Inconsistent Spelling / Anime & Manga

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

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

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

Confusion in official Japanese sources often stems from the fact that the person creating English text for use on screen, on a website or in a guidebook is usually not the original author (for example the original Chrono Crusade covers), and even the author may only be familiar with the katakana representation of the word or wrote it having only ever heard it spoken and not checked the facts.

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Examples:

• Afganisu-tan: In-Universe, Tajikis-tan gives Pakis-tan the nickname "Paku", who then insists that the "S" be in her name to represent the Sindhi because her name is an acronym of her five major ethnic groups.
• Armored Trooper VOTOMS: The twin scientists' surname are translated as both "Schmitel" and "Schmittel" by Central Park Media.
• Assassination Classroom: Korosensei, Koro Sensei, or Koro-Sensei? Most official translations use "Koro Sensei", but opinions still differ.
• Asteroid in Love: Generally, Chinese approach Japanese kana names by translating them. There's no doubt the first name of the Deuteragonist, Ao Manaka, means blue/green, but there are several hanzi (or kanji for that matter) that is associated with this morpheme with subtle meaning differences—in this case, her name is 藍 (simplified: 蓝), ^note Mandarin: lán; Cantonese: "laam4" (blue) in the official manga translation, but 蒼 (simplified: 苍), ^note Mandarin: cāng; Cantonese: "chong1" (Heavenly Blue) in the official anime subtitles.
• Ayakashi Triangle:
  • Ayakashi duplicates of human are called "Omokage". In Japanese, it's pronounced the same as the word for "visage/image (of something)", which is normally spelled with kanji "面影" or "俤". The ayakashi varies between being spelled in katana ("オモカゲ") and an Alternate Character Reading of the word "bunshin (分身)", which means "alter-ego/other self".
  • When Matoi first calls Mei's Evil Doppelgänger "Kagemei (Shadow Mei)", it's written "カゲ命依", with the kanji from the original name. After she starts using the name herself, it's written "カゲメイ", entirely in katakana.
  • When Suzu's original personality decides she wants a separate name, she starts using their surname "Kanade (花奏)" as a mononym because that's how Matsuri first referred to her when they were very young. When used to refer to her individually, it's written in hiragana ("かなで"), both for clarity and because it signifies the childish way Matsuri spoke at the time.
• Bakuon!!: The English anime names the bike club president Raimu in the opening, but shows Lime on a scoreboard in episode 7.
• Black Butler: In the Yen Press English manga, the cook's name is translated as Baldo, but in the FUNimation English anime, his name is translated as Bard.
• Bleach:
  • The soul-cutting swords—斬魄刀, transcribed as Zanpakutō—used by the Soul Reapers and Arrancar have been variously called Soul Cutters, Soul Slayers, Zanpak-to, Zanpaku-to, and Zanpakuto.
  • Squad 2's Captain's name—砕蜂, transcribed as "Suì-Fēng" and pronunced as "Soifon"—is, per Tite Kubo himself, properly spelled as Suì-Fēng, though the English localization disregards this and uses Soi Fon instead.
  • The Quincy army's name is spelled "Vandenreich" in the official Viz Media translation. The Japanese omake series Bleach: The Dagger uses the spelling "Wandenreich"◊ instead ^note Which is a better German transliteration of the original katakana, although somewhat confusing for English readers, leading to an Edit War on this very wiki before the mods decreed that the Viz spelling would stand as the most accessible source of Canon.
• Captain Future, oh where to start? Written in English, turned to an anime, then backtranslated to German and French...Lessee. We have Captain Future/Captain Future/Capitaine Flam (now that was still easy), Ul Quorn/Vul Kuolun/Kahlon, Joan Randall/Joan Landor/Johann Landore, N'rala/Nurara/Saturna...wanna hear the side characters too?
• Captain Harlock or "Herlock". Arcadia and Alkadia seem to be at one time interchangeable. Emeraldas was Emeralda in the 1978 Space Pirate Captain Harlock series. Matel, Maetel, or Maeter?
• Captain Tsubasa: Often crops up, particularly with European players:
  • Italian goalkeeper Gino Hernández often has his given name spelled as "Zino" in some adaptations, even though "Gino" is the accepted Italian spelling for his name. His surname sometimes is also spelled as "Fernández".
  • Brian/Bryan Cruyfford/Kluivoort, midfielder for the Netherlands. In the Rising Sun manga, there's even the spelling "Cruifort" for his surname.
  • Dieter/Deuter Müller/Mueller, goalkeeper for Germany. While "Dieter" is considered the correct German spelling for his given name, both "Müller" and "Mueller" are actually correct for his surname (the "ue" combination is the closest to a "ü", so it can be used effectively as a replacement).
  • French midfielder Elle Sid Pierre is a rather complicated case. His nickname "Elle Sid" probably comes from El Cid Campeador, but that doesn't stop people of translate it as "Elle Sire" or something with a similar sound. There's also the fact that "Alcide" is a perfectly valid name in French.
• The name of the male lead in Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- is sometimes translated according to the Japanese pronunciation, Li Syaoran or Shaoran, and at other times according to the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation Li Xiaolang or Li Hsiao Lang.
  • The Cardcaptors dub, however, actually switched his name so that Li was his given name, his surname then becoming Showron. This admittedly isn't as bad as what was done to most characters, who got completely new names.
    • Some fans think Cardcaptors did this to Bowdlerise incest. Li Meiling is his cousin and also his fiancée (until this is Retconned). Shifting around his name, while not shifting around Meiling's name (and romanizing "Li" as "Rae" for her) hides this.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura unfortunately is littered with these, mostly due the dub and Geneon's subs as well. As mentioned before, Syaoran (小狼, Xiǎoláng in Pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Shaoran or Shaolan. Meiling (苺鈴, Méilín in pinyin) is argued to be spelled as Meilin or with a dash in her name (Mei-Ling). Cerberus is almost always misspelled as Keroberos. The official Bilingual manga (which is more accurately translated than the Tokyopop version) brings up several different spellings including Touya as Toya and Kero as Cero. According to Creator/CLAMP's official website, it should be Cerberus, Kero, Touya, and Syaoran. There is no official consensus on Meiling's correct spelling.
• The Case Closed/Detective Conan franchise:
  • Ran's English name is spelt as "Rachel" in the manga, but "Rachael" in the anime.
  • A strange case occurs in the Chinese releases of Detective Conan Film 06: The Phantom of Baker Street. His name is always written in katakana in the original^note ヒロキ・サワダ with the implication that he should be treated as if he was, say, a Japanese-American. This causes issues in Chinese, since Chinese users tend to translate non-Chinese East Asian names if they have no native kanji/hanzi forms. In this case, his first name is consensually translated as "Big(Hiro[shi])-tree(ki)," but even the theatrical release and the home video increase used different kanji/hanzi for "Hiro"—his given name is 廣樹/广树^{pronunciation in Mandarin}Guangshu in the former, and 弘樹/弘树^{pronunciation in Mandarin}Hongshu in the latter.
• Chrono Crusade has this happen at least once in the official translation of the manga: Satella's name is sometimes given as "Stella".
• Thanks to mishandling in its official English translations by Tokyopop and Sony Pictures, and compounded further by some characters not having official English translations for their names, Cyborg 009 has had quite the cases of these:
  • Cyborg 001's name is usually translated as "Ivan Whisky" or "Ivan Wisky", but due to the way that his given name is put down in katakana (iwan), "Iwan" and "Iwon" can occasionally crop up in official materials.
  • Cyborg 002's name is ジェット・リンク (jetto rinku) in the original katakana, which just so happened to be the same way that the Jett Rink character from Giant had his name put in katakana- and was the very character that Ishinomori sourced when he set a name for 002. However, as decades passed with no official English notation for the character's name, Ishimori Pro settled on "Jet Link" at some point, as did the Italian dub of the 1979 series. While "Jet Link" is the official accepted spelling these days, some debate can arise over if his surname should be rendered as "Rink" at the very least. Adding to this is a Digimon character modeled after 002, named "Rinkmon" as a double pun (due to him being an ice skater and with him bearing resemblance to 002). However, it's definitely not "Ger Link", a name made infamous by bootleg Malaysian English fansubs that have been known for many unusual errors. "Jedd" is another erroneous spelling seen, which can be blamed on the English dub of The Legend of the Super Galaxy. There even exists a fansub where his given name is inexplicably rendered "Jade".
  • Before her name inspiration was more widely-known among Western readers, some newsgroup discussions and oldest Cyborg 009 articles would spell Cyborg 003's name as "Francoise Arnelle" or "Francoise Alnul", as opposed to "Francoise Arnoul". "Arnelle" can be seen in the fansubs for some 1968 episodes, while Toei's DVD releases of that version have her surname spelled as "Arnou" on the cover artwork. There also exists a sub for the 1967 film "Monster Wars", in which her name is translated as "Fransoir". Furthermore, the English dub of The Legend of the Super Galaxy referred to her as Francis/Frances, and some older fan discussions and even some fanworks to this day opt to use the more Anglicized spellings for her name.
  • Cyborg 006 is officially "Chang Changku" in Ishimori Pro's materials and in any adaptation that depicts his name written in English. However, this spelling is based upon the Wade-Giles rendering of the name, which has since fallen out of use in mainland China. Due to its usage in the Italian translations and with it being based on the more acceptable Pinyin rendering, there are fans that argue that the official reading of the name should be "Zhang Zhanghu". And then, you have dubs that refer to the guy as "Chan Chan Ko" or "Chang Changko", due to how his name is pronounced in Japanese (Chan Chanko). The MF Comics release of the manga had his name misspelled as "Chang Charghu" on their covers.
  • Cyborg 008's name is officially spelled "Pyunma", but due to the lack of existence for such a name, there are fans that wonder if Ishinomori may have in fact meant "Puma", which is very similar to the katakana reading for his name (besides lacking the "n" character). It doesn't help that Episode 4 of the 1979 series depicts his name written down as "Puma" on a letter, and that most dubs of the 1980 film The Legend of the Super Galaxy also use "Puma" due to Toei rendering it as that in their simple English script. The Italian dub of Super Galaxy opts to use "Punma" as a compromise, and it happens to also be an alternate reading for the katakana. Both English dubs of Super Galaxy and the 2001 series also ran into inconsistent pronunciation of his name; with Super Galaxy using "poo-mah" and "pyu-ma" for "Puma", and the 2001 series using the pronunciations of "poon-ma" and "pyoon-ma".
  • While the ex-Black Ghost scientist that mentors the team is officially "Dr. Gilmore", occasional merchandise will slip up and spell his name "Dr. Gilmour". Some fansites also opt to use "Issac" (based off a misspelling seen in episode 31), although the correct and more sensible spelling is "Isaac".
  • The lead villain in the early arcs of the manga is officially "Skull", but due to Ishinomori's way of translating the name to katakana, the extra ーcharacter in スカール (sukaru) throws off many a translator who are used to the word being rendered スカル. This lead to the alternate official spelling of "Skarle", which appeared in the 2001 anime and a 2011 pachinko game based off of that version. The English dub of the 2001 series officially used "Scarl", perhaps based off of this, while Tokyopop's English translation of the manga named him "Scar". The 2013 graphic novel by Archaia Entertainment opted to name him "Sekar", which in turn was a valid alternate reading for the katakana of his name and was perhaps used to make him seem less cartoonish. The 2014 pachinko game ultimately goes with "Skull".
  • Skull's second-in-command is named "Van Vogt", after the science fiction author A.E. van Vogt. However, when the character appeared through 1966-1967, the "vu" katakana character had yet to come into fashion and the standard way of denoting a "v" was with the "b" character. Thus, his name appeared as "ban boguto". Due to the archaic and different way of rendering his name (which continued into modern adaptations), foreign adaptations had a very difficult time with his name. In Sony's English dub of the anime (which had its scripts used in turn for other countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico), his name was translated as "Van Bogoot", while Tokyopop's English manga called him "Ban Bogart" and then "Van Bogart". The Italian translation of the manga also opted to use "Van Bogoot", but the French translation caught the reference in his name and translated it appropriately. Bootleg fansubs of the series have mutated his name even further into "Benbergart" or "Phun Por Ke".
  • Two of the disabled men assisting Cyborg 0012 are named "Camel" and "Röntgen" (named after Wilhem Röntgen, who discovered X-Rays). In Tokyopop's translation, "Camel" was translated literally as "Rakuda" (the Japanese word for the animal), while "Röntgen" became "Lentgen".
  • In the English dub of the 2001 anime, the anime-original villain Dr. Berck was translated literally as "Dr. Beruku". A similar case happened with Dr. Findor, whose surname was put as "Findoru". In turn, that latter doctor's name can be debatably also read as "Findol" or even "Phindol", as it was intended to be an anagram and re-arrangement of his name from the original manga (Dr. Dolphin).
  • Ishinomori and the 2001 anime use "Apollon" and "Minotauros" for two of the Mythos cyborgs, going off of the Greek variants of their names. The English manga and anime opt to use "Apollo" and "Minotaur" for ease, but this can cause some minor spelling debates. Ishinomori also uses "Helene"/"Helena" for the cyborg with the Trojan horse, which would be rendered as "Helen" in English if Westernizing the other Greek names (and the fact that her mythological inspiration is known as "Helen of Troy" in English would make the reference more obvious). However, perhaps to not confuse her with the "Helen" from the Yomi arc, and due to the girls' names being rendered differently in katakana, the "Helena" spelling is what is commonly used.
  • In the fourth major series arc, "The Underground Empire of the Yomi", two of the princesses have names that have caused quite the spelling confusion. The English dub of the anime refers to them as "Vena" and "Dinah" (when not mispronouncing her name as "Deena"), while Tokyopop opted to call them "Venus" and "Diana". In katakana, their names are given as ビーナ(bina) and ダイナ(daina), while Venus would be ビーナス and Diana would be ダイアナ. Tokyopop's translation can be seen as a pragmatic alteration, as it's been a popular theory that Ishinomori might have meant "Venus" and "Diana" but had difficulty with translating some loanwords and names in Japanese as he had with Skull and Van Vogt (forgetting one character in Dinah/Diana's case, and forgetting the "su" ending character in Vena/Venus' case). It's also been theorized that all five sisters were meant to have a Greco-Roman naming theme; making the five "Helen" (after the Greek demigoddess Helen of Troy), "Venus" (after the Roman equivalent of Aphrodite), "Diana" (the Roman goddess of the moon), "Aphro" (after the Greek goddess Aphrodite herself), and "Daphne" (a nymph in Greek mythology). However, the Italian translation of the manga opts to use "Veena" (a Hindi name) and "Dyna" (a Greek name meaning "power") for the two sisters in question. This appears to be a spelling matter that won't ever quite be solved.
  • The evil dinosaur race in the Yomi arc is officially the "Zattan", but Tokyopop's translation referred to them as "Zartan" and bootleg English subs often refer to them as "The Satan" or "Satans". "Zathan" is an alternative possible spelling that's also been seen.
  • One of the Mutant Warriors in the eponymous arc of the 2001 anime is officially "Mii", but had her name changed to "Mai" in the English dub and other foreign dubs based off of its translation. This still causes much confusion among fans.
    • The leader of the Mutant Warriors is either "Kane" or "Cain", with the second option having significance in him being a traitor.
  • A Mutant Warrior who had basis in a manga character has had her name alternatively spelled as "Lina", "Lena", or "Rina"/"Rena". A character with a similar name in the 1979 series also runs into this kind of problem.
  • Joe's former friend Ibaraki had his surname spelled as "Ibaragi" in Tokyopop's translation. Another friend has had her name debated as either being "Merry" or "Mary", as the katakana can represent both. Tokyopop went with the latter, while the Italian translation used the former.
  • The princess in the story "City of Wind" is officially "Ixquic", and can also be spelled "Xquic". However, due to the pronunciation issues and the way of the name being translated in Japanese, "Ishuki" and "Ishukik" can still be seen in some Western fanworks. Her robot should be "Cabrakan", but is often spelled as "Kabrakan".
  • A minor character in the "Moses in the Desert" arc somewhat infamously had her name rendered as "Crisheeta Moore" in the Italian translation of the manga, while English scanlations call her Christa Moore. "Christa" would be the more appropriate rendering of クリスタ, but it appears that the "si" character may have been misread as "shi", leading to the confusion on the Italian end.
  • The Italian dub of the 1979 series had its own fair share of errors, with the Deinonychus dinosaur becoming the "Dinonix", and Freyja and Thor being referred to as "Flair" and "Tol". Most egregiously, the cyborg triplets of Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu became "Shiba", "Brehmet", and "Bishun", losing out on their own mythological references and causing much spelling confusion for decades.
• Delicious in Dungeon: The official English release has the Lunatic Magician's name spelled as "Sissel", while fan translations have gone with "Thistle". The official Explorer Guide also uses "Thistle" in actual English, but the official release has not corrected it.
• D.Gray-Man has a character who the Japanese have already romanized as "Arystar Krory", but to English speakers, the name is obviously a reference to Aleister Crowley. Still, Krory is officially Arystar Krory. The author specifically wanted a name that sounded like the infamous Crowley but wasn't.
  • Not to mention the million different spellings of Lenalee Lee: Rinali, Linali, Linalee... Plus, her surname can be romanized as either Lee or Li. And then there's Rabi vs. Lavi and Tyki Mikk vs. Ticky Mick and... basically 90% of the characters in the series are subject to this.
    • Worse than any of the others, some of the names for one of the Noah twins: Devit, Debit, Debitt, David, Debitto, Devitto, Debbit.
  • The Noah n'aime of the Noah are chosen After an english word combined with à japanese suffix. This leads to the need to choose between transliterating the whole thing or going with the base english word. The choice not even being consistent in the fanbook doesn't help... Ex: Road (transliteration : Rodo) and Raasura (from "Wrath" +"ra")
  • Luckily, the author added a nice chart with all the characters' names, in English, to one of the volumes. A similar chart with the same spellings (also English) followed one of the anime episodes. The fanbook includes the official romanisation of each character's name in their character profiles, and the recent manga compliation volumes include English name spellings in the profiles of all the characters written into the story since the fanbook was produced - except, for some reason, for the new Noahs. Though one of the names on the author's list and in the fanbook is spelled "Jeryy," so some fans choose to ignore the list.
    • A new fanbook is out, providing the names for the "new" Noah. Some of them are really odd like "Maushyma".
• Done with the official translations of D.N.Angel. What's the name of Daisuke's pet? The anime dub went with "With", but the manga translation decided on "Wiz".
  • It makes sense if 'Wiz' is short for 'wizard'. But it comes off as narm.
• Dirty Pair:
  • Mugi/Mughi. The latter spelling comes from the first episode of the OVA series retconning his name to be an acronym for "Military Utility Genetic Hiper (sic) Intelligence".
  • The rare Kodansha-published English translation of the first short story spelled Kei's name as "Kay". (When Dark Horse republished this story, they mostly reused the existing English translation, but changed the spelling to the more usual one.)
• This happens often with the characters of Dragon Ball, and for a variety of reasons. Nearly every character's name is involved in some kind of Theme Naming, but the names in question usually come from English words. So just use the English words, right? Not so fast: many of these names are also modified in some way, or simply mispronounced, creating the question of how to modify them correctly to reflect the Japanese name while still preserving the theme. Add in decades of somewhat inept translations, outright Dub Name Changes, and flagrant use of Engrish spelling in official material, and you have characters who have a good half-dozen names of varying degrees of acceptability.
  • There are many ways to call the dragon that comes from the titular Dragon Balls. A direct romanization of his name from Japanese to English yields Shenron, which is what Funimation uses. However, his name in Japanese is actually borrowed from Chinese, and if you romanize the Chinese to English, you get Shen Long (which is what the subtitles use), or Shenlong (as used in the Viz Media translation of the manga).
  • Kuririn's name is spelled "Kulilin" on his ballcap during the Namek Saga. His name is meant to be a portmanteau of Kuri (a Japanese chestnut) and shourin (as in a Shaolin monk). Since the second half comes from the root word "Shaolin", while the first half is the Japanese "Kuri", the best way to romanize it would be Kurilin, which is about half-way between the two most common romanizations of his name, Kuririn (used in Viz's translation of the manga and the official anime subtitles) and Krillin (used in dubs and video games).
    • Some Bandai toys (like the Super Collection figures) and at least one cel art has his name spelled as "Klilyn", and the TGS 2017 trailer for Dragon Ball Fighter Z spelled it as "Kliyn".
  • Frieza/Freeza/Freezer/Furiza ("Furiza" is probably the closest to how it's spoken in Japanese). "Freeza" makes most sense - it's a pun on "freezer" but with a short vowel sound at the end instead of a long one, and that's the spelling the official subtitles and the manga use. However, the anime, video games, and English merchandise use "Frieza". The EGM article mentioned below used plain ol' "Freezer".
    • This is lampshaded in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, where Future Trunks initially calls Freeza "Fry-zah" because of the "i" in the latter's name in most media handled by Funimation. Freeza immediately corrects Future Trunks' pronunciation and irritatedly points out that there isn't an "i" in his name. With this scene in mind, you'll probably start to notice that Team Four Star have always spelled his name as "Freeza".
  • "Recoom" of the Ginyu Force, whose name is an anagram of Cream or "Kuriimu" in Japanese. Due to the extended vowel being its own character, this is a simple matter of switching the two first characters, ku and ri, in the base word, but the result is completely impossible to spell out in English while keeping the pun. The official subtitles settled on "Reacoom", which no one would ever see as a pun on the word "cream" unless actually told so. Adding to the confusion, the dub uses "Recoome".
  • There are at least two or three different names each for the little red guy and the tall blue one of the Ginyu Force (whose names are "Jeice" and "Burter" in the dub, respectively) Their names are romanized in the subs and manga as Jheese (pronounced like "Jeez", but an S sound at the end instead of a Z) and Butta. Jheese (Jīsu) is a play on "cheese" ("chīsu") with the "ch" replaced with a "j". Butta (Bāta) is a pun on the word butter ("batā") with the long and short vowels switched.
  • Lunch's name^note ランチ, Ranchi is spelled "Launch" in the dub.
  • Tenshinhan becomes Tien Shinhan in the Funimation dub, often shortened to just "Tien". Due to his name being written in hanzi/kanji, the actual Chinese pinyin of it is read out as "Tianjinfan", and "Tien" is most likely a butchered version of the actual pinyin pronunciation of "Tian".
  • Likewise, Tenshinhan's partner Chaozu becomes Chiaotzu. Strangely, the original Spanish translation of the manga spelled his name Kaos.
  • Bardock's name is spelled Burdock by Viz (in keeping with the plant/vegetable Theme Naming). Some dubs also call him "Bardack", and some Japanese merchandise spells his name "Barduck".
  • Similarly, Broly's name is spelled "Broli" in the subtitles on Funimation's original single DVDs of the Z movies to preserve the pun on "broccoli", but most other English sources, the Japanese poster of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and both the Japanese and English versions of Dragon Ball FighterZ use "Broly".
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly spelled Vegeta's name as "Vegita" in an article on the first Super Famicom Fighting Game, as does the character select screen of the SEGA arcade game, Dragon Ball Z V.R.V.S. There have also been genuine arguments made for "Bejita", which is closest to the Japanese pronunciation but also heavily obscures the pun.
  • One point of contention is the character known in the subtitles as Majin Boo, in most English-dubbed material as Majin Buu, and in the manga as Djinn-Boo. His name goes alongside his master Babidi, and Babidi's father Bibidi, to form a reference to the classic Disney song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. A direct transliteration from Japanese would be Majin Bū. Buu is an acceptable way to transliterate the Bū part, though the manga and official subtitles use Boo. Majin roughly translates as "Demon man" or "Demon person", with "Ma" meaning demon, and "Jin" being person or man. However, the word "Majin" is often translated as Djinn, and especially when combined with the Djinn iconography surrounding the character, Djinn-Boo works perfectly well. The one issue with choosing Djinn is that there's all the "M" iconography surrounding Boo and Babidi, and with Babidi's title of "Madoshi" usually being translated as "Wizard" or "Warlock", the "M" iconography only makes sense in English as coming from "Majin" (unless you interpret it as an upside-down W?), though we don't truly know if it does come from "Madoshi" or "Majin".
  • Babidi's right-hand-man Demon King Dabra, whose name comes from abracadabra. The Funimation dub writes and pronounces his name as Dabura, while the manga and subtitles go with Dabra.
  • Son Goku's name, when literally transliterated, becomes "Son Gokuu" (or "Gokū" with a macron), but most English adaptations don't bother with either. Toriyama actually spells it "Son Gokuh" at one point at the original manga, while Bandai uses the spelling "Son Gokou" in some of their toys in what seems to be a misguided attempt to anglicize his name (think of the "cou" in "cougar"), similarly to the "Ayeka/Aeka" deal with Tenchi Muyo!. In the "Gokou" case though, it would change the name's pronunciation entirely to "Go-coh" instead.
  • Goku's Saiyan name is another example. The name comes from a pun on "carrot" (karotto), with the first kana repeated (turning it into "Kakarotto"). The ideal way of keeping the pun in writing would be to romanize it as Cacarrot, though this is less of an issue in the English dubs, as the pun is fairly obvious when spoken aloud.
  • The name "Vegetto"^note Bejitto, the fusion of Goku and Vegeta whose name is a portmanteau of Goku's Saiyan birth name with Vegeta's, only makes sense if you romanize the name "Kakarotto" as-is instead of using the more popular variation, "Kakar(r)ot". Because of this, Viz renamed him "Vegerot" in the English manga. On the other hand, the Funimation dub used the spelling "Vegito", which was originally used on action figure made by Irwin Toys, and makes no sense in the context of the English dub.
  • Vegeta and Bulma's daughter ブラ, Bura is called "Bra" in Viz's translation of the manga, fitting with all of Bulma's family being named after underwear. Funimation calls her "Bulla", presumably as a form of Bowdlerisation, even in their uncut dubs.
  • In Dragon Ball GT, the sentient dragon radar is called "Giru" in the Funimation dub, which is a direct romanization of the Japanese way of referring to him. However, the generally far more-accurate Ocean Group dub, and the subtitles for the Japanese version call him "Gill". There are also many online who would argue his name was intended as a pun on the English word "Gear", but at the same time, Budokai 3 has a move called "Gill Missile" and there is at least one shot in the anime with the words "Gill Wins."
  • Goten's girlfriend in Dragon Ball GT: The rōmaji for her name is Paresu, which is generally considered to be an approximation of the English word "Palace". However, it's not uncommon to see her referred to as "Paris" or "Palis". Funimation's dub cranked the confusion up even more by calling her Valese. B, V, and P are fairly closely-related sounds, and many languages tend to mix them up (particularly languages like Spanish, which is worth noting, since rumors claim Funimation used to get their scripts by translating the Mexican dub's scripts into English), so it's possible the P was rendered as a B in the scripts given to Funimation, and then Funimation thought it was supposed to be a V.
  • Beerus's name is based on the Japanese pronunciation of "virus," (bīrusu) similar to how Bulma's name comes from "bloomers." However, this is largely an Artifact Title, referring to an early draft of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in which the character would control peoples' minds, rather like some kind of mind-controlling virus. His name was kept as-is, but the English word it's a pun on was declared to be "Beers" instead, resulting in his name being presented as "Beerus" in almost all English media. Shueisha spells it "Beers" in Japanese media, pushing it closer to its supposed pun. He was commonly called "Bills" in the English fandom after being revealed, which is his official name in the Latin American Spanish dub.
    • Incidentally, Funimation pronounces Beerus' attendant Whis (Uisu, from whiskey) with a long "I" so that it sounds like "wheeze", thus preserving the Japanese pronunciation at the expense of the pun.
  • Behold, Malay version of Dragon Ball:
    • Yamcha - Yamu
    • Lunch - Ranchi
    • Krillin - Kurin
    • Piccolo - Pikor
    • Yajirobe - Yazirove
    • Son Gohan - Son Go-han (sometime they drop the hyphen)
    • Kakarrot - Kakaroct
    • Nappa - Nacpa
    • Vegeta - Bezita
    • Freeza - Fliza
    • Dodoria - Dodolia
    • Recoom - Rikum
    • Vegetto - Bezict
  • The French version brought us Sangoku and Songoku (spelled as SonGoku at times) as single names, with Songohan and Songoten following suit. Since a lot of the European translations were based on the French version to various degrees, some of them also have Garlic Jr. spelled as "Garbig", Tien Shinhan as "Tenshin Han", Paikuhan as "Paul Kuhan" and Kakarotto as "Cachalote".
• Dr. STONE:
  • The name of the main character is Senku, but there are a few instances where it's spelled as "Senkuu" instead, like on the side of the rocket he built in his childhood.
  • In the official translation, Moz's name was originally spelled as "Mozu". After Chapter 122, which has the spelling "Moz" as part of one panel's artwork, future chapters use that spelling, but there is one slip-up in Chapter 125 where "Mozu" is still used.
• A character's name in Excel♡Saga is spelled "Ilpalazzo" in the anime but spelled "Il Palazzo" in the manga. Since the names of =ACROSS= members are also the names of hotel chains, the manga's is probably the right one.)
  • "Menchi" is "Mince" in the manga—according to the pop-up assists in the ADV-translated anime, "Menchi" does, in fact, mean "mince meat". Note that Viz handled the manga and apparently chose to ignore ADV's translations in the anime, so that's where these inconsistencies come from.
• Fist of the North Star
  • Sauzā, the name of the Nanto Hōōken successor, has been romanized as "Souther" (in some of the earlier action figures and video games and Toei and Discotek's subtitles for the 1984 anime), "Thouther" (in the Arc System Works fighting game and All About the Man guidebook), and "Thouzer" (used in newer merchandises and works). Arguably, "Souther" seems to be the most fitting, seeing how "Souther" is the strongest of the Nanto Seiken successors, the "Holy Fist of the South Star", and "Souther" mearns "southerly wind", which fits with the avian motif of the Nanto styles, but most of the recent merchandise seems to favor the "Thouzer" convention. Funnily enough, in Ken's Rage, it's spelled in English text as "Thouzer", but the English dub of said game always pronounces it as "Souzer".
  • The name of the Nanto Kōkakuken master is literally Yuda in Japanese, is based on the Japanese transliteration of Judas Iscariot, the infamous Biblical traitor. Some sources romanize his name as "Juda", probably to get the point across quicker.
  • "Raō" is most popularized romanized as "Raoh", but the All About the Book actually spells it "Laoh", which managed to find its way in the manual for the NES game that was released by Taxan in the US.
  • "Debiru Ribasu," depending on the translation, is Romanized as either "Devil's Rebirth" or "Devil's Reverse." Given his demonic appearance and characterization, the former would make more sense. However, in tarot cards, the reversed "Devil" card represents freedom from restriction, which fits his anger towards his imprisonment and his desire for freedom.
  • Bat's name, literally "Batto" in Japanese, was changed to Bart in the Manga Entertainment dub of the TV series. Some people actually insists that Bat's name is actually "Bart", but Buronson stated in an interview featured in the Raoh Den: Jun'ai no Shō DVD that he named Bat after the flying mammal of the same name.
  • In certain translations, Yuria is sometimes anglicized to "Julia".
  • The short-lived Viz Media translation of the manga anglicized Rei's name to "Ray", while his sister Airi became Iris. Mamiya also became Mamia, which is actually closer to how her name is pronounced.
• From Fullmetal Alchemist, some names that appear in different forms depending on the translator are Gracia/Glacier/Glacia, Lan Fan/Ran Fan/Ranfun, Riza/Liza/Lisa, Halcrow/Hakuro, Olivia/Olivier, Elysia/Elicia, and Lyra/Lyla/Ryla.
  • The Funimation dub uses place names like Lior and Ishbal, while the creator, Hiromu Arakawa, uses Reole and Ishval. The English manga can't seem to make up its mind which versions to use; for instance, fluctuating between "Ishbal" and "Ishvarla", "Xerxes" and "Cserksess", etc.
    • The Funimation sub of Brotherhood uses Ishbal for the first five episodes, then switches to Ishval in the sixth (likely due to a map in the fifth episode that clearly says "Ishval").
    • The actual dub of Brotherhood likewise officially switches it to "Ishval".
  • The Elric brothers' hometown is so bad that even the offical translations have it spelled differently - on the same page. See book nine, where it's spelled "Resembool" in one panel, and then "Resemboul" two panels later. The Spanish official translation of the manga has it Riesenburg (German for Castle of Giants or Giantville). A real town in Germany, it was the birthplace of the Von Hohenheim family, and thus has a family connection to the Elric brothers through their father Van Hohenheim.
  • With the characters Lin/Ling Yao and Mei/May Chan/Chang, a G was added to their names within one or two volumes for no apparent reason than the translators forgot their own name choice.
    • In one image, there is a closeup of a prisoner identification bracelet given to Ling, with English lettering on it, rendering his name as "Ling Yao". This was particularly hilarious with the Official Viz translation. The dialogue bubble in the SAME PANEL has another character going "So your name is Lin Yao?".
    • Viz also ping-ponged between "Van" and "Von" for Hohenheim's first name for a while, until they were forced to settle on Von when the Paracelsus reference came up.
  • There's argument over whether the librarian should be "Scieszka" or "Sheska". Even Funimation's subtitles differ from their own liner notes on this one.
  • Brotherhood does solve this issue in one respect: the eyecatches, even in the raw Japanese version, spell the names of the featured characters in English. Funimation, naturally, has chosen to use the same spellings in the subtitles.
  • Likewise, there's been debates whether Heiderich from the same film is "Alfons" or "Alphonse". Some sources, even official, have him as "Alphonse" but others as "Alfons". Most fans use "Alfons" to differentiate him from Edward's brother.
  • The Tringham Brothers (Russell and Fletcher): Is the brothers' surname spelled as "Tringham", "Tringam", or "Tringum"? The "Tringham" spelling receives use in the anime and is visible in Funimation's English subtitles for Japanese episodes. However, printings of the Light Novel Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand (where the brothers originated from), repeatedly use "Tringum" throughout the text. Within the same light novel, the "final character sketches" of Russell and Fletcher (with the pages being situated near the end of the book) prominently feature the spelling of "Tringam".
• GaoGaiGar has this problem with the main hero. On many screens, including his introductory eyecatch and on the Final Fusion screens, his name is written as "Guy Shishioh". The kanji for his name, however, is written as "Gai". The Media Blasters release of the anime and the English translations for Super Robot Wars X and Super Robot Wars 30 use "Guy".
• Gundam:
  • Many of the series pick up mangled names on the way to production, most of which get more reasonable conversions overseas. Which, depending on where in the translation process one starts watching, can make it nearly impossible for the fandom to agree on which is the "correct" spelling.
  • The translations for the various terms in the UC timeline have changed at least once (ignoring the MSG movie trilogy dub in the 90s that has been ignored ever since); the OVAs use different spellings than the original series, such as "Kishiria" instead of "Kycilia", "Jabrow" instead of "Jaburo". Zeon's arguably the worst case of it in the entire franchise, as it can be (and has been at various points in the past) been transliterated as Zeon, Zion, or Jion. Zeon was simply the cleanest translation of the original Japanese.
• Gunslinger Girl has a lot of names transliterated completely differently in the anime and the manga (Jose vs. Giuseppe and Hirscher vs. Hillshire, for example).
  • Giuseppe was a style choice, going for the "regular" Italian form. Later chapters show that his full name is actually Josefo (showing the brothers' northern origins), but this might not have been decided when the manga was translated. Hirscher/Hillshire is this (both read the same in katakana). Since he doesn't try to conceal his nationality (and it's a alias anyway), most people go for Hirscher (which is used in the German translation).
• Gunsmith Cats
  • Irene Vincent has her nickname as Rally in the official English versions, but Word of God is that the nickname is actually Larry Vincent. Interestingly, Larry is the name of Irene's father. This is often considered a case of artistic license, though; apparently the author wanted to give her a name that sounded exotic and foreign, so he picked the name "Larry" for her, not knowing that it was actually a male name. Quite strange considering that the author showed his work in every other detail of the universe. When the series was brought to Western shores, the Rs and Ls were flipped to give her the name Rally, which fits her as she's into cars (the lack of distinction between the 'l' and 'r' sounds in Japanese may also have played a part). Then again, he still insists that her name is Larry - at the 1993 Anime America convention, he responded to a fan's question about the character with "It's Larry, not Rally".
  • The dossier on Rally that Radinov received from her mysterious employer lists her first name as "Larry", even in the English translation.
• To the irritation of most of its Western fans, the beautifully dubbed The Heroic Legend of Arslan switched horses in mid-stream and changed pronunciation for all major characters and cities after the first two films were released, turning Arislan, Daryoon, Narsus, Pharangese, and Gieve into Arslan, Darun, Narcasse, Farangis, and Guibu. It's even more complicated: originally the names of characters and places either came from Persian legends (Arslan, Farangis, Giv, etc.) or are native to various languages like Farsi, Hindi, Urdu (Daryun, Elam, Etwar, etc. Many places mentioned in the story, such as Ecbatana or Atropatene, actually exist or existed in real life). The person who translated the anime to English treated the names as if they were random fantasy names, hence Arislan, Pharangese, Daryoon, Gieve and so on. And then the above-mentioned Executive Meddling happened. The materials for the new adaptation are a bit more consistent. "Arislan" might have been to avoid having it sound like something not-so-nice, since that dub was British.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • The author has given the romanization of Spain's name as both "Antonio Fernandez Carriedo" and "Antonio Hernandez Carriedo".
  • According to the author, China's name can either be spelled "Wang Yao" or "Wang Yue".
• The English dub of Howl's Moving Castle mostly manages to re-translate the names in accordance with the original book, with one notable exception: "Markl"? You don't think the L is a hint that his name could be, say, Michael? Dubs in other languages also have problems with the name of Howl—several of them call him "Hauru," both because it's the direct Japanese pronounciation and because it fits the Mouth Flaps.
• Inu × Boku SS: Even after the anime had already been released, Yen Press decided to romanize Karuta Roromiya's name as "Carta".
• Is the Order a Rabbit?:
  • The anime ended up split in the official English translations over what the "correct" spelling of character names. The Japanese version wrote the names in English letters for the opening credits, using Rize and Syaro. The Crunchyroll subtitle of the work call them Lize and Sharo for the first half of Season 1, and then switch to the original spelling. The Sentai Filmworks subtitles use Rize, but this was apparently done after the fact via find-and-replace, as words that happen to contain the sequence "lize" had "Rize" introduced into them (e.g. specialize is misspelled as speciaRize).
  • Chinese usually approach translating kana names using one of several rules. In Mocha's case, this trope arises from whether her name should be treated as an single expression (the drink), or two ("Mo" and "ka"), and this is complicated by Rosario + Vampire, which has a pair of sisters called Cocoa (Kokoa) and Mocha (Moka) translated using the second rule. and GochiUsa's Cocoa is already translated the same way as Rosario'''s. Going so far that the largest Chinese-language wiki on anime-related material, while naming her after the drink, immediately inserted a disclaimer to the effect of "that's the name used by the legal live streamer in China^note BiliBili, a Chinese Nico Nico Douga clone and does not imply this wiki's endorsement of the naming."
• In Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, the Viz translation of the manga spells Iino's name as "Ino" (though Chapters 68 & 69 inexplicably use the more commonly accepted double I version on all exam and election results while still having dialogue use the single I version).
• Karin and her two siblings use the last name "Ma'aka", yet their parents, Henry and Carrera, have elected to use the surname "Marker". This is entirely intentional, though. The series explains from the very beginning that the family moved from Europe to Japan. The kids, having been raised in Japanese society, adopted the Japanese spelling, while the old-timey parents retained the original European spelling. The manga points out also that "Ma'aka" is pronounced "Ma-aka", not "Maaka".
• There are a few cases of this in Kiddy Grade - most notably Armbrust, who is "Armblast" both in the dub and accompanying subtitles on the English DVDs, but spelt correcting in the subtitles accompanying the Japanese audio on the same discs (they caught the error before release, but not after it had already been enshrined in the dub). The English DVDs are mostly correct apart from that due to Word of God material that accompanied the Japanese DVDs, but the fansubs were full of errors and inconsistencies. The fansubs for sequel Kiddy GiRL-AND are similar despite English spellings for most characters being available via the official website - e.g. Himatsubushi insists on subtitling Sommer as "Zoma".
  • In an ironic twist, the English subtitled blu-ray discs for the Kiddy Grade compilation movies published in Japan use FUNimation's subtitle tracks with a few corrections.. and a few new mistakes, most notably changing Donnerschlag's mame from the correct German spelling to "Donnersclag".
• And then... there's Legend of the Galactic Heroes, in which everyone on the Imperial side has a German name, and the Alliance side is a kind of multicultural potluck, all rendered in katakana pronunciation. The people that made the anime version (wherein the characters' names appear onscreen when they are introduced) didn't even know where to begin with this mess, and the resulting roman spellings are often bizarre. The later DVD release features revised spellings. Add a handful of different fansub romanizations into the mix and the result is almost as complicated as the actual show.
• In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2005), Ghanti's name can also be spelled "Ganty" or "Ghanty".
• The name of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's signature weapon is レイジングハート, which can be transliterated as either reijing haato, "Raging Heart", or as reizing haato, "Raising Heart". The Word of God is that the latter is correct. The main issue here is that spoken Japanese makes no distinction between the "ji" and "zi" syllables, as the latter doesn't exist. Thus both "Raging" and "Raising" are pronounced as "Raging".
  • For added confusion, the English dub switches from "Raging" to "Raising" at the beginning of the second season— and the subtitles for the first season switch back and forth!
    • And with Force NEXT, the "Raging Heart" spelling has now appeared in an official Japanese release◊.
  • The names of characters are even less clear. Their spellings aren't even consistent in the various different official sources, even though the dialogue makes the automobile Theme Naming obvious. On the other hand, this hasn't stopped fansubbers from using Yuuno instead of the more likely Euno (after the Mazda Eunos marque)... The official site tries to clear up a lot of confusion (stating that Yuuno is indeed spelled Yuuno, for example), however, fans are still hesitant to use the official spelling for some of the other names, the most popular example being Zafila, whom many still prefer to call Zafira. Understandable as, given the aforementioned Theme Naming, "Zafira" makes much more sense (from Opel Zafira).
    • The official spelling of the Azure Wolf's name seems to change with every release. While earlier side-materials used 'Zafila', the later video game adaptation went with 'Zafira'.
  • It doesn't help that the English dub cycles through the names Arf, Alph and Aruf depending on which volume you're watching. They use the first two spellings in the same conversation.
  • Caro presents an odd example, as she's clearly named after her tribe, so they should be spelled the same; instead, her surname is always written "ru Lushe" or "Ru Lushe", yet the tribe itself is called "Lu-Lushe". Even her employee card uses both spellings.
  • Signum's sword is usually either Laevatein or Levantine.
    • Given how there are so many references to Norse mythology already (three of Hayate's attacks are Mistilteinn, Ragnarök and Hræsvelgr), Lævateinn would make more sense. The problem is how Signum pronounces it - Lævateinn in Japanese is usually "Rēvatein", but Signum's sword is pronounced "Revantin", which leads to the confusion.
  • Even the two Numbers whose names are not literal Italian numbers- Wendi/Wendy and Deed/Dido- occasionally fall into this.
    • Strangely, even though "sei" is Italian for "six", the official spelling of the character's name is Sein.
    • Probably an abbreviation of "Sei-chan", which Japanese does for some names.
  • The Battle of Aces official guidebook, released 2010, renders Amy as "Eimy", even though it's six years after she first appeared.
  • The name of Caro's dragon (written as Furīdorihi in Japanese) could be either "Friedrich" (as a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche) or "Friedliche" (German for "peaceful"). Given her other dragon is called Voltaire (Vorutēru), though, Friedrich would make more sense.
• Magical Taruruto-kun suffers from a severe case of this. The title character's name "Taruruto" is based on the Japanese proverb "Ware Tada Taru wo Shiru", literally meaning "The Path to Know What's Enough", all while combining Taru, with an alternative to the word path, "route". Despite this, his name, and thus the title, have frequently been romanized as "Taluluto", as shown in various promotional material around the time, including two video games (the cover of Famicom Jump II and the staff roll of the video game adaptation released for the Mega Drive) and at least once in the anime, destroying any trace of the original meaning. What's worse is that France actually received a variation of this romanization for its version of the manga, now called Talulu le magicien. As the decades passed, the series may or may not have reverted to simply using "Taruruto", as some merchandise just uses that instead, and the same applied when the manga was finally translated into English via Manga Planet. And this is just talking about the title character, as many other characters in the series have gone through a similar dilemma.
• Mahoromatic has Mashu/Masshu/Mash/Mathew/Matthew. (Geneon uses "Matthew", and Tokyopop uses all of them at different times.)
• Marmalade Boy: In regards to the lead male character, his name is spelled as "ゆう", as in Yu with an extra u, though promotional material in Japan usually romanizes his name out as "You", just like the second-person pronoun, which makes his name sound similar to his father, Youji (ようじ). Despite this, most Western translations keep the original hiragana pronunciation, "Yuu".
• Martian Successor Nadesico has a very funny one with its parody Show Within a Show, particularly in the ADV dub. Throughout the series, the show is dubbed Gekigangar 3. And it stayed that way throughout the entire series... even after one scene late in the show shows it to be spelled Gekiganger 3. This was because ADV had went phonetically (Gekigangaa) and never realized their mistake until that scene
• Mazinger Z: Notably, this series managed to largely avoid this, but still there were some cases:
  • Baron Ashura: In the Spanish dub in the seventies he was named "Ashler".
  • Count Brocken: In some places he was called "Count Blocken".
  • The twin blonde research assistants from Great Mazinger and Mazinkaiser. Rori, Loli, Lori, Roli? Roru, Lolu, Rolu, Loru, or possibly Roll?
  • However, the worst offenders were the Mechanical Beasts by far: Debira, Devira or Deviler X1? Belgas or Velgus V5? Doublas or Dabras M2? Zaira or Zaila? Bikong or Bicong 09? Holzon or Horzon V3? And so on.
  • UFO Robo Grendizer was not so bad... But -other than the Saucer Beasts and the Vega Beasts- some characters had some confusing names: Gandal or Gandar? Blacki, Blackie or Brackie? Barados or Barendos? Rubina or Lubina?
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: The main antagonist of the first arc of the manga is named Gakuto. His name is written in katakana for most of the series, and is meant to evoke the singer Gackt, leaving his name as Gackto. However, once and only once, he uses kanji for his name that can only be read as Gakuto. And on top of that, the anime called him Gaito to distance the character from the singer and play up the connection to Kaito.
  • And the prototype for Lucia, Lyre, is called "Riiru", a nonsense name, by the usually-accurate manga translation.
• Lunge/Runge from Monster. The manga and the official website say it's 'Lunge', but his name plate in the anime says it's 'Runge'. The Netflix subtitles switches from Lunge to Runge midway through the series.
• Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya:
• Layla/Reira Serizawa from Nana, which ought to be a no-brainer since she specifically says she's named after the Eric Clapton song (but on the other hand it's romanized Reira all over official Japanese materials). This one has a bit of justification: in Japan, when a child is born, it's registered with the kana and kanji for its name. Since Layla would be phonetically changed into Reira, this is her official name (in Japan, depending on her American passport).
• My Hero Academia
  • Aizawa’s first name can be “Shota” “Shouta” or Shöta”
  • Similarly, both “Shoto” and “Shouto” for Todoroki.
  • Shinso Hitoshi is also sometimes spelled as “Shinsou”.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: Recursive Translation has to do with this case, since the universe is based on medieval Europe and is supposed to use English naming custom.
  • Depending on whether you read the manga or the light novel (in the official J-Novel translation), the main character is "Catarina" or "Katarina"(the straightforward romanization), the third prince, transliterated as "Jiorudo," is either "Gerald" or "Jeord", and the prime minister's son, transliterated as "Nikoru," is "Nicole" or "Nicol". The manga muddles things further with the covers using "Geordo" for the third prince.
  • The anime ends up mixing the earlier naming conventions, respectively using "Catarina" (manga), "Geordo" (manga cover) and "Nicol" (light novel).
• Naruto:
  • Rock Lee's mentor has had both of his names vary in spelling: Might/Mighty/Maito Guy/Gai (official translation: Might Guy◊). Despite there being an official spelling, there's still too many fans who insist on one of the other spellings. To be fair, almost every translation prior to the official one had his name as Gai, and that is a more common transliteration. Also, the official translation of the manga originally used "Mighty Guy". Guy-sensei has suffered in this respect more than any other Naruto character: At one point, the American branch of Shonen Jump was apparently drawing names out of a hat for him, as during the first part of the Chunin Exam preliminary rounds, his name changed in spelling every issue for nine months. The spelling "Might Gay" was apparently considered before they finally settled on the current version of his name, though online scanalations of chapters not yet released by Viz in America still sometimes use the old translation of 'Gai.' As a side note, the dub had Kisame mock his name by calling him "Mighty Stupid-looking Guy."
  • The "letters" from the Hidden Cloud vary is it: A, Ay, Ei or Ē, Killer B, Killer Bee or Kirābī, C, Shī, Shee or Cee, F, Efu or Eff, J, Jei or Jay.
  • From the final chapter we have "Boruto" or "Bolt" and "Sarada" and "Salad", English puns for Naruto/Hinata's son and Sasuke/Sakura's daughter with bonus points for mixing and matching. Probably represents where fan translators thought Who Names Their Kid "Dude"? and some Meaningful Name on Boruto's part. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 doesn't make matters clearer for the former. The English version has the subtitles saying "Boruto" yet Naruto clearly refers to him as "Bolt" in the dialogue. Boruto: Naruto the Movie has the official spelling as "Boruto", and eventually the English dub went with "Boruto" as well.
• An in-universe example occurs in Negima!. Any time a character gets a Pactio card, their name is printed on it, but with a "latinized" spelling; some of the letters are replaced with others ("Y" with "J" and "K" with "C", for example), so "Yue" turns into "Jue", "Nodoka" becomes "Nodoca", etc.
  • If they really wanted to latinize it, they should have replaced every "U" with "V".
    • Plus the fact that J was not a letter in the latin alphabet either, instead simply being an I, usually before a U. But that would mean that Yue's name would look like IVE, which would be quite confusing.
• In New Game!, Hifumi's name is purely written in kana. Chinese approach to translating kana names using one of several rules: in Hifumi's case an ambiguity is caused by translators using a different rule intended by the author. The Taiwanese publisher Tongli gives her name as Rifumei through mapping each syllable with a hanzi, whereas Tokuno has stated that the intention is to treat it as an expression: the numerals one-two-three (given as Yi'ersan in Mandarin).
• Nichijou: One character is a little girl Mad Scientist. Depending on which translation you use, she's either Only Known By Her Nickname and referred to as "Professor", or as "Hakase", a Japanese word for "Professor". Even official translations vary, with the Vertical Comics manga using "Professor", while the Funimation dub uses "Hakase". Prompting the confusion is the fact that, while "Hakase" is the Japanese word for "Professor", the Japanase manga doesn't use the kanji for "Hakase" (博士), but instead spells it in hiragana (はかせ), which presents "Hakase" as a proper name rather than a title.
• One Piece:
  • Roguetown vs. Loguetown (as in "prologue" and "epilogue"); the guy that makes the series spells it in the series as "Loguetown", but it got changed in the 4kids dub.
  • One of the more infamous cases in anime is Zoro/Zolo. In the first volume of the English manga they used Zoro, but in vol. 2 they changed it to Zolo, mainly to pander to the English dub available at the time (4kids).
  • For many years, the final island on the Grand Line, where the One Piece is located, and where Gol D. Roger traveled to become King of the Pirates, was known as "Raftel" in both fan and official translations. One Piece Stampede, however, reveals that the true name of the island is "Laugh Tale," and Chapter 967 explains it got that name because after seeing the One Piece, Roger laughed. According to interviews, the animation directors behind Stampede were skeptical of the island's proper English name being "Laugh Tale," and Oda had to confirm it as the intentional name multiple times.
• The Planetes manga (Tokyopop) and anime (Bandai USA) have different romanization schemas for two important names: the Von Braun's experimental drive is called "Tandem Miller" engine (presumably named after its creator) in the latter, while the former calls it "Tandem-Mirror" (on account of its design depending on mirrors). There's also the character Hakim/Hakimu (both versions used in the manga) as well as Hakeem (anime).
• Pokémon: The Series: Ash's rival from the Indigo League Tournament, Richie or Ritchie? Pokemon Puzzle League goes with the latter, but official subtitles are split.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure: The 2008 English dub spells Kiriya's name as "Kirea".
  • Fresh Pretty Cure!: While the official spellings are "Westar", "Soular", "Northa", and "Tarte", some other sources use "Wester", "Souler", "Norza", and "Tart".
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Some merchandise gives Ellen's name as "Eren". Similarly, with Maho Girls Pretty Cure!, some merchandise gives Riko's name as "Liko", and with Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure, both merchandising and Crunchyroll subtitles give Latte's name as "Rate".
  • Glitter Force: Brooha's name is spelled as Bruja in the German dub.
  • KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: Crunchyroll lists Bibury and Grave's names as "Bibli" and "Glaive" in their subtitles.
  • Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Crunchyroll subtitles dub the Recipepes "Recipippis".
  • Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure: The baby princess is referred to as El-chan on Toei's website, Elle-chan in merchandising, and Ellee-chan on Crunchyroll.
• All the character names from Princess Tutu suffered from this in some of the subtitle releases, from going from Mytho to Mute and to the strange insistence to keep romanizations from Lillie to Ririe.
• "Raidiin"/"Raideen", licensed "Raydeen", and the remake "Reideen".
• All the Chinese characters in Ranma ½ have names that sound like various types of English words. This lead to the first video game spelling the name "Koron/Cologne" as "Colon".
• The sequel to Chirality is titled Ragnarock City, and it is spelled this way on the cover of the original version. Despite this, when Central Park Media included an about-the-author page for Satoshi Urushihara in the final volume of Chirality, they spelled it Laguna Rock City.
• Rave Master: One of the generals is called four diferent names throughout the official translation. Two of which occur in the same chapter, and one of those is actually the name of a diferent character.
• In Robotech, the name of Skull One is Roy Fokker. In the most recent glut of Japanese Macross merchandising, it's been romanized as Roy Focker for a number of years. At the time the 1985 English dub, it was always assumed that there was no difference between the two, especially given that the character's name is a Shout-Out to a historical aviator and engineer, Anthony Fokker (whose company designed the Red Baron's famous triplane) ^note  It is often speculated that the Robotech adaptation chose the name Fokker to avoid Roy's name sounding like an almost F-bomb. But at time the series was created, it is probable that there was no Romanization on record for Roy's name, that being a more recent development. The Robotech writers likely simply recognized the Fokker triplane and the connection between Roy's name. . Due to Fandom Rivalry between Robotech fans and Macross purists, the discrepancy has yet to be resolved, especially given that the Robotech spelling is technically the correct one and the more recent Japanese romanization appears to be a retcon^note Due to the problem of Dueling Dubs, there is speculation that the name spelling change may have been intentional, as this spelling appears to have emerged into use around 2005, the same year that ADV dubbed the 1982 Macross series and that the Japanese studio Big West decided on this Romanization; somewhat similar to Sunrise deciding on the "Zeon" (as opposed to "Zion") Romaji in Gundam for international distribution.. It should be noted that there is nobody on record named "Focker" who is associated with aviation. There is a Heinrich Focke (of the Focke-Wulf fame) but the inspiration of Roy's name is not in dispute thanks to the cameo appearance of the Fokker triplane in two episodes (a model kit and a flashback of Roy flying a replica). And the personalities of the pilots in the original Macross were reportedly based on World War I pilots.
• Most of the characters in The Rose of Versailles have fairly easily recognizable French names — except for one, who is variously referred to as Gerodere, Girodelle, Girondelle, Girodel, Girodet, Giradel and Jiroderu. It's not just a fan thing, either — most of those variants have appeared in official translations of the manga or anime.
• The Saber Marionette J manga refers to the third Saber doll as "Lynx", the anime uses "Luchs". "Luchs" is the German word for lynx, and all three of the Saber Dolls are named after German fighting vehicles from World War II, retaining the Wehrmacht's Real Life Theme Naming.
• The Sailor Moon franchise has more examples than you can shake a Moon Stick at, especially as a lot of characters names are derived from minerology, astronomy or Greek and Roman mythology and then represented in one of the Japanese writing systems so easy for translators to miss:
  • Neflyte in the dub alone often has his name alternately spelled Neflite or Nephlite. The now-defunct official website and the back of the VHS "Evil Eyes" spells his name "Neflite", while other sources spell it "Nephlite".
  • The two Filler Villains from Sailor Moon R are supposed to have a name that's a pun on "Alien". However, it's based on the katakana reading of the word and not the actual English pronunciation, which gives us "Eiru" and "An". A lot of fans who haven't read the names have used "Ail" and "Ann" because they read it on the internet. However, the pronunciation of "ail" in particular is completely off using Japanese phonetics (it sounds like "aisle") and romanizing it that way is nonsensical because it ignores the pun. ADV Films, who subtitled the arc, used "Ali" and "En" to try and keep the pun intact even though it is not a literal translation. A literal translation is "Al" and "En", though it's not pronounced that way. The DiC dub confused it even more by changing their names to Alan and Ann. Viz opts to refer to the two as "Ail" and "An".
  • The DiC dub itself didn't seem to remember what Berthier's English name was. Officially, it was supposed to be "Bertie", but the dialogue from the other characters indicates that actors thought it was "Birdy" and the script made many bird references to her, which only further confused things. The dub also sometimes added an extra 'b' to "Rubeus" and couldn't decide whether Petz' new name should be "Prisma" or "Prizma".
  • The Death Busters were mangled left and right. Geneon's subtitles and the Cloverway dub for Sailor Moon S gave "Eugeal" and "Yujial" to "Eudial", Telulu to Tellu, Byruit to Viluy, Cyprin to Cyprine, Ptilol to Petirol, and Kaorinite to Kaolinite. Tokyopop somehow mangled "Ptilol" into Petite Roll, and amusingly changed Kaolinite's latin title, Magus (mage), to Magnus (large). They also called her "Kaori Night". A US doll box kept that name, though a popular fan mistranslation mixed it up as "Kaori Knight", as they did a completely unrelated Tokyopop translation of an animanga. The English dub spelled Mimete's name as "Mimet" (from mimetite), but pronounced it the same way as her Japanese name.
  • Hilarity Ensues in the Sailor Moon arcade game. Made in Japan and production overseen by Takeuchi Naoko herself, it mangles the spellings left and right. Castor and Pollux (two Youma from the first season) became Kastol and Polx, Cyrene became Kyulene, Zoisite became Zoisat, Kunzite became Knzait (not a typo!), and Queen Beryl became Queen Beril. Remember, production of this game was overseen by Naoko herself. It seems even she doesn't know how her characters' names are spelled.
  • The translation of the reprints by Kodansha Comics still has issues, some of them relatively minor - e.g. Chibi-Usa with a dash rather than without which could just be put down to stylistic choice. Then there was the "Spark Ring Wide Pressure" attack name issue which a quick Google would have told them should be "Sparkling Wide Pressure". This did get fixed in a later reprint run however.
• In Saki Achiga-Hen, the tomboyish member of the Senriyama team's last name, Eguchi, is consistently spelled one way, but her first name is often spelled many different ways- Cera, Cela, Sera and even Sara.
  • There's an In-Universe example that becomes a plot point. Ai Arctander, Saki and Teru's maternal grandmother, apparently has the same surname as an international pro player named Arctandar. When Nishida asks an old woman who knew Ai, the old woman says that Ai's name was mis-spelled during the registration process.
• Sand Land: In Viz's translation of the original manga, the famous general said to have died in the battle with the Picchi is named Shiba. Hulu's subtitles for the anime instead writes his name as Shiva.
• Shaman King has Len/Lian. The former is his name in the dub, while the latter is Takei-Sensei's given proper reading.
• Shut Hell. The titular heroine's name is supposed to be a nickname given by the Mongols meaning "demon" or "devil". In Japanese it's given as シュトヘル, phonetically "Shutoheru". "Shut Hell" is the scanlation's rendering, but a Japanese manga awards page in English gives it as "Shutohel". In actual (modern) Mongolian, "Demon" is Chêtgêr or Chötgör, spelled Чєтгєр or Чөтгөр in Cyrillic (when capitalized). Given the Japanese rendering as "Shutoheru", it seems the author was going for something like "Chötgêr", and not "Shut Hell" in any case. Maybe "Shuther" would be better, or "Chutger" if you prioritize Mongolian over Japanese spelling.
• Names in Slayers often differ among the translations of the various parts of the franchise, and among translations into different languages. Some examples:
  • Zelgadis and Xellos officially have an extra "s" on the ends of their names, but due to the prominence of the anime in other countries, the former two stuck. Similarly, there's Amelia and Ameria; while the latter is canonical in Japan, oddly enough, official Japanese guidebooks by the author have used the former spelling. The same goes for Chaos Dragon Garv/Gaav, and Hellmaster Fibrizo/Phibrizzo. In Spain and a few other European countries, Lina is Rina, Filia is Phiria, and Sylphiel is Shilfeel.
  • Gourry's name is spelled "Gaudy" in the Latin Spanish dub.
  • For places, there's Sairaag and "Sylague", and Saillune (the correct spelling) and Seyruun.
  • Finally, Gorun Nova (the alternate name of the Sword of Light that Gourry wields) is occasionally referred to as "Goln Nova."
• This occurs in-universe in Sound! Euphonium. In the final episode, classmates give around luck trinkets that they made. A background character notes that they messed up her names romanization due to the l/r issue.
• Spiral has the Kanon(e) case: it's spelled "Kanone" in the anime and one artbook (the character being non-Japanese), the Yen Press publication of the manga uses the phonetic transliteration and spells it "Kanon".
• Spy X Family's original translation had the central couple's names as Lloyd and Yoru Folger. These were later officially changed to Loid and Yor Forger, to respect the intentions of the author. Their adopted daughter went back and forth on this, starting as Anya, then changing to Ania based on how her bedroom nameplate looked, then back to Anya when a new translator took over. Going by the anime website and Japanese merchandise, Anya is the intended spelling.
• The third Astrea school in Strawberry Panic! was, in fan translations, translated as LeRim, LeLim, and the official Lulim.
• Sunday Without God combines this with Gender-Blender Name, which only adds to the confusion:
  • First up is Julie Sakuma Dmitriyevich. Or is it Yuri? "Dmitriyevich" is about as Russian as you can get, but his given name in katakana is spelled differently (ユリー) than the Russian male name usually is (ユーリ). In fact, ユリー is usually how the feminine German name Julie is spelled in Japanese, and since "Sakuma" is a Japanese surname, it's likely his name is meant to be a combination of different ethnicities. For even more confusion, Crunchyroll and Hulu's official subtitles use "Julie," while Sentai's dub uses "Yuri."
  • Secondly, Alice Color. Or is it Alis? Crunchyroll's official subtitles use "Alis," but in episodes 11 and 12 his name is shown on-screen as "Alice Color," and the subs on Sentai's BD/DVD release also use "Alice."
• Tenchi Muyo!: In one old picture of the Tenchi manga, Washu's name was spelled "Wasyu".
• In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the official translation refers to the Humongous Mecha as "Gunmen", confusing fans that had long since been calling them "Ganmen". Then there's the pronunciation of "Simon" (which is Romanized that way despite not being pronounced like the name Simon). The original uses "she-moan", while the dub uses "see-moan"; these both lead to humor as they both sound dirty and like the girl's name "Simone"). There's also Rossiu/Rosshiu.
  • Another thing is that the last word in the "Giga Drill Break(er)" is "Breakah", leading to confusion as to whether it's suppose to be "Breaker" or just "Break".
  • The difference between Gunmen and Ganmen may be a case of Woolseyism: "Ganmen" is Japanese for "Face" and refers to the fact that all of them have faces (some have two); Gunmen is an english pun.
  • Later on, the mass-produced mecha built from Gurren Lagann's schematics are translated as Grappal by one segment of the fandom, and as Gulaparl in another. Strangely, it has never been translated as the obvious "Grapple". It makes perfect sense with the katakana, and—bonus!—it's a word, like Gunmen, Drill Breaker, and the majority of the rest of the TTGL English. Regardlessly, the official name is "Grapearl".
    • The name of the mecha is sometimes given as an abbreviation of its status as a "Gu"rren "La"gann "Pr"ototype.
  • It doesn't help that a lot of the names were romanized very differently then how they are pronounced, often to keep with Theme Naming. For example Viral is the official Romanization even though it's pronounced "Vee-ral", and "Thymilph" (after "thymine") even though it's pronounced "TEE-Mil".
    • That sounds more a case of wrong pronunciation than wrong spelling, really.
    • You want wrong spelling? The Nyoro~N fansubs of TTGL spelled his name as "Chirumuf." Way to miss the point, guys.
  • Then there's Yoko's village's name. Based on an in-universe alphabet and a bit of television footage of her winning a beauty contest of some sort, some concluded it was Rittonar; the official translation has gone with Littner.
• Tokyopop seems to like these.
  • .hack// has them in droves. Characters' names are phonetically spelled (Lios/"Ryos"), spelling idiosyncrasies are inconsistently used ("BlackRose"/"Black Rose"/"Blackrose"), character names are switched around...
  • Besides not being able to decide which romanization system to use in Angelic Layer, they also referred to Ranga as "Lanka", despite the fact that her name can't even be written that way.
  • The translators had to correct the name "Blanche" — they intended to use "Branchir". This was because the translator had completely missed the point that the angel is ALL WHITE.
  • Tokyopop gave the name of the main character of the Mobile Suit Gundam spinoff manga G-Unit (Last Outpost in America) as "Odin Bernett", despite the fact that it appears as "Adin Barnett" in both merchandise and in the manga itself.
  • Similarly, Tokyopop translated the name of the main character of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray as the Punny Name "Lowe Gear" instead of the usual "Lowe Guele", which is used in every other piece of Astray media, English or Japanese.
  • The ultimate offender under their label has to be Tokyo Mew Mew. The girls' Theme Naming presented a problem that the translators dealt with by calling, say, Minto/Mew Mint simply "Mint", Retasu/Mew Lettuce "Lettuce", et cetera. The Anime Chinese Girl, Hwang Bu-ling, found herself as both "Pudding Fong" (to match her super callsign, Mew Pudding) and "Fon Purin" (the katakana of her loan-word name; although most of her friends call her that, she refers to herself as Bu-ling, as does everyone capable of pronouncing Chinese names). The Stalker with a Crush, Quiche, whose name is actually supposed to be written in English, got "Kish" instead for no apparent reason. And don't even get me started on the weapons; they had a different name every time they were used. (For the record, they're quasi-English puns: Strawberbell [or Strawbellbell], Mintonarrow, Lettastanets, Puringrings, Zakuross.)
    • However, the Theme Naming is not completely preserved in translation - while all of the girls have food names, some are katakana which are romanized to clarify their meaning in the English translation (as mentioned above, such as Mint and Lettuce) while others keep their original Japanese names (Ichigo and Zakuro, "Strawberry" and "Pomegranate" respectively) even though they are also named after food.
    • The fansubbers mostly make the same mistakes, with the exception of the aliens, whose names were basically just romaji-fied: Quiche = Kishu, Pie = Pai, and Tart = Taruto. The 4Kids Macekre Mew Mew Power threw Theme Naming out the window and changed everyone's names anyway (Ichigo = Zoey/Mew Zoey, for instance). If you want to preserve the Theme Naming, it would really be best for the girls' names to be Ichigo/Mew Strawberry, Minto/Mew Mint, Retasu/Mew Lettuce, Bu-Ling/Mew Pudding, and Zakuro/Mew Pomegranite.
  • One of Tokyo Pop's early and most egregious errors was during their translation of Magic Knight Rayearth in which one particular character's name was romanized (rather than translated properly) TWO DIFFERENT WAYS in the SAME ISSUE of the magazine.
  • Tokyopop's release of Rozen Maiden can't seem to keep Suigintou's name straight, changing the romanization sometimes multiple times within a single volume and sometimes just plain getting it wrong (what romanization system would call her Suiguintoh—or, perhaps even worse, Suigeintoh?). Her owner's name changes from Megu to Meg and back, and in a finishing touch of incompetence, when the dolls in the last volume begin to refer to each other by the colors of the roses they are associated with (Black Rose, etc.), Tokyopop chose to leave these untranslated. In case you wondered who the hell Kurobara, Shirobara, etc. are and what they have got to do with anything.
  • The original version of Mirai Nikki has Yuno's nickname for Yukiteru written as ユッキ (Yukki), but the official localization romanizes it to "Yuki" (which in katakana would be ユキ, without the consonant-delaying ッ).
• Torako, Anmari Kowashicha Dame da yo features among its case a girl named Megumi Udou. While Megumi's real name is cut and dry, the trope comes in with her nickname. She is nicknamed for the fact she has a vibrator in her at nearly all times. As a result, depending on which translation you're reading at the moment, she'll typically be called either "Bullet" or "Rotor".
• Touch (1981) has Kazuya Uesugi. Fan-translators can't seem to decide whether it's Kazuya or Katsuya. How this became an issue with the manga, at least, is unknown; the furigana given for the kanji of his name is かずや—Kazuya.
• Toward the Terra mostly isn't too bad about this, but the official English subtitles do have a few odd quirks thanks to having all names taken directly from the translation of the manga, which was done well before the anime was made and without any kind of pronunciation guide. Most notably, Jonah Matsuka's name is officially translated as "Makka," an error stemming from confusion about the use of the small "tsu" character.
• Many Japanese Transformers names suffer from this, and it's a running gag within the fandom. Deathsaurus^note used by Hasbro and Shout Factory's subs of the Victory anime/Deszaras^note Used by Takara and used in Madman's subs for the Victory anime/Deathsanras^note used by Omni Productions' Hong Kong Dub/Debt Source (if you're in a particularly snarky mood) is a key example, as is Minerva/Minelba/jailbait. There is also Bardigus/Vuldigus/Barudigasu, a misspelling of "Bruticus," the Transformers: Generation 1 character Ruination is basically a Palette Swap of.
  • Desuzarasu, the literal Japanese pronunciation of Deszaras, sounds much closer to the Japanese word karasu (for "crow") than "saurus" (which would be saurusu in Japanese). It's definitely not meant to be Deathsaurus, even if that's the official American romanization now... is what people thought, until BotCon 2015, where someone finally thought to just ask designer Koujin Ohno what the name was supposed to be, and he explicitly broke it down as "death" plus "saurus." Sometimes things are just weird. (or Takara simply misheard the guy originally)
    • Another common fandom theory is that his name is supposed to be nonsense, and is simply meant to be a reference to Kaiju with similar sounding names.
  • Also, Violen Jigar/Violent Jaguar/Violenjiga/Violent Jigga/Violent Chigger/Bio Ranger Iga/Vio Lenja Igar/Violin Juggler. Humorously, Bio Ranger Iga and Violent Chigger were used as alternate timeline counterparts of the character in the Ask Vector Prime Facebook page. Eventually it was discovered that his name was meant to be a portmanteau of "violence", "giant", and "jaguar", making "Violengiguar" the most logical romanized spelling.
  • Illumina II has "IRUMINA II" written on its side.
  • Beating them all is Rartorata/Rartorarta/Rartalarta/Roto-Rooter/Ratatouille/Nancy, who has the drawback that his name is a "nonsense word" to begin with. (It may be from the scientific name for a lionfish.)
    • Leave it to Injector to get a Japanese name as weird as the rest of him!
• The Roman alphabet name of the mage character from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- is officially "Fay D Flourite". Every part of that is its own kind of translation headache.
  • Based on the katakana pronunciation (rhyming with "eye" and "lie"), his personal name was initially spelled "Fye" (in early volumes of the English manga) or Fai (in fan forums).
  • There is no period after "D" because it's an infixed title (for "royal sorceror"), not an initial for a middle name.
  • His surname was interpreted as "Flowright" in early volumes of the official English manga, based on the katakana pronunciation. The Word of God spelling is itself erroneous, as the name refers to the mineral fluorite, the sacred crystal in his wizard's staff."
• At some point during the development of Twin Princess of Wonder Planet, レイン's name was apparently romanized as Rain. Notable since it appears that way on the first season's Eye Catch (it's normally covered up by the title logo, but it appears in plain view in the EC used in the 2nd half of the season). The second season's premiere has her writing her name as Rein both on a drawing on a train (belonging to another character with this issue, see below) and a business card... and it also appears that way in the Eye Catch.
  • Another princess that had this issue was ミルロ: Two different supplemental books romanized her name differently (Mirlo and Milro), and both romanizations even appear in the same episode. Other romanization (and translation) issues are mentioned here.
  • Not mentioned at the above webpage is a 2nd season character named エリザベータ. On the train that the twins draw on it's spelled as Erizabert, and this page spells it as Elizabert, neither being what one might expect from the katakana.
• Urusei Yatsura:
  • It has a single-appearance character with the name ベリアル (Beriaru). This is based on the Hebrew term "Belial", but in the story where this character appears, he considers Ataru's V-Sign to be his initial, because of the B / V ambiguity in transcription of Latin characters to kana. Animeigo's subtitles render the name as "Velial", whereas Viz's translation of the manga used the completely different name "Virility".
  • While the main female character's name is clearly spelled out "Lum", some international translations preferred referring to her as "Lamu" (such as an English dub aired in the Philippines).
• Your Lie in April has Kaori's name example. Kaori's is usually romanized as "Kaori" but in Japanese, instead of "かおり／カオリ", it's spelled "かをり” which is romanized as "Kawori" and it's even romanized that way in episode 11 on a sign on Kaori's door saying "Kawori's room".

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