Multilingual Pokémon

It's no secret that the names of Pokémon are different (to a large portion) between English and Japanese. But they are in fact also different in French, German, and Korean, just to name three languages that Pokémon is also localized in. So a full localization of Pokémon also has to deal with the hundreds and hundreds of Pokémon names to make them suitable to the language. Sure, the most well-known ones can retain their names across several languages, but for the most part things have to change.

I'm a linguist by trade and I can tell you that while this seems to be a lot of unnecessary work, it's actually necessary so that the names of Pokémon don't sound odd or - Arceus forbid - inappropriate. This is what is called "domestication" in the linguistics trade. Every language, including English, has their own senses and sensibilities, so what works for one language may not necessarily work for another. Thus to avoid these senses and sensibilities overlapping, localizing the names of Pokémon becomes a good practice.

So which names do I use? As I communicate mainly in English - in this blog as well - I use the English names. All my friends also play the games in English because it's the foreign language they have the best chance of understanding, and so we speak the English names as well. But when it comes to talking about Pokémon in another language, especially the four others I mentioned above with local names, I'm not against using their names in that language if possible; they were made to ease communication in that language, so they should be rightfully used. Even so, many people, including me, will still use the English names since English is the most widely spoken language of communication, so that is not a bad thing as well.

Localizing and thus domesticating Pokémon names is not only a good idea, but also a way to avoid language and communication mishaps. No matter the language, the principles of linguistics always comes into play in different ways. And that makes me glad as a linguist just as I am glad as a Pokémon fan that there are many, many different Pokémon.