hasbro channel uses the localized title, but then in the movie itself the original English title is used instead. This problem is increased in the mobile game, where a completely different title is used for the Equestria Girls minigame. This was never a problem in the European Portuguese dub, where the English title is used from the get-go.
  • A new problem was risen in the European Portuguese dub of Rainbow Rocks. When it was first broadcasted, advertisements used the movie's Working Title of Equestria Girls 2 but the movie itself used the correct title.
  • The Italian dubs keep changing the name of the school. In the first movie it's "Scuola Superiore di Canterlot" ("Scuola Superiore" is the formal translation of "high school"), in the second movie it's "Liceo di Canterlot" ("Liceo" is the term to refer to regular high schools to separate them from technical institutes) and the third movie just leaves "Canterlot High School" in English.
• A peculiar one in the Italian dub of Wreck-It Ralph: The medal Vanellope gives to Ralph says on one of its sides "To Stinkbrain". In dialogue the monicker is translated as "Capoccione Puzzone" ("Smelly Big Head"), but the medal itself is edited to say instead "A Puzzacervello", a more literal translation of the original writing.
• The infamously bad EastWest English dub of Dingo Pictures' Wabuu renames Wuschel the squirrel "Silly", whereas Wabuu's recap of his story in The Countryside Bears reverts to Wuschel.

Films — Live-Action

• Star Wars is a major sufferer of this in several languages, partly due to its age and changes in countries' dubbing practices during the franchise's lifespan.
  • In both the French and Italian versions of the original Star Wars movies, most characters and vehicles received a Dub Name Change. However, in translations of the prequels and later Expanded Universe material, most of these changes were reverted. The "reverted" names are treated as the official ones, despite the original trilogy not getting an extensive redub in those languages for consistency; in Darth Vader's case (see below), while he's one of the few characters to keep his Dub Name Change in the European French versions, even he had his name reverted for French-Canadian translations from The Phantom Menace onwards.
    • In the case of French, Darth Vader is a unique case; both France and Canada share one dub of the original movies, made in France, in which Vader's name (the only "Darth" character at that point) is changed to "Dark Vador". Although later translations in France kept this change and carried it over to new characters ("Dark Maul", etc.), the French-Canadian versions of the new movies, series and packaging blurbs on merchandise not only kept "Darth", but also used Vader's original English name. This actually happens a lot in Canadian French when new entries to old movie and TV series are dubbed. Before the 1990's, most French translations were done in France. Nowadays, most of them get a local dub in Quebec; series that got early instalments dubbed in France can have later ones dubbed in Quebec (Indiana Jones, The Lion King and Family Guy come to mind). And if that wasn't inconsistent enough, from The Force Awakens and onward, they return to his name being Dark Vador like in France meaning that going from the original trilogy, then the prequels and then the sequels, we go from Dark Vador, to Darth Vader, back to Dark Vador again.
    • A New Hope isn't even consistent with itself. The Stormtroopers are refered to as "Imperial Shock Troopers" by Obi-Wan Kenobi and "Commandos" by Princess Leia. CP 3 O also refers to the spice mines of Kessel as the "salt mines of Kasselring".
    • For the Italian versions, there was actually a poll to determine whether Darth Vader (known as "Dart Fener" in Italian) would use his original name in the Revenge of the Sith dub. "Fener" won with 55% of the votes, although "Darth Vader", for some reason, is still used in most Italian merchandise blurbs. And other Sith Lords would use "Darth" rather than "Dart" as a title.
    • The Italian translation of every media released since The Phantom Menace uses the Italian dub names for every character from the classic trilogy except for the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 (who were renamed D-3BO and C1-P8 originally)^note Originally they were going to adlib in Bail Organa's line about resetting them in Revenge of the Sith something about "changing their registration numbers" in order to explain the name change between the two trilogies, but the idea was vetoed by executives... until The Force Awakens came by and they were forced to keep all of the original names, to much disdain from everyone.
  • The German Star Wars franchise has some serious problems with consistency. Sometimes English titles like captain and lieutenant are swapped with the German versions, sometimes not. Sometimes Poggle the Lesser is Poggle der Geringere, sometimes not (even within some episodes in The Clone Wars). Sometimes Tarkin is a Grand Moff, but sometimes it gets woolseyised to Mufti (interpreter or expounder of Islamic law). Even the comics, with a staff of promoted fanboys, it is not safe to say if the Home One is Heimat Eins or not. Jango is said with the English pronunciation everywhere except for The Clone Wars where it is Ijangoh.
    • In A New Hope the Emperor is consistently referred to as "der Kaiser", but in every movie and book (except the original novelizations) thereafter it would be translated as "der Imperator". While both are exact translations, the connotation is different: Imperator fits more with a Roman or Neo-Roman context while Kaiser evokes a medieval/early modern feudal mood, fitting with the idea of a fairy tale IN SPACE! The German translation of the novelizations kept referring to Imperial troops as "kaiserliche Truppen" rather than "imperiale Truppen" (as in the movies and subsequent EU works), and TIE fighters were called "Spurjäger" (tracker fighters, whatever that is supposed to be... actually trail hunters, which makes even less sense, and both would indicate a long-range recon role which is the complete opposite of what TIE fighters are built for), but would be referred to by their English names in every subsequent work. Oddly enough, lightsabers would be translated literally ("Lichtsäbel") but as light swords ("Lichtschwert") and laser swords ("Laserschwert") in later works.
    • Kessel, as in "Kessel Run". The dub of A New Hope renamed it "Kossal", presumably due to "Kessel" already being the German word for "cauldron". Many Expanded Universe works retained "Kessel", but there were exceptions like Lightsaber Duels, which used Kossal. Star Wars Rebels used "Kessel", but The Force Awakens was back to "Kossal", and then Solo actually used both. At least they had become consistently inconsistent by this point, as they specifically called the world "Kessel" and flying there the "Kossalflug", but this merely made it an in-universe inconsistency, of course.
  • Same for the Hungarian translations. Nobody is sure whether the Millennium Falcon's name should be left in English, or if the dubs (there are several) of the Original Trilogy are correct by naming it "Ezeréves Sólyom" ("Thousand-Year-Old Falcon"). Light sabers also get to be referred to as "Laser swords" a lot, and although the dubbing studio made an effort to keep the voices and name translations of the prequels and the cartoon shows consistent, they still switched them around needlessly. The dub of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, for instance translated the clone nicknames at first, then decided to go with their English names, only Rex is voiced by the "standard" clone voice actor from the movies, and the voices of secondary characters also keep changing depending on the episode.
  • The Castilian Spanish dub of the original trilogy can't decide whether to pronounce the I in Jedi as in English or in Spanish (more or less like "jeddy"). Since in the prequels it's always pronounced as in English, you might think this is an artifact of the scenes dubbed later for the special editions, but the inconsistency shows up much more often than that.
• Some gag dubs of Dmitry Puchkov (AKA Goblin) are this way. For example, in the dub of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gimli is named Gimler (referring to Heinrich Himmler), but in the second and third films' Gag Dubs, he is named Givi, a stereotypical Georgian name. Also done in the Gag Dub of The Matrix, where Matvey (Morpheus) claims to be travelling aboard an armored train (called KV-1, even though it's a tank) in the vicinity of Berlin, although later he claims to be aboard a submarine. In case of Gimli's name, it was a retcon. He was given a Georgian accent, and dwarves in general became the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Caucasian republics, so a Georgian name made more sense for him than the name of a Nazi officer. His name was also changed to Givi in the Re-Cut version of Fellowship.
• In the Netherlands, the subtitles of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (in the cinema, anyway) used the same names for the characters as in the Dutch translation of the novel — such as Merry being called Merijn. The other two parts, however, used the English names. Likely, this was after protests from people who had seen the film but not read the book.
• For the Castilian Spanish version of Back to the Future, Doc Brown's "1.21 jiggawatts" mispronunciation was kept as "Gigovatios" on the first film, but the third one used the correct "gigavatios". Inversely, the first move calls the Flux Capacitor "Condensador de Fluzo", with "fluzo" being a made-up word. The third movie properly translates it as "flujo", but Popcultural Osmosis only uses "fluzo", probably because it's more associated with the film.
• The Hungarian dubs of the Saw movies shift back and forth between using "Kirakós" (jigsaw) or "Fűrész" (saw) to refer to the Jigsaw Killer. The Hungarian words for "jigsaw" and "saw" have no relations, so it comes out of nowhere when Jigsaw is called "Fűrész".
• In the international cut of Mr. Nice Guy, Giancarlo has additional lines introducing the Demon gangstress Sandy as "Tara", but the end credits keep her original name.
• The Latin-American dub for Commando is specially stupid, because it doesn't only introduces a plot hole, but is not even consistent with itself. At some point, John Matrix says to an enemy that he likes him, so he'll kill him last. In the Mexican dub Matrix says "Me caes bien, por eso te haré talco" (lit. "I like you, so I'll turn you into talcum powder"), maybe because the "A" in "last" is said very obviously and the dubbing tried to adjust to that. But later in the movie Matrix finds the mook again and he asks "Remember that I told you that I would kill you last? I lied." The Mexican dub has Matrix asking the same question... even when in the dub he never asked the mook that.

Literature

• The Swedish translation of the Discworld books, while generally excellently flowing and providing good localization of English-specific puns and jokes, does have some annoying inconsistencies: for example, the translation of "the Dungeon Dimensions" alternates between Källardimensionerna ("the Basement Dimensions"), which keeps the meaning while losing the alliteration, and Demondimensionerna ("the Demon Dimensions"), which sounds awesome but loses the important point that the Things in the Dungeon Dimensions are nothing as rational and anthropomorphic as demons. However, the worst is probably the translation of "sourcerer", which is translated in three equally bad ways: urmagiker ("source-magician", keeping the meaning but losing the pun); häcksmästare ("hedge-ician", creating a bad pun that has nothing to do with the meaning... not that "sourcerer" is that awesome a pun), and finally, in the sourcerer-centric book Sourcery, svartkonstnär ("warlock"), which is neither funny nor descriptive of what a sourcerer does.
  • The Finnish translation for the Dungeon Dimensions varied for awhile between "Tietymättömät tyrmät" ("Unknown/Endless Dungeons") and "Umpi-ulottuvuudet" ("Sealed/Closed Dimensions), finally settling for the latter. The Finnish translation of Mort also went against every other translation's conventions, by for example translating trolls as "jätit" (giants/ogres), even though there's a perfectly good direct equivalent "peikko", which is used in every other Discworld book, and wizards as "taikurit" ("magicians"), even though that term is more commonly used of stage-magicians than the real deal, especially in a fantasy setting.
• Harry Potter:
  • The American editions of the books:
    • Initially, the American version had all iterations of "jumper" changed to "sweater", but quit at some point, creating a strange ambiguity. For all one knew, Lupin actually was intended to be wearing a child's dress, because surely if they meant a warm, woolen pullover which is worn by all sorts of people, they'd say so, as per usual.
    • The American editions of the first couple books saw fit to change Dumbledore's fondness for sherbet lemons into a fondness for lemon drops. So in the American edition of the second book, the password to Dumbledore's office becomes "lemon drop". However, "sherbet lemon" was left intact in the fourth book, causing Harry to "remember" the password to Dumbledore's office being "sherbet lemon" despite the fact that that only happened in the British version of the second book.
  • An entire book has been written about problems in the Italian translation. Some infamous examples are listed here:
    • In Philosopher's Stone, Terry Boot mantains his original name, in Order of the Phoenix he becomes "Terry Steeval" (an anglicized version of "stivale", i.e. "boot" in Italian)
    • In Fantastic Beasts, the Thestral is called "Testro", in Order of the Phoenix it's called just Thestral.
    • House Ravenclaw was inexplicably translated as "Pecoranera" ("black sheep") in the first books and in later books and editions as "Corvonero" ("black raven"). Rowena Ravenclaw was called Priscilla Pecoranera first, then only the surname was changed in the books, while the movies called her Cosetta Corvonero to keep the Alliterative Name.
    • Goblins are usually translated to "folletti", but sometimes they are called "goblins", in English.
    • But the best is a name which is translated inconsistently within the same book. In Order of the Phoenix, the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are called "Snorticoli Cornuti" in a chapter, and then "Ricciocorni Schiattosi" in a later chapter. Reprints removed the "Snorticoli Cornuti" mention, leaving "Ricciocorni Schiattosi" as the only official translation.
  • In the Swedish translations of book 1-4, Neville's grandmother is translated to be his "mormor" (maternal grandmother, literally "mothermother"). From book 5 and onward, after Neville's heritage is revealed, it is changed to "farmor" (paternal grandmother, literally "fathermother"). The translator commented on this in an interview.
  • In the Catalan translation of book 2, "Tom Marvolo Riddle" is changed to "Tod Morvosc Rodlel". Later on, when the name appears in full (or just as Tom Riddle), it seems the translators remember to change it, but not when Dumbledore calls him just "Tom" in book 5.
• In different Italian translations of the Dune saga, the Golden Path is translated sometimes to "Sentiero Dorato" and sometimes to "Via Aurea".
  • Turkish ones too, sometimes retaining the original English terms and sometimes translating them with no apparent consistency or pattern.
• Italian translations of Tolkien's works suffer the same problem. Examples: orcs are "orchi" in The Hobbit, "orchetti" in The Lord of the Rings; Bilbo's sword, Sting, is "Pungiglione" in The Hobbit, "Pungolo" in The Lord of the Rings.
  • It's a matter of setting things right. The English "orc" may look similar to the Italian "orco" ("ogre"), but they indicate different creatures. In the translation of The Hobbit they used the false equivalence "orc = orco", while in The Lord of the Rings they used the translation with the correct meaning.
  • The same can be said for the Hungarian translations. This lead to so much confusion, in fact, that for The Hobbit, they released a revised translation, integrating the terms popularized by The Lord of the Rings books. Then, when the LOTR books received a revision of their own, Hobbit saw its fourth and (hopefully) final re-translation. See here for a comprehensive list of name variations^note  1st column: Original Hobbit translations; 2nd column: Original LOTR translations; 3rd column: first revised edition; 4th column: finalized name changes, and here for a less in-depth list, which also includes the English terms.
  • The infamous Swedish translation of The Lord of the Rings by Åke Ohlmarks couldn't make up its mind whether one place was named Isengard, Isendor or Isendal. The river Entwash was first named "Slamma flod" ("Muddy River"), then "Bukteån" ("Bendy Stream") before finally becoming "Ente älv" ("Ent River").
• In The Bible, there is an observance known in the Hebrew text as "Pesach" and the English as "Passover". In the Greek, it's called "pascha", an obvious derivative of the Hebrew word. One time, however, for no apparent reason, "pascha" was translated "Easter" in the King James Version. You don't find this term anywhere else in The Bible, and it doesn't tell you when, why, or how to observe it, or even to observe it, even if "Easter" was meant, which seems unlikely.
  • Christian Bible translations are notorious for retconning Christian ideas into (someone else's) holy book that simply does not jive with them, be it through deliberately insincere translations, translations from Greek ambiguity that completely ignore the original Hebrew, or anachronisms such as the above. The King James translation of 1 Maccabees (which, for the record, does not form part of the Jewish Biblical canon, but the original Hebrew version has been preserved) casually mentions Jesus in the line of Old Testament Israelite leadership. (Of course this is meant to be Joshua).
• The Dutch translation of Artemis Fowl has some problems with this. For starters, there isn't a difference between the word 'elf' and 'pixie', until the fourth book, after which 'pixie' becomes 'elfje' (Little elf, Dutch doesn't have a word for pixie). 'Warlock' is first translated with the 'heksenmeester', but when they turn out to be a breed of demon, they become 'demonenmeester', before shifting back to 'heksenmeester'. And the spelling of the elves' language is 'Gnomisch' for the first books, which later on changes to 'Gnommisj'.
• Spanish translators couldn't agree on how to spell Winnie the Pooh's name. The first book translation, from 1945, simply called him "Pu". Disney went with "Winnie Pooh" (and other phonetic spellings, while the books (which were translated in the 80's) called him "Winny de Puh" (also phonetic).
  • Italian translators couldn't settle on a proper name for Pooh either. The first translation (from 1936) called him "Ninni Puf", but later translations (since 1946) began to call him Winnie Pooh or some spelling thereof.
  • In the end, Disney's Spanish and Italian translators have settled upon the English title.
• Both Italian translations of Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman have some inconsistencies:
  • The first translation called Melvin Sneedly "Giovanni Cioppis" instead of his usual Italian name, Mariolino Atomo. The second translation, which keeps the original names for the kid characters, doesn't have this issue.
  • The second translation reintroduces two pages that were cut in the first edition to not show that Mr. Krupp and Ms. Ribble's (failed) wedding is a Jewish one. The inconsistency is that in those two newly-translated pages Mr. Krupp's non-stop blubbering is kept as in the original version, while in the original translation used up until that point his blubbering was replaced with gasping.
• Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection: In-universe. The Translator Microbes aren't always good at telling what should be translated and what shouldn't. Names are by far the biggest problem; sometimes names are translated literally, and sometimes they aren't. And the tone and cultural context is lost in translation, such as a Red Shirt Army that ends up being translated as "Army of Jerks."
  Dr. Srinavasan: Again, the translator is not perfect. I'm sure there's a little confusion about what—
  Mrs. Oh: They're an army and they're jerks, Doc. Translator's doing fine.

Live-Action TV

• The Russian dub of Stargate SG-1 alternates between three different renderings of the name "Daniel", among other things.
• For a couple of episodes, the Hungarian dub of MythBusters kept referring to Buster both by his original English name (which is normally used in the dub) and "Tulok" ("Bullock"). Even the narrator was surprised about it, as you could tell by his voice. However, it is a dub that has the voice cast alternate from episode to episode...
• The first season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers gave some of the weapons and vehicles on the show more than one name. For example, the Dragonzord Fighting Mode (the Dragonzord/Sabretooth Tiger/Triceratops/Mastondon Zord combination) is also referred as the Mega Dragonzord (not to be confused with a different Dino Megazord/Dragonzord combination) and the Dragonzord Battle Mode.
  • The Brazilian dub of Power Rangers S.P.D. at first Woolsey'd the titular Space Patrol Delta into "Super Patrol Delta" in order to keep the acronym, but later episodes (presumably translated by different people) would just have it translated literally to "Patrulha Espacial Delta".
  • The Italian dub of Power Rangers Megaforce translated the names of the various Megazords. Guess what? Gosei Great and Gosei Grand were both translated as "Grande Megazord Gosei".
  • The original Power Rangers Megaforce itself, being an edited translation, also suffers from this trope to silly degrees(a mixture of Creator's Apathy and the crew never checking terms in the original seasons, despite Megaforce being an anniversary season celebrating the others). Examples includes the battleclaws of the Jungle Fury Rangers being called the claw boosters, the Animarium being called animaria( as Linkara pointed out, Animaria is actually the ancient land from where the Animarium split off), Super Dino Mode being called dino rampage and more. It boggles the mind really, as anyone who watched the earlier seasons then watchs megaforce can tell right away they never ever bothered to get the terminology or attack names from earlier seasons right. Its not even consistent with itself, as the Sentai-only rangers gets different names on each appearance( Power rangers Blitz or new powers has been used on different teams each name,depending on episode).
• Friends
  • The European Spanish dub renders Joey's "How you doin?" catchphrase a different thing everytime it shows up, which kills the point of a catchphrase in the first place.
  • In the Italian dub, it happens with the pronunciation of the name Alice (girlfriend of Phoebe's brother Frank). In her debut episode, she's called "Alice" with the Italian pronunciation that sounds completely different ("Al-ee-che"). In all her other appearances they keep the English pronunciation of her name.
• The Hungarian dub of Star Trek: Voyager's 7th season was an example, but thankfully a second dub rectified the problem. It was handed over to a Romanian dubbing studio called Zone, notorious for its very cheap and lazy dubs. It was not only inconsistent with the dubbing of the rest of the show (new voices for everyone, new name variations, new expressions), but also with itself. It was so bad, in fact, that the TV station issued a public apology to the fans and re-dubbed the entire thing with the original cast some time later.
• The Korean dub of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger refers to Samurai Sentai Shinkenger as Power Rangers Blade Force. This contradicts an earlier dub name the team received in Kamen Rider Decade where they were known as Power Rangers Samurai Force.
• The Castilian Spanish dub of the second season of Game of Thrones changes Yara Greyjoy's name back to Asha, as she was named in the A Song of Ice and Fire source novels. The third season, however, keeps Yara. Adding to the confusion, "Yara" doesn't appear in this season until the last episode, while Theon keeps talking about her during his captivity.
• In the Italian dub of The Vampire Diaries Elijah is renamed Elìa for some reason, but in the spin-off The Originals he keeps the name Elijah. Oddly enough, when Elijah's brother Klaus (who also left The Vampire Diaries after season 4 and is now in The Originals) comes back in one of the later episodes of The Vampire Diaries, he talks about his brother calling him Elijah, instead of Elìa, the Italian dub name previously used in that show.
• One Tree Hill: In the Italian dub of the first two seasons, "Keith" is pronounced like the female name Kate (again, using the Italian pronunciation with words being pronounced as they are written). They later realized it was a mistake and from season 3 onwards the dub started using the correct pronunciation of "Keith".
• Xena: Warrior Princess: In the German dub, Gabrielle was called "Gabriella" for the first season. Joxer's name was rendered as "Chocka" for quite a while, then briefly turned to "Jocka" for an episode or two before finally arriving at the proper "Joxer" for the rest of the series' run.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In her first episode, Kai Winn was called "Kai Wunn" in the German dub. When she turned out to be a recurring character istead of a one-episode guest star, the dub switched to properly calling her Kai Winn with no explanation.

Tabletop Games

• When the old "red book" Dungeons & Dragons game was translated to Finnish, the translators of supplement books often didn't bother checking the original rulebook for consistency. The result was that these books would sometimes refer to unfamiliar spells or monsters, to the confusion of players who had no way to figure out that e.g. "Epätodellinen voima" and "Illuusio" were both referring to Phantasmal force. This could even result in different terms getting conflated together, e.g. Polymorph and Shapechange both getting translated as "Muodonmuutos".
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, a very early card went by the name of "Kagemusha of the Blue Flame", and described him as "a double for the Ruler of the Blue Flame." However, it would later be revealed that "Blue Flame" wasn't a title; it was actually a guy named Shien, whose name is the characters for "blue flame." Every future card involving Shien simply called him "Shien."

Video Games

• The Phantasy Star series may as well be the most extreme example of this trope.
  • Alyssa was localized as Alis, then Alisa.
  • Lutz was translated as Noah, but was then changed back to Lutz.
    • This one has spawned so many arguments in the fandom, it's not even funny. What it basically comes down to is that in the Japanese version of the first game, Lutz is your friend, and in the second game, he comes out of cryo-sleep to aid Alisa's descendant, Eusis, in the same quest, a thousand years later. In the English version of the first game, Noah joins you on your quest, and then a thousand years later, some naked guy named Lutz gets himself out of cold storage to dump some exposition on Rolf and company. In the fourth game, in both versions, Lutz is a legendary godlike figure worshipped by the Espers, but players of the English version are likely to wonder what the hell happened to Noah and how did Lutz get this kind of publicity if he spends all his time in a box waiting for heroes to show up.
    • Noah/Lutz is at one point referred to as "her" in Phantasy Star I. In the first line of dialogue mentioning him. This was fixed in the GBA rerelease.
  • Lutz/Noah's master's name changes even over the course of a single game.
  • Dark Falz/Dark Force
• Minor example from Final Fantasy VI: a scholar early in the game tells you how people who used magic were called Mage Knights. By the time you actually meet their descendants later, they're called Mage Warriors. Later retranslations fixed this.
• In Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, GDI had the "Firestorm Defense", which used a "Firestorm Generator" and "Firestorm Walls". In the French localization, it becomes the "Anti-Firestorm defense", but is still powered by a "Firestorm Generator".
• Many of the various Digimon games are completely inconsistent with using the localized or original Japanese attack names. For instance, in Digimon Survive Agumon uses Pepper Breath, the English name of its signature attack. But it's evolution Greymon uses the Japanese name Mega Flame instead of its localized attack name Nova Blast.
• Extremely common in various long-running RPG video game series, where item, spell or monster names that are the same in Japanese are localized differently in different games.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The spell Esuna has appeared as Heal and Esna. Holy has appeared as Fade, White, Pearl and Holy. Potions have also been Cure (Potion) and Tonic. Are they Golden Needles or Soft Potions? Remember when Thundara was called Lit2? And who can forget Cactuar/Cactrot/Sabotender, and Coeurl/Cuahl?
    • The reason "Thundara" was "Lit2" has more to do with character limits in the early games than inconsistency. Final Fantasy only allowed four characters per name, whereas Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI allowed five and six, respectively. The Holy situation is also related to Nintendo's former draconian policies involving any sort of religious content. In all these cases, the localization team had to work with the resources (and within the limits) they were given, and it was only until the PlayStation era that they could be consistent with the Japanese naming schemes. In fact, it's only Final Fantasy VII which is the truly inconsistent installment, since it was translated by Sony.
    • Most of the English spell names became standardized by Final Fantasy VIII, becoming closer to the original Japanese names, but there were still some odd inconsistencies here and there. Like the "Scan" spell, which eventually became "Libra", but only years later.
    • In the Castilian Spanish version, Dragon Knights (AKA "Dragoons") seem to change name depending of the game: "Dragon Knight" on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and its sequel, "Dragontino" ("Draconesque", and no, it wasn't "Dragonesque Knight") on III and V, "Draconarius" in II and "Draconius" on IV (The FF translator loves Gratuitous Latin). Curaja can't keep its own name consistent either; the previous spells are always "Cura", "Cura+", and "Cura++", but in IV it's "Cura+++", in I "Cura++2" And the crowner, III changes the entire system to be "Cura, Omnicura, Cura+, Omnicura+" for the hell of it. Thanks for making this simple, Square. Thanks. And we won't even get on how VII had completely different translations from later games, though that might be forgiven since VII was a "Blind Idiot" Translation from the English version and the others are translated from the Japanese versions.
    • Even in English, the translation of "Dragon Knight" was inconsistent for a while, being translated directly in Final Fantasy IX and translated as "Lancer" in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy V (Playstation versions of both). Every other game refers to them as "Dragoons", despite the word "dragoon" meaning something very different in English normally (and you can blame Final Fantasy IV for that one, being the first game in the series to have the class and be translated into English... sorta.)
  • Final Fantasy also flipped flopped on what to call the status effect characters slipped into when their HP reached zero. Names ranged from disabled, dead, swoon, wounded, etc. It wasn't until Final Fantasy VIII and later that the series stuck with using KO or Knocked Out to represent a character who has fallen in battle.
    • The many-armed fiend of fire was translated as "Kary" in the original release of Final Fantasy and her cameo in Final Fantasy Adventure (this was pretty obviously a mangling of Kali, who she closely resembles.) Later releases and cameo appearances went back to the more faithful "Marilith". The king of Lorim even lampshades this in Adventures Of Mana.
    • Orthros/Ultros, everyone's favorite purple octopus villain who began life in Final Fantasy VI. The former is his name in Japanese, but it was changed in the localization of VI, and later localizations have flip-flopped between which name to use in English, although "Ultros" seems to be a bit more common.
  • Breath of Fire:
    • The first game was translated by Square, the later ones (sometimes very poorly) by Capcom. The goddess Tyr became Myria in her second appearance (the latter is actually correct); recurring character Deis was sometimes called Bleu (Originating with the Square release of the original, and kept as an Artifact for the Capcom translation of Breath of Fire 2); and Winlan/Windia/Wyndia was supposedly the same place in each game. Gobi/Maniro/Manillo is another case — all Capcom can be accused of is poor romanization, and yet again it was Square who was the root problem, picking a name out of thin air rather than using the original Japanese name; most cases of Inconsistent Dubbing in Breath of Fire can be traced back to this, actually — although some of these were necessitated by technical limitations, there's actually no particularly good reason to change Deis to Bleu.
    • A few more that are legitimately Capcom's fault: Baba/Bunyan, Great Tree/Yggdrasil.
  • Unusually averted in Chrono Cross, where Luminaire and the Flea/Slash/Ozzie trio, for instance, were translated the same as in Chrono Trigger. This becomes even odder when a character shows up in Chrono Cross with the Japanese name of Slash, making the translators change his name to Nikki in order to accommodate the returning purposefully-mistranslated Slash from Chrono Trigger.
  • Dragon Quest IV:
    • The final boss was originally called Necrosaro, but was renamed Pizarro for some of the Dragon Quest Monsters games, and is going by Psaro in the latest DQM and DQ 4 remake.
    • And, unlike some cases of this, none of these actually match the original Japanese name; "Death Pisaro" is just plain too long for English versions, even if they want to be faithful.
    • The guy actually goes by multiple names, complicating it further. In the original, he is Pisaro, who becomes Death Pisaro when he decides to exterminate humanity. The first localization has him as Saro/Necrosaro, while a later one calls him Psaro/Psaro the Manslayer. He loses the upgraded name when he joins your party.
• In Final Fantasy VI, Cyan's samurai talk/Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe is a consistent character quirk in the Japanese and GBA scripts. In the SNES version, it only pops up when it's plot-relevant (i.e. actually alluded to in dialogue) and he's written exactly like any other character otherwise, which renders Sabin's Got Me Doing It moment after he first meets him inexplicable.
• In Final Fantasy VII, there's the whole Aerith/Aeris thing; Square, in most of the Compilation, has settled on Aerith, however there are a few lapses. One page for the updated PC rerelease of the game refers to her as Aeris, while another calls her Aerith.
• In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud's catchphrase "kyoumi ga nai ne" (translated later on as "Not interested") was translated as something different every time it came up in the script, meaning a huge majority of players didn't even realize he had a catchphrase at all until later on, when supplementary works with more consistent translations came along.
• In the original English translation of Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, Volk is always called the Kingdom of Discord. The Phantasy Reverie Series remake changes every instance of "discord" to "anger" at first, but reverts to calling it "discord" halfway through.
• Lunar: Silver Star Story has a few instances. Most notibly, there's a part where you need to catch creature called a fluffy bug, which can be found in a field among similarly named creatures called puffy bugs. ...Except they're only called puffy bugs in battle. Dialog refers to them as puwapuwa bugs, their Japanese name. There's also the group known as the Prairie Tribe. All dialog refers to them as well, the Prairie Tribe, but in Tempest's introductory cutscene he introduces himself as being from the Plains Tribe.
• The English version of Lux-Pain is rather infamous for flip flopping between whether the game takes place in America or Japan, characters' genders, the spelling of names, and numerous other details. There are even instances where the voiced lines say the exact opposite of what the text says!
• The English translation of Dynasty Warriors consistently uses the traditional East Asian name format of Family Name first, then Given Name. Samurai Warriors instead consistently used the Given Name, Family Name format more common in the West. Since they each used it consistently, this wasn't too much of a problem... until Warriors Orochi, where you now get characters who are inconsistently named using one format or the other, depending on the source game. It should be noted that the English localization team of Samurai Warriors actually breached convention when it decided to use Given Name, Family Name for characters, because you're not supposed to do that for Japanese figures born before the Meiji Restoration. (Rival series Sengoku Basara still keeps the names in the original order, as its translators apparently got the memo.)
• The Polish translations of The Sims expansions have a case that messes up the user interface. Most of the game's expansions add additional areas to enjoy their contents, to get to them you need to use a phone to call for a taxi. The translators brilliantly decided to translate the "Call Cab" function on the phone in completely different manner for each expansion, thus making the player browse through differently worded sub-menus on the phone for each type of cab rather than having them neatly arranged under a single menu.
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl:
  • There's a bizarre example between this game and Smash Bros. Dojo, which apparently have their own separate translation teams. The game pluralizes the recurring enemies in the Subspace Emissary as "Primids", while the site prefers just "Primid" (made even more jarring when the Trophy Stand update had a screenshot of the Big Primid trophy that includes the game's pluralization). Additionally, the game level "Outside the Ancient Ruins" is referred to on the site as "Outer Ancient Ruins" in the Secret Element List update, and the Mysteries of The Subspace Emissary update calls what is named the "Island of the Ancients" in the game the "Isle of Ancients". To be fair, however, the site did correct some of its own errors later on, as at one point, Samurai Goroh and the Wario Bike and Drill Rush attacks are called Samurai Goro, the Wario Chopper and the Triple Dash.
  • The Italian site also has Ike's Aether being renamed "Twilight" all of a sudden some months before the game's release, where it was still called "Aether".
  • More from the Italian translation of Brawl: for some reason, the translators made up new Italian names for the characters from Panel de Pon (which was never released in Europe) in the sticker list. The odd part comes when you get the Lip sticker and she is renamed "Fiorella"... yet Lip's Stick is still called "Bacchetta di Lip" and not "Bacchetta di Fiorella"!
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2. The English manual describes Birdo as a transgender female. Nintendo kept on swaying between her being trans or cis for years, though over time they've described Birdo in a more neutral manner. Curiously, the American and European versions of Super Mario Party (which are otherwise identical) split the difference and refer to Birdo with female pronouns in the former and male in the latter. Other European translations during the Nintendo Switch era initially used male pronouns (or in some cases either gender-neutral ones or no pronouns at all), but in 2022 they switched to female ones.
  • A minor inconsistency in Super Mario Bros. 3: the items "Kuribo's Shoe" and "Jugem's Cloud" are obviously named after the enemies otherwise translated into English as Goomba and Lakitu. This was averted in later ports of the game (and Super Mario Maker). Kuribo's Shoe has since been renamed "Goomba's Shoe". However, a reference to the item in Super Paper Mario (in the form of of the name of one of 100 Samurai-like characters that can be fought, each one referencing something from the series' past) used the translation "Shoe of Kuribo".
  • The manual and credits sequences for SMB2 switched the names of Birdo and Ostro.
  • This is a huge issue with enemy names between games and sub series. For instance, Super Mario Land, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario RPG and a couple of others did a pretty poor job at translating anything, leaving us with Mario enemies given Japanese names instead of English ones in the 'dub' (Mario Land 1), Big Boos the size of normal ones (Mario RPG), misnamed fish (how Cheep Cheeps and Fishbones were called Flopsy Fish in Yoshi's Island) and a whole host of Paper Mario examples where traditional Mario enemies got new names for a single game. Like Lava Bubbles in Paper Mario (which are just Podoboos).
  • Watt from the first Paper Mario is officially female, but is called a "he" during Super Block upgrades in the English version and in her Catch Card in Super Paper Mario. This is apparently because gender-specific pronouns were very rarely used to refer to her in Japanese.
  • Kamek in general. His English name is the same as the Japanese species name for a generic Magikoopa, meaning that there's a whole host of examples where either he gets mistaken for a different Magikoopa by the translators (Super Mario RPG, Mario Party 9) or has a completely different character end with the same name (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga with Psycho Kamek). This makes even figuring out what games he appears in near impossible.
  • The Spanish localization team(s) for the Mario & Luigi series are terrible with keeping track of Fawful's name: he's called Esbirro Jijí in Superstar Saga and the Latin American version of Bowser's Inside Story, Fawful in Partners in Time and Grácovitz in the Castilian version of Bowser's Inside Story.
  • In the Italian translation of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Hermie III speaks normally. In the remake, the Italian script was copypasted verbatim from the original version with only a few edits, so Hermie still speaks normally... then, in the new Minion Quest part, he suddenly has a German accent for no reason whatsoever.
  • The occasionally appearing giant eel enemy is known as "Unagi" in Super Mario 64, with this name sticking for most of its subsequent appearances... until Super Mario Odyssey, where they're suddenly referred to as "Maw-Rays".
  • Paper Mario 64 and Super Paper Mario both contain a ghostly blue character who tells long, boring stories and happens to be related to Merlon. In Japanese, she's named "Kurisutāru". However, her English name varies; in 64, she's called Madam Merlar, but in Super, she's called Merlumina.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a pretty bad record when it comes to translating references to its predecessor. For instance, Li'l Oinks are called "Bubu" (their Japanese name), the Crystal Palace is called the "Goomstar Temple", the Goomba King becomes the "Chestnut King", and Toad Town is called "Mushville". Then there's a reference to Chuck Quizmo, an NPC in the previous game, being completely scrubbed out.
  • A minigame in Mario Party 4 takes place in a burger joint. A poster on the wall reveals that the resturant is called "Kinopio Burger". "Kinopio" is Toad's name in Japanese, and the poster says "Kinopio" in all versions of the game. The name wasn't likely changed due to an oversight in localization.
• Suikoden Tierkreis. Dear god, Suikoden Tierkreis. If you're lucky, the name will just be spelled one way and pronounced another. If you're not, the pronunciation will also vary depending on the character speaking. Two examples that spring immediately to mind are Shairah/Shailah, and Kureyah/Claire.
  • Dear God, Suikoden II as well. Bright/Shining Shield Rune, Han/Hal Cunningham, Crystal Valley/Ballet, Jilia/Jilian Blight, just to name a few.
  • Sindar is spelled Cyndar in Suikoden III.
• The Tales Series has been getting better about standardizing the translations of certain techs that have been passed from main character to main character since Tales of Phantasia, but we're still at the point where we need a guide to list the various English names of some shared techs. Or even the same tech on the same character as a result of remakes and cameos. At least they've generally settled on what we're calling tokugi, ougi and hi-ougi.
  • The most common inconsistency comes in the incantation for the lightning arte Indignation. Whereas the Japanese version retains the incantation across games due to nostalgia, the fact that the various English localisations are rarely produced by the same team means that the incantation is inevitably translated differently each time.
  • The Spanish translation of Tales of Symphonia changed the names of many skills, enemies and even some characters (Such as the dwarves), but Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World used the English terms. In most cases, this was a good thing, since some names were too imaginative and clashed with the rest of the game. On a negative example (Still on Dawn), Arc Words "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" was translated literally for 75% of the game, but suddenly changed to "With courage and galantry, any dream can be made true" (Which is not quite the same, mind you) right before the battle against Brute, then kept this way until the Final Boss, where they go back to the first translation.
• Trails Series: Falcom can't seem to decide whether they want the English name of Crossbell's police force to be the Crossbell State Police Department (CSPD), or just the Crossbell Police Department (CPD). On one hand, Lloyd's jacket has a "CSPD" logo on it, and there are other examples of CSPD text around the police department's headquarters. On the other hand, the official badge of the police department abbreviates the name to "CPD," and it's a more accurate translation of what the department is called in Japanese. As a result of this ambiguity, Trails of Cold Steel II, localized by XSEED Games, uses CSPD, while the sequel, localized by NISA, uses CPD, as does the Geofront Fan Translation of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure.
• Wild ARMs:
  • The remake of the original game, Wild ARMs: Alter Code F, despite being developed eight years after the original, still infamously had a poor translation. Perhaps the best example of this is Cecilia's middle name; she is referred to, at various points throughout the game, as Cecilia Lynne Adlehyde, Cecilia Raynne Adlehyde, and Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde. It's very jarring.
  • Alhazad's gender, which is referred to both as "she" and "fellow". Why is this jarring? Because, not only is Alhazad referred to as a male in both the original's translation and the Japanese version of the remake, but he also constantly makes creepy advances towards a certain female even in his first appearance, which should have been a huge tip-off on his gender from the start.
• The Legendary Starfy refers to Shurikit as both a "he" and a "she" at different points in the game. Officially, she's a girl.
• Mega Man Battle Network:
  • Capcom seems to like being inconsistent about terms in the first game and its sequel, Mega Man Star Force. The most notable ones are the By the Power of Grayskull! quotes: in the first Battle Network game, the sentence was "Jack In! MegaMan.EXE, Transmit!". In later games, it became "Jack In! Mega Man, Execute!". Doesn't help that the first quote became "Jack In! Mega Man, Power Up" in the anime version.
  • Translations of chip names change pretty often too. One very important chip went from the straightforward "Steal" to the ugly "AreaGrab". (The anime split the difference with "AreaSteal".)
  • Program Advances were called "Morphs" by characters in the first game, though the word "ADVANCE" would appear when using one.
  • In the first two games all the characters had their Japanese names translated to western sounding ones but for 3 and 4 they didn't bother with that anymore, so Lan, Mayl and Chaud were in the same game as people named Saiko, Inukai, Sunayama, Shuuko and Tamako, but then 5 and 6 went back to changing the Japanese names again (unless they were from 3 or 4 in which case they kept it for continuity). In Battle Network 5, Higsby says he's going to meet Ms. Mariko. Mariko is the Japanese name of Lan's homeroom teacher Ms. Mari.
• Atlus is usually good about this, but flubbed a scene in Endless Frontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga that mentions a character from a previous game. That character, a woman named Lemon, gets translated as Raymond. It doesn't help that Atlus wasn't sure at first which continuity the game was meant to tie into, if any. The same game also has a character using a weapon called "Goshiki Zankanto", which is a Shout-Out to another character's Reishiki/Sanshiki Zankanto. The previous games had translated them as Type 0/Type 3 Colossal Blade, but since Kaguya's dimension is Wutai, they left everything in Japanese.
• Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Some of the Demon/Persona names in the series are inconsistent across different games and spinoffs. The Four Gods go back and forth from their Japanese names (Persona series) and Chinese names (Digital Devil Saga, among others), Mother Harlot is sometimes just called "The Harlot", etc. The recurring Status Buff skills that multiply the next physical or magical attack damage by 2.5 are referred to either as the literally-translated "Charge" and "Concentrate" or the more Wooleyized "Power Charge" and "Mind Charge" depending on the game. Other than that, most skills remain consistently translated between all games and spinoffs, though.
  • The Persona series can be a bit inconsistent when it comes to which names the characters call each other by. In the third game, most of SEES uses first names on each other, with the exception of Mitsuru^note Mitsuru's characterized as a bit aloof from most of the group besides Akihiko and later Yukari. Her decision to start calling the latter by her first name is a turning point in their relationship, and the fourth game does something similar. The fifth game, however, has characters using last names at first, until they switch to first names, and some characters, such as Mishima, are strictly on a Last-Name Basis with the protagonist. Interestingly enough, in Persona 3 Portable, some characters use last names in content that was added for the rerelease- for example, Ms. Toriumi calls the female protagonist by her first name in class, but by her last name in the scene in which she recruits the protagonist to a committee, which leads to the female version of the Hermit Social Link.
  • In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, the sign for the "You in Wonderland" maze is in English on the screen before the player enters it, but still in Japanese during a cutscene.
• Despite an otherwise wonderful translation, Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) can't seem to decide whether the little leech-esque monsters should be called "Gigi" or "Giggi."
• The Fighting Mania arcade game based on Fist of the North Star can't decide between using "South Star" or "South Dipper" as the English name for Nanto. While technically "South Dipper" is the correct choice, since Nanto is a Chinese asterism equivalent to Sagittarius and not a single star, "South Star" is more consistent with the way Hokuto is always translated as the "North Star" in the franchise itself.
• In the Resident Evil series:
  • The Progenitor Virus^note 始祖ウィルス, shiso uirusu is also referred as the Mother Virus and the Founder Virus.
  • The Supervisors^note 監視員, kashiin. Literally observer or watchman. from Resident Evil 3 are also referred as the "Monitor" unit in Umbrella Chronicles and as the "Observers" in the English edition of Resident Evil Archives.
  • The Special Tactics And Rescue Service are also identified as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad in certain promotional texts such as packaging descriptions and localized manuals.
• Pokémon:
  • In the Pokémon games, the key item that allows you to find hidden items has been inconsistently translated. In Japanese, it's always been known as "Dowsing Machine." From Generation I to III, it was known in English as "Itemfinder," but ever since Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, it's been translated as "Dowsing Machine." In fact, in HeartGold and SoulSilver, it's abbreviated to "Dowsing MCHN".
  • As of 2010, the Pokémon franchise has generally gone the route of a "universal" set of translated Pokémon, character and location names for each language - causing some smaller translations to be phased out in the process. This includes the French-Canadian translation (which used the English names), any Latin American Spanish translated terms (usually identical to English) that differed from the European Spanish translation, and the Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese translations (which sparked real-life protests). This seems to be an application of the Fleeting Demographic Rule, where despite older fans' deep nostalgia for their smaller localized translations, the norm going forward is for fans to grow up with the same names and terms used by all other speakers of their native language.
  • Koga's daughter is known as Janine in most of her appearances. However, while a younger version of her appears in a cameo role in FireRed and LeafGreen, the Fame Checker item lists her name as "Charine".
  • In a similar fashion, the manager of the PC box system in Hoenn is called Lanette. The Italian translation keeps her name as such, but when Bill briefly mentions her in HeartGold and SoulSilver, she suddenly became "Michela".
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl had some trainers that were Continuity Cameos of characters from the Pokémon films, including Rebecca from Destiny Deoxys, Butler and Diane from Jirachi: Wishmaker, and Lizabeth from Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. The localization team apparently didn't realize these were supposed to be references and localized their names differently.
  • The master of Mt. Battle in Pokémon Colosseum's story mode and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness is the same person, but Colosseum changed his name to Somek while XD kept his Japanese name of Battlus.
  • The official pronunciation for Arceus used in Pokémon Battle Revolution uses a soft "c" sound. This was changed to a hard "c" in the anime since it otherwise sounds too close to the word "arse". However, Pokémon Detective Pikachu goes back to using the original soft "c" pronunciation.
  • The function allowing transfers from the fourth generation games to the fifth generation games is called "Poké Shifter" in Japanese, but was referred to as "Poké Transfer" in the English release. However, the later companion app Pokémon HOME lists any Pokémon from the third or fourth generation games as having been met at the "Poké Shifter" even in English.
• The English language setting of Rockman 4 Minus Infinity uses the appropriate Dub Name Changes, though there are some inconsistencies:
  • In the cutscene after defeating Dr. Cossack, when Mega Man goes after Dr. Wily, his name is initialised as "R" (for Rockman).
  • Dr. Light is called "Dr. Right" in the intro to the third Wily Stage.
  • When Mega Man first speaks to Kalinka upon rescuing her in the third Wily Stage, his name is again initialised as "R" (for Rockman).
  • If Proto Man comes to give Mega Man the Wily Buster during the final battle, his name is displayed as "Blues".
  • The Spark Chaser is abbreviated to "Earth" on the weapon select screen, after the Mega Man Killer you got it from. Problem: Earth's name was changed to Terra when Mega Man V GB was translated into English.
• The manual for the Game Boy Advance remake of Mega Man & Bass (the first time the game was officially translated) referred to nearly every character except the two in the title by their Japanese names; the game itself, however, used their normal localized English names.
• Mother:
  • EarthBound changed the name of a minor NPC from the Balloon Monkey to the Bubble Monkey during the localization process in all but one instance: viewing the description of a Pak of Bubble Gum from the menu will still call it "the Balloon Monkey's favorite".
  • The Big Bad of EarthBound Beginnings was named "Giegue" in the English prototype that wasn't released until 2015 on the Wii U Virtual Console, but changed to "Giygas" in its sequel, EarthBound.
  • Porky Minch was renamed "Pokey" in the English version of EarthBound, but kept his original Japanese name of "Porky" in the Super Smash Bros. games.
• In Final Fantasy XII, the subtitles and the spoken dialogue often end up being very different. This happened because the subtitles were translated long before the voices were recorded; the differences between the two are the result of the voice actors rewording lines to make them more natural or in-character.
• BlazBlue had an incredibly well-done translation for the first few games but, due to Executive Meddling on Arc System Works' part, the new scenarios from Continuum Shift Extend have several instances where the script read by the voice actors and the subtitled text that is shown in the game do not match up. Characters even end up saying different things entirely. Chrono Phantasma takes it even further.
• Rune Factory Frontier: Earlier (and most later) Rune Factory games were translated by Natsume — which is well-known for not being the most accurate translator around, among other issues. Frontier was a direct sequel to the first Rune Factory, but was translated by the usually much better XSEED Games. The problem is that XSeed didn't really bother to research Natsume's translation for the original game to maintain consistency, leading to things such as Tori becoming Tart (closer to her Japanese name, though "Torte" would be even closer) and the Sechs (Pronounced, roughly, Zeks) Empire becoming the Zzyzx (Pronounced, roughly, Zai-Zeks) Empire. When XSeed got another shot with the series with Rune Factory 4, they made sure to remain consistent with the Natsume translations, and mocked the Sechs/Zzyzx issue in the game's manual.
• Animal Crossing:
  • Starting in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Sun Cosmos from Animal Crossing were renamed Yellow Cosmos for unknown reasons. However, you can still buy seeds for Sun Cosmos, and when you plant them, their name changes to Yellow Cosmos. So the seeds have a different name than the flowers they grow into!
  • Earlier games have shaken trees occasionally have bees coming from a hive and chase the player around, but they're only called bees in the English version, as they're actually wasps. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the first game to properly refer to them as wasps in English.
• The Fallout series is very inconsistent in its French translations. The first two games are more or less consistent, but the translation team for Fallout 3 ditched most of the original translations and made their own (very good) translation. Then Fallout: New Vegas came along with another translation team that half-assed the job.
  • Example, originally, the Power Armor was translated as "Super Armor", while from Fallout 3 onwards it became "Assisted Armor". Same thing with Power Fists "(Super/Assisted Fist)".
  • Stealth Boys were originally called "L'homme invisible" ("The invisible man"). As of Fallout 3 they go untranslated.
  • The Fat Man was originally untranslated in Fallout 3. New Vegas translated it literally ("Gros Homme").
  • Psycho used to be called "Foldingue" (roughly translates as Ax-Crazy) only to later be called "Psycho".
  • "Raiders" were called "Pillards" in the first two games, Fallout 3 onward started calling them "Raiders" (you might be starting to notice a pattern here).
• The Polish translation of Fallout 2 manages to do this within one game. The fictional Cat's Paw magazine's name is sometimes tranlated directly as "Kocia Łapka", sometimes it's called "Koci Pazur" (Cat's Claw), and sometimes it's left untranslated.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In the Italian versions of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time 3D Skull Kid was translated as "Bimbo Perduto" ("Lost Kid"), and it was called as such in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U too. When Majora's Mask 3D was released, they suddenly changed their minds and started keeping "Skull Kid" as a name in Italian translations too, and the April 2015 patch of Super Smash Bros. edited the name of the Skull Kid trophy and the tip about the corresponding Assist Trophy to reflect this change of heart in the localization. Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U used "Skull Kid" too.
  • The Italian translation of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap translated Peahat literally as "Pisello Cappello", rather than the usual translation "Bulbocottero".
  • The Ocarina item is named "Flute" in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but it's called an ocarina in other games.
  • The serpentine boss that appears in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Ocarina of Time is called Barba in the former and Volvagia in the latter. Dark Link is called "Link's Shadow" in The Adventure of Link.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The English manual translation often doesn't match the in-game version, such as Ruby instead of Rupy (later Rupee), Whistle instead of Recorder, Magic Wand instead of Magical Rod, Magic Book instead of Book of Magic, and (most infamously) Ganon instead of Gannon.
  • Bubbles are called Anti-Fairies or Whisps in some games.
  • "Rupees" was mistakenly romanized as "Rubies" in early games.
  • The enemies in Twilight Princess that the Nintendo Power guide calls ReDead Knights and the Prima Guide calls ReDeads are called Gibdos in Japanese; they are wrapped in bandages and use a paralyzing shriek just like ReDeads and Gibdos in earlier 3D games, the only difference being that they attack with a BFS instead of grabbing Link. Adding to the confusion, Hyrule Warriors called the TP Gibdos by their original name and gave the name ReDead Knight to a stronger version that's called "Flame Gibdo" in Japanese.
  • Ritos were originally localized as "Traveller Hawks" in the Italian translation of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but keep the original name in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
• Story of Seasons:
  • Harvest Moon features a church that worships the "Goddess of the Land". All future games refer to her as the "Harvest Goddess".
  • Kamil and Licorice had Dub Name Changes in Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns but use their Japanese names in Story of Seasons (2014).
  • The change in localizer from Natsume's Harvest Moon to XSeed's Story of Seasons led to some of this. The Harvest Sprites became Nature Sprites. In Story of Seasons (2014), the Harvest Goddess became Mother Gaia. In Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, she's referred to as the Harvest Goddess.
  • Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town uses a Truer to the Text translation and does away with the Dub Name Changes used from Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. Ann is changed to Ran, Mary is changed to Marie, Elli is changed to Elly, etc.
• In Kirby Super Star, Dyna Blade is female. The ending of her eponymous subgame even features Kirby discovering her chicks and raising them himself until she recovers. Despite this, the flavor text for the Dyna Blade event in Kirby Air Ride's City Trial tells you to aim for "his" head (similarly to the Watt example above).
• The manual of Military Madness for the TurboGrafx-16 refers to "Porcupines" in the description for the Trigger M-77 mines. This is a literal translation of their Japanese name.
• In the English version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival, Bison, Balrog and Vega's win quotes were given to the wrong boss: Balrog had Bison's, Vega had Balrog's and Bison had Vega's; the developers forgot to correct the winquote pointers when they enacted the usual Dub Name Change for these characters, meaning they ended up with their Japanese namesakes' quotes.
• The English release of Suikoden II is chock full of name inconsistencies, such as Bright Shield Rune and Shining Shield Rune, Jilia and Jilian Blight, Han and Hal Cunningham, and so on.
• Sonic The Hedgehog:
  • Fang the Sniper was called Nack the Weasel in the English manual of Sonic Triple Trouble, but is referred to by his Japanese name in all other games.
  • Doctor Eggman/Robotnik's name switched between his Japanese and English names in Sonic Adventure. The translators tried to Hand Wave it as Eggman being his nickname and Robotnik his real name. Later games refer to him as Eggman almost exclusively.
  • Mecha Sonic from Sonic 3 & Knuckles was given many different and inconsistent dub names: Robotic Sonic, Evil Sonic, Q Zone, and even Metal Sonic (the name of a completely different robot Sonic who first appeared in Sonic CD). Finally, when he was featured as part of DLC in LEGO Dimensions, it was reverted to with its Japanese name.
  • Similarly, Mecha Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was called Robo Sonic and Silver Sonic in English. Lego Dimensions went with the former name to distinguish him from the other model.
  • In a clumsy attempt at tying up with contemporary cartoons and comics, Amy Rose was called "Princess Sally" in the original English manual, before switching to her canon name in later releases.

• For a lengthy period of time between 2008-ish and 2016, most Nintendo games released had Same Language Dubs, one American localization for the North American market, and one British localization shared with Europe and Oceania. Because one hand wasn't talking to the other, several terms and concepts ended up with different names between versions, such as the game show in Paper Mario: Sticker Star or almost every proper noun in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. In late 2016, this eventually seemed to prove more trouble than it was worth, and Nintendo of Europe took over localization duties in full...except they also started using the North American English terms for everything, so the return of the aforementioned game show in Paper Mario: Color Splash calls it "Snifit or Whiffit" instead of "Hit It or Snifit", the Splatfest ranks in Splatoon 2 use the snappier American names instead of their more literally translated European counterparts, and so on. On the flip side, this resulted in oddities like the Hammerhead Bros. in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Marie in Splatoon 2 suddenly using British slang and speech patterns in the American versions for no in-game reason.
• When Halo: Combat Evolved first came out in 2001, the French dub translated the Master Chief's rank as Adjudant by mistake. A French Army Adjudant is OR-8 in the NATO rank structure, comparable to a Senior Chief Petty Officer in the U.S Navy. Subsequent games had him referred to as a Major, which is comparable to a Master Chief Petty Officer in the U.S Navy ^note a Major in the French Army is an enlisted rank, not an officer rank.
• In the NIS America English localization of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, the same class trial minigame is called "Mind Mine" in-game but "Imagination Excavation" in skill descriptions.
• Crops up from time to time in the Castlevania series:
  • The whip-wielding skeleton enemies are called "Shimon" in Japanese, a pun on "shi," the Japanese word for death, and Simon Belmont's name, because they're undead beings that mimic Simon's fighting style. The kanji used to make up that name can be translated literally as "Gates of Death," which is what the English manual for Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse refers to them as, both missing the wordplay and not making any sense. The English version of Super Castlevania IV just calls them Whip Skeletons, and Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance calls them Simon Wraiths, the closest to their Japanese name. Years later, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair would instead settle on Hellmont as a Woolseyism.
  • The sorceress introduced in Dracula's Curse is called "Syfa" in that game. Subsequent games render her name as "Sypha" fairly consistently, but Harmony of Dissonance calls her Cipher.
  • The enemies called Devils in Japanese are called Gargoyles in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest but, seemingly due to a translation error, they get labelled as "Cthulhu" in the English version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, while another enemy that actually resembles Lovecraft's famous monster is called "Malachi," meaning that even if the names got swapped, the Devil still wouldn't have been called a Devil. Later localizations manage to call them devils consistently.
  • The Holy Water subweapon is called the Fire Bomb in the localizations of most of the early games due to Nintendo of America's strict rules on religious content. Likewise the Cross subweapon usually got called Boomerangs.
  • The magic stone that allows the player character to double-jump has a different name every time it appears: the "Leap Stone" in Symphony of the Night, the "Double" in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, the "Stone of Flight" in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and hilariously, the "Ordinary Rock" in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The series can't seem to decide on what the suffix for the fourth tier of magic is in the English localization. I and II use "-gun", 3D and III use "-za", and 0.2 borrows "-ja" from Final Fantasy.
  • The Realm of Darkness is consistently translated as such in most games until 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage and III, where it is inexplicably called "Dark World" in the world logo and menu. In-game dialogues, however, still stick with the old name.
  • This also applies to abilities throughout the games. For example, Lucky Strike was translated as Lucky Lucky in Kingdom Hearts II but was reverted back to its original name in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, while Once More become Withstand Combo in Kingdom Hearts III.
  • Some of the Heartless that first appeared in Kingdom Hearts II were given different names when they reappeared in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Rabid Dog became Bad Dog, Cannon Gun became Li'l Cannon and Surveillance Robot became Watcher.
  • The pronunciation of Tidus's name also changes between games. In Kingdom Hearts, Wakka pronounces it "Tee-dus", but in Kingdom Hearts II, Selphie says "Tie-dus".
• In the NES version of Alien Syndrome, the first boss, originally known as Squime, is called "Hugger", which is the name of a completely different boss in other versions.
• The manual for the US Turbografx 16 CD version of Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair changes the protagonist's name from Leo to Adam, but the default initials on the ranking screen are still "LEO".
• Some of the dialogue between Naruto: Ultimate Ninja was changed in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2. One example is Sasuke's line "Killing him is the reason... for my existence!", which was changed to "Killing him is the reason... I exist!"
• The NES version of Double Dragon I calls the mook Roper "Lopar" in its manual, and "Rowper" on the Vs. Mode select screen.
• The English dubs of the second and third Valis games for the Turbografx-CD inconsistently pronounce the eponymous sword's name as either "Valis", "Varis", or "Balis", and can't decide whether Yuko's sister is named Varna or Valna either.
• Back when Life Wonders first started to officially translate Tokyo Afterschool Summoners, the character Managarmr was localized to Hati, most likely to avoid confusing any connection with the vastly different Garmr from the same game. However, while the dialogue still referred to him as the later, his character files and text box headers still referred to him as the former. This has since been changed back to Hati.
• In the English arcade version of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, one of the swords is correctly named "Excalibur" in the HUD, but called "Axecaliva" in dialogue.
• The English translation of Puyo Puyo Fever, in regards to the green demihuman character's name. She's mostly referred to as Rider (pronounced "reed-AIR"), but in one cutscene Amitie refers to her as Rita. The later Puyo Puyo Tetris changes her English name to Lidelle.
• There have been a good number of translation teams to work on Fire Emblem, which has resulted in some strange name changes. For instance, Ayra's son and Larcei's brother in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War has gone back and forth between being named "Ulster" and "Scáthach," and the hotheaded axe fighter in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has been named "Osian" and "Orsin". The main culprit is Fire Emblem: Awakening, which included a lot of offhand references and cameos from prior characters, and Fire Emblem Heroes, which made a lot of those prior characters directly playable.
• The US arcade flyer for Ghosts 'n Goblins named the Player character Sir Michael, but the NES version and all subsequent material has called him Arthur. Later, the manual for Super Ghouls n' Ghosts changed the Damsel in Distress's name from Prin-Prin to Guinevere, perhaps to relate to Arthurian Legend.
• Ys: Multiple:
  • The English SMS port of Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen calls Adol Arron and Dark Fact Dulk Dekt, while the MS-DOS and Apple IIGS versions rename them Arrick and Malificus, respectively, in addition to many other name changes.
  • The crater left behind when the eponymous civilization of Ys was raised into the sky, officially romanized as Bagyu Ba'dead, has at least three different English dub names: Bague Badet on the Sega Master System, Clifton's Cliff on the Turbografx CD, and the pseudo-French Vageux-Vardette on the Nintendo DS.
  • The localization of Ys I and II for the TurboGrafx-16 CD changes Dogi's name to Colin; however, they changed it back to Dogi for all versions of Wanderers from Ys.
  • Raba is Rasta in the English Turbo CD version, but all subsequent English localizations use his original name.
  • Galbalan, the Big Bad of Wanderers From Ys, is renamed Demonicus in both the Turbo CD and Genesis localizations, but retains his original name in the SNES version as well as all versions of the remake.
  • In the English dub of the PlayStation 2 port of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, the location of the Flame Sword is the "Altar of Brillante", but all subsequent dialogue refers to the sword as "Blirante". Also, Ladoc's ship is named the Tres Mares, which is Spanish for "three seas", but in the intro cutscenes, Terra pronounces it as if it were French^note The dub was handled by The Ocean Group, who are based in Canada. The actual French counterpart would be "trois mers".
• Tomba!:
  • Some item names are translated inconsistently between the first and second games. For example, Megumi no Hane (literally "Wings of Blessing") are called Charity Wings in the first game, but Magic Wings in the second. The Doka Pin also keeps its Japanese name in the second game, even though the first game called it the Grapplejack. (The name Doka Pin comes from the Japanese names of the Blackjack and Grapple weapons, which are Gurudoka and Gurupin respectively.
• In the English Sega CD version of Prince of Persia, the only port to feature voice acting, the Evil Vizier's name is pronounced "Jaffa" instead of Jaf(f)ar.

Web Animation

• Used deliberately in Girl-chan in Paradise when Galacticamaru's Quirky Miniboss Squad are referred to as Taishos, Bushido Blasters, Captains, Bushido Captain Blasters, and Captain Taisho Bushido Blaster Busters.
• Invoked by the Italian dub of Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures. The show uses archived audio of the original movies to voice the characters, but there's also an additional narrator that states a few lines in each episode. Since the multiple Dub Name Changes from the dub of the original trilogy have been retconned over time, it creates a dissonance where characters are called with two names in the same short (R2-D2 and C1-P8, Han Solo and Ian Solo, C-3PO and D-3BO...), plus the Emperor having three different voices in the same short.

Webcomics

• This could also fit under Overlapping and is a BIG Lampshade Hanging. The Hungarian (fan)translator of Roommates (Lakótársak) and Girls Next Door (A Szomszédlányok), as both are Mega Crossovers and heavy on Shout Outs, developed the Catchphrase "Keep/Compare notes, damn it!" because of this trope.
  Ashe's artist comment on Misto: See the musical "Cats" for more information — I have yet to pick up a copy of Eliot's book.
  Translator's addition: I read it... but sadly the Hungarian translators of the musical and the book never compared notes.
  • She also created an additional Running Gag from the characters being puzzled because of it... like poor Princess Buttercup wondering whether her name is "Boglárka" (film) or "Pitypang" (book).
• Yumi's Cells tend to flip between names for the Cells, like Manner/Etiquette Cell, Jinx/Jump-the-Gun Cell, and Hunger/Hungry Cell. It also sometimes mixes up the genders of androgynous Cells, since Korean doesn't have gendered personal pronouns. Diet Cell is introduced as male but becomes female when ship-teased with Hunger Cell, and One-Step-Behind Cell starts out female but is referred to as male after some hundred episodes after being absent.

Web Videos

• In Chadtronic's review of a tape called You on Kazoo!, he points out the children are dubbed by adults at different points of the video, and what's worse, they don't even bother trying to sound like kids. On top of all that, one has to wonder why they did this in the first place.

Western Animation

• Far too many Hungarian dubs to list. Most of the time, it's the result of switching dubbing studios or translators, although one has to wonder why the voice actors don't point out the inconsistency.
  • Greek dubs tend to have a similar issue, though it's mostly by switching voice actors around or translating stuff differently between episodes.
• The Brazilian Portuguese dub of 101 Dalmatian Street first translated Doug and Delilah's names as Pongo and Perdita, respectively. However, these changes were reverted, probably because the dubbers realized how weird it would be if they were still alive.
  • The Danish and Brazilian Portuguese dubs gave Da Vinci a male voice in "Poetry Scam", but in "Doggy Da Vinci" gave her a female voice and changed her gender from male to female. The problem lies that in the original she was female the whole time. Woops.
• In the Italian dub of the Adventure Time episode "Card Wars", the concept of Flooping was translated as "Ruotare" ("Spin"), but in "Daddy-Daughter Card Wars" it becomes "Fluppare", an Italianized version of the English name.
  • In the Norwegian dub, Princess Bubblegum is called "Prinsesse Sukkersøt" (Princess Sugar Sweet). However in some episodes she goes under the name "Prinsesse Tyggegummi" (direct translation of her original English name).
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The Arabic dub originally mistook Tails for a squirrel and gave him a squirrel Dub Name Change. This was fixed later on.
  • In the Italian dub, Tails's real name Miles was translated as "Trottolino" in the flashback of his first meeting with Sonic in "Tails' New Home", but when it's mentioned again in "The Little Hedgehog" the original name is left.
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • The Italian dub just can't decide if Alan, Bobert, Idaho, Leslie, Masami, Penny and Tina should keep their English names or be renamed respectively "Balloon", "Robot", "Potato", "Flower", "Cloud", "Peanut" and "T-Rex".
  • Again in the Italian dub, the homemade tabletop game seen in early episodes, Dodge or Dare, was translated as "Scappa o Sfida" ("Escape or Challenge") in Season 1, but when it got its own episode in Season 2 it became "Tira o Rischia" ("Roll or Risk"). The Brazilian Portuguese dub had a similar case, with the game becoming "Desvie ou Enfrente" ("Dodge it or Face it") in Season 1, and becoming "Drible ou Desafie" (which is more or less a more faithful translation) in season 2. However, considering how the game's name was retconned to be spelled as "Dodj or Daar" in season 2, this might've played a part on the confusion in the dubs.
• The first episodes of American Dad! in Castilian Spanish translated Snot's nickname, but after 10 episodes or so they kept it in English for no reason.
• In the Latin American Spanish dub of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, MC Pee Pants' gender was zig-zagged twice due his high-pitched voice, and Dr. Weird accidentally referring to him as his "beautiful fiancée" in a Cold Opening: In his debut episode of the same name, Mc Pee Pants was referred to as a female and even got a female voice actress, but he was later reverted back into a male in his second appearence in the episode "Super Sir Loin" and got a male voice actor, just to be turned back into a female in his third appearence in the episode "The Last One", with his previous voice actress even returning, and yet, he was reverted back into male again in his fourth and final appearence in the episode "Little Brittle", although with a different voice actor.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Trying to follow the Brazilian dub is a little harder than it should be thanks to this trope.
    • The most poignant inconsistency is the translation of the term "bender". Since there is not a precise equivalent of the term "bender" (which has one or two extra meanings in English) in Portuguese, the dubbers opted for "dobra" (folding), which sounds as weird as it would be in English when referring to elements. While the term was mildly popular, it was gradually changed to "dominador" (manipulator), which doesn't carry the exact same meaning, but definitely makes more sense.
    • As far as pronunciations go, the dub really can't make up its mind. Iroh will be pronounced interchangeably as "Eye-roh" and "Ee-roh"; Mai will be either "May" or "My-ee"; Suki will be either, well, "Suki" or "Su-KEE"; Ty Lee will be either "Tye Lee" or "Tee Lee" etc. It's surprising to see how Aang kept his English pronunciation consistent.
    • The minor character Pipsqueak got his nickname translated ("Tampinha") sometimes, and other times kept as is.
  • Like with both the Powerpuff Girls shows below, the European Portuguese dub was inconsistent between the two shows, though to a much minor degree. Like with the Brazilian version above, they couldn't decide on what to call the elemental powers in the series. In the original, the English name was kept for the users (e.g. Firebender) but was translated for the actual power (e.g. "Poder do Fogo" [lit. "Power of Fire"] instead of Firebending), while the sequel series kept the power's name, but changed the user's name into "Guardião/Guardiã"^note Male/Female, respectively.
  • In the Norwegian dub, it seems like they couldn't quite decide if the show was supposed to be named "The Last Airbender" or "The Legend of Aang", as it kept switching back and forth between the two titles.
  • The Russian dub just couldn't decide how to tactfully rename the character Suki, whose original name is a swear word meaning "bitches" in Russian. She was called Dzuki in the first season, Suyuki in the second, and Zuki in the third. The Russian fandom typically calls her Suyuki regardless.
  • The Japanese dub:
    • In the first episode, Katara calls the Water Tribe "水の部族" (Mizu no buzoku) ^Translation the literal translation in her initial narration. After that, however, they're almost always referred to as "水の民" (Mizu no Tami) ^Translation "the Water Folk" instead. Note that the latter sounds more natural in Japanese than the former does.
    • Seasons 1 and 2 use "西の龍" (Nishi no ryū) to refer to Iroh's Red Baron as the Dragon of the West. However, Season 3 instead refers to it as "西のドラゴン" (Nishi no doragon).
• The Italian dub of Bob's Burgers has its fair dose of inconsistencies:
  • The last name of the main characters, Belcher, is usually mispronounced as "Bell-care", with only a few episodes in Season 1 and some in Season 9 using the correct pronounciation.
  • The "Jr." part of Jimmy Pesto Jr.'s name is sometimes pronounced correctly, while in other episodes is pronounced as its Latin root ("You-nior").
  • Zeke's name is usually mispronounced "Zeck", with the correct pronounciation being used only twice in the entire series.
  • The Thunder Girls are usually translated literally as "Ragazze Tuono", but keep the English name in the episodes "Tina, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Sleeping with the Frenemy".
  • When mentioned for the first time in "The Millie-churian Candidate", the name of the pet chinchilla in Louise's class, Princess Little Piddles, is translated as "Piccola Principessa Pisciasotto" ("Little Princess Peepants"), but in "Adventures in Chinchilla-Sitting" the name is instead "Principessa Pisciatina" ("Princess Brief Piss").
  • Boyz 4 Now keep their English name in most of their appearances, but in "Just one of the Boyz 4 Now" they're suddenly translated as "I Mitici 4" ("The Mythical 4").
• The German dub of the DiC series of The Care Bears suffers from this big-time, particularly in regards to changing character voices and genders:
  • Proud Heart Cat is male in this dub, but "his" voice is completely different in "Concrete Rain" compared to his/her other appearances in "Lucky Charm", "Dry Spell", and "The Old Man and the Lighthouse".
  • Grumpy Bear is voiced by an actress in "Split Decision", "The Last Laugh", and "The Night the Stars Went Out", but for his other appearances in "Magic Mirror" and "The Cloud Worm", he's voiced by a male actor as in the original, and speaks in his normal deep, baritone voice.
  • Cozy Heart Penguin is voiced by a male actor in three episodes: "The Last Laugh", "Drab City", and "The Old Man and the Lighthouse". To top it off, "his" voice sounds completely different in "The Last Laugh" (more of a "cutesy" falsetto) compared to the other two episodes mentioned. In her other two appearances, "Forest of Misfortune" and "Daydream", she's female as in the original.
  • In "Camp", "Split Decision", "Magic Mirror", and "Forest of Misfortune", Love-A-Lot Bear is erroneously male.
  • In "Forest of Misfortune", Treat Heart Pig is male, but in "Daydreams", she's female as in the original.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers:
  • The Russian dub consists of 52 episodes done in early 90s by TPO Kinoprogramm and 13 remaining episodes dubbed in 2000s by Nevafilm with a completely different cast. The Nevafilm-dubbed episodes translate the names of some characters (such as Fatcat) differently. For those who want to watch CDRR in the original order of episodes, this can be rather jarring since some Nevafilm-dubbed episodes are going to be sandwiched between those dubbed by TPO Kinoprogramm.
  • How did they translate "Rescue Rangers" in Germany? As an in-universe name, it became "Rettungstruppe" ("rescue troop"). The on-screen title card however turned it into "Die Ritter des Rechts" ("the knights of justice"), presumably to keep the "RR" abbreviation. And the official title appears to be "Ritter des Rechts" without the article.
• Season 1 of the Polish dub of Codename: Kids Next Door had the five characters called by nicknames (something that was scrapped from the English version after the previews, but persisted here) rather than their real names, however it starts to use the real names from Season 2 onwards perhaps due to them being more and more relevant to the story. This is also the case for the Brazilian Portuguese dub, although these nicknames were only used in promotional material (such as the "Cartoon Zaum" crossver brand) rather than the series proper.
  • Speaking of the latter dub, they can't seem to decide if Numbuh 5's family name should be "Lincoln" like in the original or be replaced by "Oliveira"(Wikipedia and the CN website works around this by referring to her as "Abigail Oliveira Lincoln"). Numbuh 3's first name also was switched between "Kuki" and "Ukibi".
• The Brazilian dub of The Cuphead Show! can't decide if they are naming the characters of the show with the names taken from the brazilian translation of the game or the original english names, Cuphead and Mugman are named Xicrinho and Caneco, some bosses got their translated names like Captain Brineybeard to Capitão Barba-Salgada and Cala Maria to Dona Iara, while other bosses kept their english names like Werner Werman and Sally Stageplay, this trope is in full effect with Ribby and Croaks that kept their english names in their first appearance, but later were named by their translated names Escoaxo and Sopapo.
• The Latin American Spanish dub of Daria has one of the most bizarre examples of this trope. While the series was dubbed in Mexico, many episodes mix Mexican with Spaniard and even South American slang and terminology in the dialogue, partly because the series was dubbed for the entire Spanish-speaking world, including Spain, despite that country, from the mid-to-late-1990s onward, preferring to broadcast locally-made European Spanish dubs. Later episodes were dubbed with a more neutral dialogue through.
• The Italian dub of Darkwing Duck has a bunch of inconsistencies.
  • F.O.W.L. is usually translated as O.C.A. (which translates to "Goose" and is an acronym for "Organizzazione Criminale per l'Arricchimento", "Criminal Organization for Enrichment"), but in some episode the original name is kept (with the acronym adapted as "Federazione Ovoidale Wargames e Ladrocini", which translates to "Egg-shaped Federation for Games of war and Robbery").
  • Professor Moliarty and Tuskernini, usually renamed respectively "Professor Talponi" and "Dente Alighieri", have been called with their English names in some occasions. In fact, Tuskernini is called more often with his English name rather than the Italian dub one.
  • In his first appearance, Gizmoduck is called Robopap, the same name that was used for the character in DuckTales (1987). In all his subsequent appearances, he's instead called Roboduck. Also, the last name of his civilian identity Fenton Crackshell, translated as "Paperconchiglia" in ''DuckTales, was changed to "Sganapini".
  • Splatter Phoenix switches back and forth between being named "Rembranda Von Duck" and "Miranda Von Quack".
  • The Fictional Videogame Wiffle Boy was translated in a very literal way as "Soffietto" in its first appearance, but when reappearing in a later episode it was changed to "Zak Game" (with the titular character becoming "Capitan Zak" accordingly)
  • Gosalyn's masked alter ego Quiverling Quack was translated initially as "Robinia Hood", but when she dons the costume again later on the name is changed to the more literal "Dardinia Quack".
  • S.H.U.S.H. scientist Sarah Bellum is usually translated into "Lona Cervel", but in a single instance they called her instead "Professoressa Cervelletti".
• The Italian dub of The Fairly OddParents! is filled with this.
  • In the episode where Timmy gives superpowers to his parents, the original names (Mighty Mom and Dyno Dad) are kept. But when they get their powers back in a later episode, their superhero identities are now "Supermamma e Papà Sprint" ("Supermom and Fast Dad").
  • Chet Ubetcha's surname was originally mispronounced as "Uh-BATCH-ka" for most episodes, than it was literally translated as "Chet Puoicontarci", than it went back to his original name but now pronounced "U-BACK-a", and finally they got the right pronunciation.
  • Similarly, Remy Bucksaplenty went from the correct pronunciation in his first appearance, to being pronounced "BOOKS-a-plenty" in the subsequent two appearances, and being translated as "Remì Pienodisoldi" in his last appearance.
  • The Crimson Chin is another big issue. He was originally "Crimson il Mentone" ("Crimson the Big Chin"), then it became "C-Man" in two episodes and then it stayed as "Crimson Mentone" for the remainder of the series.
  • Bronze Kneecap had a similar fate too: It was translated as "Ginocchiera di Bronzo" ("Bronze Kneepad") in his first appearance, then was changed into "Ginocchio di Bronzo" ("Bronze Knee"), and in a episode he further became "Rotula di Bronzo", a more literal translation.
  • Negachin was called "Nega Mentone" ("Nega Big Chin") in his first appearance but kept the English name in his second appearance.
  • Also, the actual concept of "Fairy Godparents" is translated in meny different ways during the series. While the regular translation is "Fantagenitori" (as in the Italian title of the show, Due Fantagenitori), sometimes other monickers were used, including "Folletti Magici" ("Magic Pixies"), "Spiriti Fatati" ("Enchanted Spirits"), the literal translation "Padrini Fatati", "Fate" ("Fairies", the second most used translation) and in a single occasion even "Elfi" ("Elfs").
  • The Fairy World is usualy named "Fantamondo", but sometimes it's called "Mondo Fatato" (a more faithful translation"), and in the April Fool episode it even became "Paese delle Fantasie" ("Fantasy Town").
  • Speaking about the April Fool... another character unable to keep a single name for more than one episode. Sometimes he is "Il Re dei Buffoni" ("The Buffoon King"), another time he was "Il Giullare del Primo d'Aprile" ("The April Fools Day Jester")..
  • Hungarian dub of The Fairly OddParents! is one of the more interesting cases. Originally, there were two dubs produced for two networks (Nick and KidsCo). When the Disney Channel started airing the show, they sort of "blended" the casts of the two dubs together. Timmy retained his Nick voice, some second-rate characters got new voices that matched the originals better, but mostly everyone else sounds like in the KC dubbing. After season 6, Nickelodeon ditched their dubbing studio (Labor) and brought over the Disney cast (studio SDI), along with their name translations — this meant Poof's name changed from "Pufi" to "Csiribú" during the shift. There remains other inconsistencies: despite being voiced by the same actress in both the original Labor and SDI dubs, Wanda's voice is much higher-pitched in the new Nick dub, and while the original SDI KidsCo and Disney dubbings didn't bother translating the songs (not even in subtitles), the Nick version does dub even the singing scenes.
  • Catman had at least three names in the Hungarian dubbing: Macskandúr (Portmanteau of cat and tomcat), Cicahős (Kittyhero) and Macskaember (straight translation).
• The Hungarian Family Guy dub, which apart from the problems listed below is one of the best dubs currently running on TV, has an annoying habit of changing around the voices of many second or third tier characters, only keeping the more prominent voices consistent. What's also strange is that although they often manage to get the original voice actors of various Cameo guests from different shows (including actors you rarely hear on TV nowadays), they often fail to do the same for in-universe characters from The Cleveland Show or American Dad!, whenever they have a Crossover. An explanation for this might be the fact that ADs dub is handled by a different studio, and the people dubbing FG simply don't recognize its characters, and so don't check whether they already have actors attached to them or not. Thanks to some fanmail, the FG dubbing team has promised to use the correct AD voices in the future. American Dads dub on the other hand still assigns new voices to every crossover character.
• In the Italian dub of Futurama Lrrr (pronounced LYURR) kept his original name in the first 3 seasons. Then in season 4 he was suddenly renamed "Goffredo" and, while his voice actor remained the same, he also gained a completely different accent. Later episodes switched back to Lrrr (this time pronounced literally, as in LEH-RRR with hard Rs), but with a different voice actor and yet another different accent. Also, the "future" name for Christmas (Xmas) was translated pretty inconsistently over the course of the series: at first, in season 2 it was translated as "Nasale" (literally "Nasal", a play on the Italian world for Christmas, "Natale"), losing all satirical implications, while in season 6 it was changed to "Namale" (supposedly a play on "Natale" and "male", the Italian word for "evil"). In all the episodes in between it was just translated as "Natale".
• The character Motor Ed of Kim Possible has the Verbal Tic of peppering his sentences with the word "seriously". When translated into Swedish, "seriously" can become two words, both with practically the same meaning: "seriöst" and "allvarligt". For some unknown reason, the dubbers went with having one of the two Motor Ed-centered episodes translating "seriously" to "seriöst" and the other translating "seriously" to "allvarligt".
• King of the Hill: Apart from abandoning the foul-mouthed Woolseyisms, the Hungarian dub changed John Redcorn's name to "Vörös Kukorica" (literally "Red Corn") in season 7, and started calling the Mega Lo Mart shopping center by its English name rather than "Giga Plaza", which was the name used in the earlier seasons.
• The Loud House:
  • As usual, the Italian dub has a good chunk of inconsistencies:
    • Lucy's favourite show, Vampires of Melancholia, was originally translated as "Vampiri e Malinconia" ("Vampires and Melancholy"), but later on it was changed to a more faithful "I vampiri di Malinconia"^note with the last word being pronounced differently to make clear that it's a place whose name sounds like "Melancholy".
    • Again with Lucy: her school club, the Morticians Club, has been translated as "Club dei funerali" ("Funeral Club"), "Club dei becchini" ("Undertaker Club"), "Club dei giovani becchini" ("Young Undertakers Club"), "Mortiferi Club" ("Club of the Deadly Ones") and "Becchini Junior" ("Junior Undertakers").
    • Flip's smoothee, the Flippee, usually keeps its English name, but in "Intern for the Worse" it was translated as "Flappé" (a pun between Flip's name and "frappé" - "milkshake" in Italian and French).
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • First localized in Hungary on promo DVDs. When they started airing the show on television, a completely new dub got produced, using mostly different voice actors and translations (though there is some overlapping). Fans are still arguing over which one is better/worse, as not all of the changes seemed to have been actual improvements.
  • The Italian dub:
    • They just couldn't decide if translate "Cutie Mark" as "Simbolo di Bellezza" or keeping it in English (often using both in the same episode), but in later seasons they chose the latter.
    • Also, the name of Pinkie Pie's Element. In Season 1 it was "Gioia" ("Joy"), in Season 2 became the more literal "Risata" and in Equestria Girls it became "Allegria" ("Happiness").
    • The monicker "The Great and Powerful Trixie" was translated as "La Grande e La Formidabile Trixie" ("The Great and The Amazing Trixie"), but became the more literal "La Grande e Potente Trixie" starting from the brief mention of her in "Ponyville Confidential"... until "To Here and Back Again" came back to the original monicker.
    • After keeping her English name for four seasons, in Season 5 Spitfire was suddenly renamed "Saetta" for no reason other than to match "Fulmine" (Soarin's Italian name, which was there since Season 1)
    • In "The Cutie Remark", Sunburst was renamed "Sunray", but in "The Crystalling" they kept Sunburst as his name.
    • In the dubs of "Bridle Gossip" and "Sonic Rainboom", Rainbow Dash's mocking nickname was changed from Rainbow Crash to Rainbow Splash, but in "Newbie Dash" they kept Rainbow Crash.
  • The Portuguese dub refers to bits as either coins (moedas) or cents (cêntimos). The localization of the mobile game keeps the original name untranslated.
  • The Croatian HRT dub:
    • It had some moments of misnaming characters, particularly as a result of sloppily copying one of the two Serbian dubs in most songs and later episodes; for example, in the Croatian dub of Art of the Dress Applejack gets referred to as "Jabuklina" even though her name is "Ivka", Fluttershy as "Tihana" while it's actually "Plahuljica" etc.
    • The voice actors are inconsistent as well; characters are occasionally voiced by VAs other than their intended one (for example, in "Bridle Gossip", Twilight gets voiced by a man in one line, as well as Scootaloo on occassion), especially during songs and the parts where audio is taken from one of the Serbian dubs. Several characters also received multiple different voice actors across the whole two first seasons, and on a few occasions within the same episode as well (for instance, in "Look Before You Sleep", Rarity has her VA in the episode itself but gets a different one in the Cold Open).
    • "May The Best Pet Win!" has two, both involving Tank. The first one is when Rainbow Dash initially meets Tank; she at first calls him a turtle (which is correct by the original script), but in her very next sentence she calls him a tortoise, to which Fluttershy remarks that he's a tortoise. The second one is his gender, wherein he's first referred to as a female and then as a male near the end of the episode.
    • Ponyville was named "Ponigrad" since the first episode, but for reasons unknown the name was changed to "Ponijevo" in the midst of the second season.
  • The Romanian dub: Poor Cutie Mark Crusaders. This dub just can't decide how to call them. "Cutie mark" is usually translated as "semn drăguț" or just "semn", except two episodes in Season 2. In "Cutie Pox" it's "semnişor" and in "Ponyville Confidential" they keep the English name. The biggest problem is the name of the team: "Aventurierii/Căutătorii/Cavalerii/Cercetaşii semnelor drăguțe/semnişoarelor"...
  • The French dub:
    • Ponyville keeps alternating between keeping its original name, or being literally translated to Poneyville. Sometime, the names alternate in the same episode.
    • The Elements of Harmony are either called "Éléments d'Harmonie", which is a literal translation, or "Éléments d'Équilibre", which means "Elements of Balance". Sometime, the names alternate in the same episode.
    • The Everfree Forest was originally changed to "la Forêt Désenchantée" (the Un-enchanted Forest), but starting from the middle of the season 2, they decided to keep the original "Everfree" name.
    • Owlowiscious is meant to keep his original name, but in "May the Best Pet Win!", he's called "Chouette délicieuse", meaning "Delicious owl". Doubles as a "Blind Idiot" Translation because Owlowiscious's name is meant to be a mix between "owl" and "Aloysius", not "owl" and "delicious".
    • The Wonderbolts go untranslated in all but one episode. In "The Ticket Master" they're called "Les Flèches de l'Air" (lit. "The Arrows of the Air/Air's Arrows").
• Polish dub of The Penguins of Madagascar has some inconsistencies:
  • Depending on the episode, Skipper will be addressed by his English name or as "Szef" ("Boss").
  • Doctor Blowhole was initially named as Doktor Waleń Głębokie Gardło (Doctor Whale the Deep Throat). The translators didn't know that he's not a whale but a dolphin, when his name appeared for the first time. Since "Dr. Blowhole’s Revenge", the Doctor is named "Doktor Bulgot" (Doctor Gurgle).
  • Also Blowhole's real name was confused in Polish dub; in one episode he's named "Płetewka", later - "Płetewek".
  • In first few episodes, Chuck Charles was named Maks Kolanko (after famous Polish TV reporter, Mariusz Max Kolonko), but later he was called in English.
  • Bada and Bing have Polish names (Bolo and Lolo), but sometimes their English names are used.
  • Phil was named in various episodes by various names: Edek, Stefan, Zenek.
  • The Space Squid is named as kosmiczna kałamarnica, kosmiczna mątwa, kosmiczna ośmiornica, which means: space squid, space cuttlefish and space octopus. But it's still a squid.
  • Kowalski's invention from "Invention Intervention" episode, which is called "Gemetrator" in Polish, is later (in the same episode) named "Gematron".
• The Mask: The French dub sometimes leaves Walter's name as it is, sometimes changes it to Martin.
• The Latin American Spanish dub of Phineas and Ferb translated OWCA- Organization Without a Cool Acronym, accurately as OSBA- Organización Sin un Buen Acrónimo for the Summer Belongs to You special. Later mentions, where the acronym's meaning isn't mentioned, it is just OWCA. At first it can be considered a good thing when OWCA's logo appears, (saying 'OSBA' when a sign clearly says OWCA can be a bit confusing), but it's still jarring, since in the nineties Disney used to edit signs on their movies and cartoons to fit the language it was done for, an action which ironically, with current technology, is even easier.
  • The Brazilian dub is even more inconsistent. Not only OWCA's name inconsitency also applies to this dub (it was first translated as OSUSB ^note  Organização Sem Uma Sigla Bacana, but it had multiple other names before returning to OSUSB for the rest of the series), but many things such as Doofenshmirtz's Inators or quotes get retranslated pretty often, specially in flashbacks. Part of the inconsistencies is because Phineas changed voice actors during season 2, so they couldn't just reuse season 1 clips with his old voice ^note  that didn't stop them to redubbing some season 1 episodes with Phineas' new voice, such as S'winter, and none of his lines have changed., but for other characters that retained their voices through the show (such as Candace and Doofenshmirtz), it made no sense at all.
  • In the Scandinavian dubs, none of the text is translated, but sometimes, a narrator reads the signs in the Danish version, but that is very rare. The reason for this might be that the video for all countries is shared, but not the audio.
  • In the Russian dub, Doofenshmirtz's last name was changed to "Foofelshmirtz", but during the first season, the captions read "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated", while the singers sung "Foofelshmirtz Evil Incorporated".
• In the German dub of Recess, the Diggers start out as twin brothers, then become identical best friends, and switch back to being twin brothers. In the original version, they were only best friends who happened to look identical (Rule of Funny).
  • In the first few airings of the German dub, and in a translation of one of the Disney Adventures comics for the show, Gus was named Paul. The dubbers recognized their mistake and redubbed those moments with his correct name.
  • The Italian dub also had its fair size of inconistencies:
    • Swinger Girl was changed to "Altalena Superstar" ("Swingset Superstar") for a good chunk of the episodes, but later on became the more literal "Ragazza altalena".
    • Cornchip Girl just had no name whatsoever for most of her appearances. The first time they tried to translate her nickname she became "Granturchina" ("Little Corn"), but after that they settled on "Patatina" ("Potato chip").
    • Depending on the episode, Kickball was translated either as "Tiracalci" ("Kickthrow") or "Calcioball" ("Soccerball").
    • Upside-Down Girl was either "Ragazza capovolta" or "Ragazza sottosopra" (both literal translations).
• The Smurfs: The Italian dub has inconsistencies, mainly because the first season is a big case of Early-Installment Weirdness. In the first 10 episodes they don't bother translating the English names of the Smurfs, and only midway through season 1 onward they start using the Italian translated names. The first two dubbed episodes have all the characters with different voice actors from the rest of the series, and Gargamella (Italian name of Gargamel) is also referred to as Garganella.
• South Park's Hungarian dub changed its translator multiple times, which lead to an awkward period around the middle of the series when the consistency of names, verbal tics and the translation in general took a nosedive. In one episode, Cartman's voice actor even broke character to point out the sudden name change of Big Gay Al, and the studio ran with it instead of retaking the scene. For the later seasons, they hired a fan to translate the scripts, so these issues eventually got ironed out.
  • In the Italian dub, Mr. Mackey's "'mkay?" is usually translated as "'pito?" (slurred form of "Capito?", Italian for "Got it?"), but in Season 5 (which was the first one after the dubbing company and the cast were entirely replaced) it was instead translated as "E dunque..." ("And so...").
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the Dutch Dub most notably with Squidward's rival Squilliam Fancyson, who was allowed to keep his English name for his debut episode but was renamed "Octon te Verwend" in a later episode. Also happens to the Krusty Krab, which is usually translated as 'Krokante Krab' (a literal translation) but also sometimes 'korstige krab' (a less literal translation).
  • In the Italian dub:
    • Squilliam Fancyson keeps his original name in his early appearances, but is renamed Squilli Elegant in some of the later episodes. The "Squilli" change was probably made to make his name similar to Squidward, who is only known as "Squiddi" in the Italian dub.
    • Mr. Krabs is renamed "Mr. Kreb" (pronounced just like "Crab") in the show, but the dub of the first movie keeps the original name.
  • Exaggerated with the European Spanish dub, which can not get Squilliam's name consistent. In "Band Geeks", he's Squiliam. In "Squilliam Returns", he's Guimardo. In "House Fancy", he's Calamardi Elegantínez, and later that season in "Professor Squidward", he's Calamarón el Guay III. In "I Heart Dancing" and "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful", he's Calamarino. In "Back to the Past", the dubbers confused him for Squidward and called him as such.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, the Gal Pals are called "Compañeras" (Partners) in "Girls' Night Out", but "Secre-amigas" (Secret Friends) in "A Cabin in the Kelp".
• Steven Universe:
  • In the Italian dub, the name of Ronaldo's blog (Keep Beach City Weird) was originally translated as Beach Superstramba City ("Beach Superweird City") in "Cat Fingers", but in "Steven's Lion" they changed it into Keep Beach City Wow, and in the eponymous episode it became Beach City, La Città che Stranisce ("Beach City, the city that weirds you out")
  • Not exactly in the show itself, but Cartoon Network Italy's page initially referred to Garnet as "Rodolite", implying that she was going to have a Dub Name Change. She's still called Garnet in the actual show.
  • The Hungarian dub also alternates between translating names and keeping them in English, at times within the same scene. The translator eventually tried to salvage the script by handling the translated names as if they were generic designations denoting what type of gem a character is, while the English names were their personal names. But this notion falls apart as even non-gem characters switch their names randomly. The Crystal Gems went through several revisions too: at first they were "the Diamond Team" (still used in the Theme Song), "Crystal Fairies" or "Crystal Kids", before the dub settled on a literal translation. Callbacks to past events or exchanges also constantly get lost, as if every sentence of the show was translated by a different person, all bad at English.
• Teen Titans Go!:
  • In the Italian dub of the episode "Croissant", Killer Moth is all of a sudden renamed "Falena" ("moth"), when in his earlier appearances he kept his original name.
  • Still in the Italian dub, Lady Legasus was translated as "Lady Gambasus" in her first episode, but in the later appearances she became "Lady Gambesus"
• Winx Club:
  • The Rai/Cinelume English dub correctly referred to Bloom's home world as "Domino" for the first 3 seasons, but switches to "Sparks" for season 4 to match the 4Kids English dub, which had been calling it that from the beginning. In addition, the Rai/Dubbing Brothers USA dubs of the first two movies also use "Sparks". Fortunately, the Nickelodeon dub ignores all that, and just calls it "Domino".
  • In the first season of the Norwegian dub, the witch/fairy Mirta was called "Mista", but in season 2 they started referring to her as Mirta.
  • This also happened in Singapore English dub in the episode where Mirta was introduced. It was fixed afterwards.
• The Romanian dub of Xiaolin Showdown is inconsistent with the names of some Shen Gong Wus. For example, "The Shroud of Shadows" switches between "Giulgiul Umbrelor" and "Învăluirea Umbrei" quite often.
• X-Men cartoons in Hungarian. Hoo-boy... First, the original dub of the '90s animated show that aired on Fox Kids disregarded the comic book name translations, angering many fans (for example, Wolverine became Wolf, Storm became Cyclone, etc.). Then, X-Men: Evolution followed on Cartoon Network, with a fantastic dub, but kept the Fox Kids names, and season 4 didn't get dubbed. The X-Men live action movies followed suit, and thus the new names became widespread, so that now the general public recognizes "Wolf" as the character's basic name. Sometime later, the un-aired episodes of the '90s series receive a wholly new dub, and didn't bother with translating names, but only kept a handful of the original voice actors. Finally, to everyone's surprise, a different channel demanded Evolution's dub be finished, after a long wait that lasted for about half a decade. Unfortunately, even though all of the original actors were still accessible, only a select few characters kept their voices, they got some names wrong at certain points, and a few of the old voices returned in different roles. The final episode also contained a quite noticeable goof-up; namely, Jean's voice completely changed for just one scene.
• The hindi dub of Courage the Cowardly Dog that aired on Cartoon Network India had renamed the titular character as "Sher Dil", which literally translates to Lion Hearted, (meaning Brave and Determined)... only for about half the series. The rest of the series has others and himself refer to him as "Courage".
• In the Danish dub of Milo Murphy's Law, "sweater vest" is translated as "sweatervest" in the theme tune (i.e. the same word, except that it's written in one word in Danish), but when Milo talks about his sweater vest in the series proper, it's always translated as "strikvest" (lit. "knitted vest"). While both translations are equally correct, "strikvest" sounds somewhat more old-fashioned. This is due to the theme tune being translated a long time before the series proper and by a different translator, but it still comes off as weird that the translator of the series proper apparently hasn't even listened to the theme tune of the series he's translating.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • The Hungarian dub contains numerous inconsistencies and errors:
    • The Propulsion family is both referred to with their English last name and English name order (surname after given name), as well as with a Hungarianized last name with Hungarian name order (surname before given name). The usage of last name and name order varies from episode to episode.
    • Mindy's last name varies between "Melendez" and "Mendez."
    • During the "Scientific Method" song, whether or not the line where all the kids sing the chorus is dubbed or left silent varies from episode to episode.
    • During the "Night of a Bazillion Stars" song, the names of the stars which Jet sings do not match up to the stars he points at in the song. The beginning line is also repeated three times at various speeds, as Jet's voice actor flubbed the line; these outtakes are kept in the final version of the song.
  • The Uzbek dub contains numerous inconsistencies:
    • The name of Sydney's favorite superhero, Commander Cressida, was translated as "Qo'mondon Kressida" up until "So Many Moons," in which the translation used by this dub was changed to "Kapitan Kressida." However, beginning with "Scientific Sean," the "Qo'mondon Kressida" translation began being used again alongside "Kapitan Kressida."
    • The lyrics to the Commander Cressida Theme Song and Take-Off chant were inexplicably changed following the first 10 episodes. The changed lyrics more closely resemble the Russian-dubbed versions of the songs than their original English versions. The lyrics were reverted back to the initial lyrics in "Space Junk," but episodes following it such as "The Mindysphere" continued using the changed lyrics alternating with the initial ones.

Overlapping

• Transformers in Hungarian is screwed beyond comprehension, just from the sheer amount of different people and studios its comics, cartoons and movies have gone through, without the slightest trace of cooperation having taken place between them.
  • For years, the only TF media available were the Marvel comics, which introduced classic name translations that the fans grew to be familiar with (although some, like Wheeljack, Blaster or Powerglide did switch their names around a bit).
  • The G1 cartoon never got dubbed, only the movie, twice. Neither used the Marvel names, nor bothered to keep any of the voices consistent, as they changed literally from scene to scene.
  • Transformers: Energon rolled around in 2004, and also made up new names for the characters (most infamously "Optimus, the First" and "Robotika" in place of Decepticon). In 2013, Energon saw a redub, which hads a much more severe case of this. It at first attempted to reinstall the Marvel translations, but after a while, randomly switched back to using the old-Energon names, seemingly alternating between the two variations depending on the episode. The voices similarly keep changing. Further, this makes it even more inconsistent with its prequel Armada and its sequel Cybertron.
  • By the time of Transformers: Cybertron, fans had gotten into contact with the translator and persuaded him to change some names to their original Marvel counterparts, but this only happened to a select few characters. Even those that had their Marvel names reinstalled got to be called by their Energon names at times. And Landmine received a new name for just the intro, which differed from both his Energon name and the one the actual Cybertron series used. The dub was dreadful, and besides the name screw-ups, it kept changing the voices (even the genders) around far too much for comfort. Cybertron was also redubbed in 2014. This version also a mix of Marvel, old!Energon and Bay-verse names, and again, Landmine has multiple designations. Leobreaker also christens himself with a different name than what's used in the rest of the show.
  • The Ultimate Battle DVD special: Only some of the original Marvel names were used, the rest were a confusing mishmash of Energon names or new ones. Even within this twenty-minute special, they couldn't manage to keep names and voices consistent. A number of the original voice actors from the Energon and Cybertron shows returned, they did so in other roles, like Kicker's actor suddenly voicing Ironhide, and Thunderbolt's actress playing every female character, including her own, but only for one line. Afterwards, she spoke in a male's voice.
  • "Bayformers": Although the dubbing was very low-quality, border-lining incomprehensible at times, it finally used the Marvel names, save for a couple of instances when they accidentally left in English terms. One persistent naming inconsistency is Cybertron's name: "Kibertron" in movie #1, Cybertron in the rest.
  • Titan Magazines released a series of comics based on the Transformers movie franchise, and when these were imported to the country, they got the cheapest translation job imaginable. Inconsistent terminology, name changes, the dialog not making any sense.
  • Transformers: Animated very nearly avoided inconsistent dubs. The show never got dubbed, but the single toy commercial that aired on TV and the McDonald's promo couldn't decide whether to go with the Marvel or old!Energon names.
  • Transformers: Armada's dub was made completely independently from its sequels, Energon and Cybertron, thus had a wholly different voice cast. Despite the live-action movies having made the Marvel names household terms, the dub still opted to start from scratch, and continued to give new names for each of its characters. What more, it has a lot more mix-ups (both names and voices) than the already infamous English dubbing.
  • Transformers: Prime: On a positive note, for the first time in the dub of a TF animated series, they refer to the Decepticon faction by its original Hungarian Marvel name, and a chunk of the terminology introduced in the movie dubs, even some of the voices have also remained intact after the medium-shift. However every other name is left in English. This is justified: the distributors forbid changing the names, probably to ensure that the TV characters would share a name with the toy products — same thing happened to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, whereas the dubs of the earlier shows translated the names.
    
    Aside from that, even within the cartoon's own boundaries, inconsistency reared its head in the form of sound editing bloopers regarding Soundwave's synthesized audio snippets and other miscellaneous effects, as well as the varying translations of Ratchet's Catchphrase. A couple of terms introduced in the movies have also been left in English (Wreckers), and the character known as the "Fallen" went from being called "Bukott" to "Ördög" (Devil). Allegedly this can be traced back to an older name-list that a fan put out for the translator to use.
  • The dub of Transformers: Rescue Bots, which is the sister show of and takes place in the same continuity as TF: Prime, is a step back, there being no consistency between the two dubs. Here, Optimus Prime has a different voice (two voices, actually) and the names are once again translated... except for Prime's... though it is translated in the intro... differently than in any other dubs... and at times the others are left in English as well... or are translated differently. At least Cybertron and Bumblebee are called by their Marvel names. The production was handled by a different dubbing studio than any of the previously localized Transformers shows' dubs, but that doesn't explain the in-show inconsistency.
• Transformers in Italian:
  • G1 has some inconsistencies here and there:
    • First, Red Alert was shortened to "Alert" in the toyline, but changed into "Giaguaro" in the TV show.
    • The TV show itself had some name confusions here and there, with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker trading their names back and forth and Huffer being called "Piedone" in an episode but "Turbo" in the rest of the series.
    • At the end of Season 2, the Aerialbots, Stunticons, Combaticons and Protectobots are introduced with their original names (Except for Menasor, now named "Ultrax"). Then in the toyline they got new Italian names, and Season 3 used them instead of the original ones... sometimes. As a result, the jeep Combaticon kept switching name back and forth between Swindle and Crusher, for example.
    • Characters introduced in the movie... eh. In the '86 movie every character introduced keeps his original name... except Wheelie, who inherits Wheeljack's name for some reason, and Rodimus Prime, who is still called Hot Rod. Then in Season 3 everyone gets a new name (except Arcee, whose name is now pronounced "Archie").
    • In Headmasters (the Italian dub follows the Japanese series for license reasons, since Italy had the Takara license for the toyline), names start to get weird: Arcee and Ramhorn get completely different names, Kup is called by his Japanese name and other characters switch between Italian and Japanese names (confusing enough? The Japanese names for Optimus Prime and Defensor, Convoy and Guardian, are the same as the Italian ones for Ultra Magnus and Metroplex).
    • Masterforce recycles names of older characters for the new ones, so confusion galore: Ginrai is Optimus Prime ("Commander"), Minerva is Streetwise ("Phantom")...
  • Beast Wars is the last Transformers dub in Italy that changes the names of the characters... and that makes no problems, until we get to the part with Autobots and Decepticons. Everyone of them is called by his original name rather than the Italian one, and Starscream and Ravage actually get new Italian names!
  • In 2007, the '86 movie got a new dub: everyone has his Italian name... sorta. Well, Arcee uses her Headmasters name ("Saturnia"), while Ravage, Laserbeak, Ratbat and Rodimus Prime keep their original names. Also, for non-naming issues, Optimus Prime says one line in Ultra Magnus's voice while Ultra Magnus also says a line in... Armada Cyclonus's voice?
  • Also, don't ask about Frenzy and Rumble's names. Not only do they get shuffled around (and Frenzy actually gets two different names during the series), but also Frenzy's regular name is "Tremor" in the cartoon, yet according to the Italian edition of the Marvel Transformers Universe it should be "Tremot".
  • Then there's the Italian release of the Legends Transformers (the Classic Pretenders without their shells); they are Bumblebee, Jazz, Grimlock and Starscream, but rather then their usual names ("Maggiolino", "Tigre" "Tiran" and "Astrum") they're called "Folgore", "Saetta", "Drago" and "Tornado"... which are actually the names of Hot Rod, Wheeljack, Hot Spot and Air Raid.
• The Transfomers franchise in Latin American Spanish, unlike the aforementioned Hungarian and Italian cases, has kept the names mostly consistent thanks to Hasbro's meddling, since the dubs from the G1 series (both the American made and Japanese ones) were done in Spanish-speaking studios in Los Angeles, CA, as Hasbro wanted to had more control over the dub.^note This is not exclusive from this franchise, as also other Hasbro-owned works, like G.I. Joe (The Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions one and the movie), My Little Pony (until Friendship is Magic) and Jem and the Holograms were dubbed in that city sharing most of the voice cast between those series. The only exception on this rule would be a brief one during the Beast Wars era: The dub of the first seasons (which were done in Mexico rather than the U.S) had very different names for the main characters. For the Beast Machines era, they reverted back to their original English names, very likely due to the backlash. On the other hand, while the names are kept mostly consistent for years, the voice casts and even the dubbing countries are not. The entire franchise has being dubbed in almost all American countries with working voice acting industries, excluding Argentina and Peru:
  • United States: All the G1 series (both American-made and Japanese ones) and the movie.
  • Mexico: Beast Wars era, all the live-action films, Transformers: Robots in Disguise and all the G7 and G8 series.
  • Chile: Transformers: Animated.
  • Venezuela: All the G4 series.
• A rather harmless, but interesting example: There is no consistent way to pronounce Donald Duck in Germany. Early dubs and the first hosts of the TV show Disney Club pronounced Donald's first name like a German name (you can listen to this pronunciation here). Sometime in the mid-90s, the dubs of the cartoons and Quack Pack changed it to the English pronunciation, perhaps to sound more modern. Some of the new hosts of Disney Club changed also to the English pronunciation, but others would keep saying "Donald" the German way. Since the time of Mickey Mouse Works, the dubbers have kept switching between the German and the English prononciation. Well, at least not during the same episode, but some shows say it this way, other cartoons and ads the other. And some fans even insist on pronouncing "Duck" as if it were a German word. But these fans are a Vocal Minority. *phew*
• The European Portuguese dubs of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) and Powerpuff Girls Z are very much consistent within themselves, but completely inconsistent between each other. The problem arose because the original used the original English names and pronunciations, while the newer one used the names used in the Brazilian Dub, which were also used in the original.
• By default, the European Spanish dialect is used in the majority of games translated in Spanish for both Spain and Latin America. Since the Xbox 360 era, many videogames, especially Western ones, are being translated to Latin American dialects, mainly Mexican, Colombian and Argentinian ones. Despite this, some companies still use the European dialect along with the Latin American ones:
  • All Valve Software (and by default, Steam) games use the European dialect. The main problem, at least with Steam, is all the on-screen text is an unholy mixup of both Latin American and European dialects in the menus. This was finally averted at October 2018, when Steam included support for Latin American Spanish, leaving the European one as a separated option for Spaniard users.
  • The Spanish translations of both Spelunky, Final Fantasy XV and La-Mulana also mixes European and Latin American dialects, and the translations do not use voseo.^note The pronouns used mainly in Spain and Argentina. In the case of Spelunky, this was finally averted in the sequel, when there's a option for choosing both Latin American and European dialects separately, instead of mixing them.
  • The Latin American Spanish voice acting of both Halo 3 and Quantum Break uses the Mexican dialect, but the on-screen text and menus still use the European dialect. Unlike other examples, this was intentional according with Word of God in order to save money on translation costs.
  • The earlier versions of Skullgirls were translated with a mix of European and Latin American dialects. Starting with the Season 1 pass, however, all the translations are now done in Latin American Spanish exclusively, despite, at least in Steam, the game says the game was exclusively translated in the European dialect. This is justified in this case, as the game was developed in the U.S., a country with a big Latino population.
• Japanese dubs of foreign media have this problem, especially when dealing with honorifics or pronouns. Since by default Western (and in less degree West Asian media, like Arabic or Hebrew) media rarely deal with this kind of stuff, especially when the original creators or producers doesn't give too many details about the social hierarchy of the characters or the way how they should speak, sometimes the Japanese translators and voice actors have to figure this out in some way. This is especially troublesome when dealing with twins or triplets, as the Japanese language doesn't recognize the principle of equality, and one should be the "older sibling" despite them being the same age.^note Normally, when twins are involved in Japanese media, the first one to come out from the mother's womb is considered the older one, albeit this is not universal. In Western media, although this order matters less, the first to be born is always considered the older sibling if it's relevant.
• Danganronpa has several inconsistencies between the games and the anime, probably due to different teams translating each one. In the games, people primarily refer to each other by their first names, while in the anime last names are preferred. The title each character has is rendered as the more descriptive "Super High School Level" in the anime and the more concise "Ultimate" in the games. The interjection used to counter an argument is rendered as either "You've got that wrong!" (anime) or "No, that's wrong!" (games). The list goes on and on.
• The Norwegian translations of the Peanuts comics and most of their animated adaptations gives most of the characters a Dub Name Change. However when the The Peanuts Movie got dubbed into Norwegian, many of the characters did keep their original English names. This is despite that the 2014 animated series was airing on Norwegian televison around the same time, were the characters did keep their Norwegian names.

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