Smogon Community - The Official Name-Pronunciation Guide

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The Official Name-Pronunciation Guide

The Official Name-Pronunciation Guide

http://thegeeksrepository.files.word...ngs-coffee.jpg

With permission from Birkal, 11/15/12

Feel free to post now I've gotten the first 5 slots reserved!

EDIT: I guess this is for Gen VI now!

Chespin; ??? [guess: CHES-pin]
Fenniken; ??? [guess: FEN-ih-ken]
Froakie; ??? [guess: FROW-kee]

Sylveon; ??? [guess: SIL-vee-on]

Xerneas; ZURR-nee-us (official)
Yventall; ee-VELL-tall (official)

Great idea for a thread. I've always wondered a little about the "Arr-kee-us" (Arr-ky-us?) vs. "Arr-see-us" thing. English is not my main language, so it's kinda hard to figure out stuff when in doubt (I literally learned to pronounce "Acid" two weeks ago).

The actual pronunciation of Suicune has always annoyed me. :( (Soo-koon)

I've been playing Gens I and II since they first came out - I've never once seen the anime, and learned all of my pronunciations from either common sense, or Stadium. Therefore, it shocked me to learn it's "ARC-uh-nine" and not "ar-CAY-nine" like the Stadium announcer says. "eck-ans" and not "EE-kans" also threw me for a loop. Crazy the stuff you don't know after, what, 13 years? Thanks for putting this together!

firstly: indeed, great thread idea

Quote:

Great idea for a thread. I've always wondered a little about the "Arr-kee-us" (Arr-ky-us?) vs. "Arr-see-us" thing.

much to the outrage and chagrin of those of us who watched arceus and the jewel of life together, it is actually ar-KEY-us in the dub, not ar-SEE-us <_< seriously sounds bad. idk if there were any other appearances of arceus in anime canon, where it might be pronounced differently.

Do we know who's to blame for these pronunciations? I reckon we ought to stage a coup ahead of sixth gen.

This is weird... Some of the names I'm sure where right! How is kangaskhan kan-gas-kOn!? It has an A in the name - not an O! And what!? Pidgit!? Pidgeot is Pidgit! I thought it went pidg-ee-ot! You know, like the name! Either the spelling went wrong somewhere in translation or they're just EXTREMELY weird names!

Kangaskhan is made to sound like "Genghis khan". I'm pretty sure that's the sound the "O" is indicating.

Was Genghis Khan pronounced Gen-gas kOn? Everyone I know with the surname Khan has been pronounced Karn.

It doesn't have Genesect iirc, and that's one I had wondered on. "Genosect" is easy, but when it was changed for NA it sounded like it might be a portmanteau of "genesis" and "insect" instead.

Not to be a negative nelly, but I think the OP needs some work. Some of them aren't consistent: i.e. RYE-horn vs. RHY-donn and others I think should be improved ("MYOO" should be changed to "ME-you", I don't think the former properly conveys how it is supposed to be pronounced). Others are unclear (I would avoid using the letter C in pronunciation tables since it is unclear where it is a hard or soft C; i.e. CAWF-ing) or contradicted by canon sources (Pidgeot is pronounced as "pidge-ot" in Stadium), which I don't blame you for because the pronunciation of different names is rarely a standardized thing even in different Pokemon media or among the fans (I refuse to say Arceus as "ar-key-us"). I haven't seen the anime in years with the exception of watching the films on CN, so it might be pronounced differently there.

I'm sorry to look nit-picky, I think this thread is a good idea, but I hope you see where I'm coming from.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Jangrafess (Post 4476661)

Was Genghis Khan pronounced Gen-gas kOn? Everyone I know with the surname Khan has been pronounced Karn.

Looks like someone hasn't seen Star Trek II. But that name is, indeed, pronounced that way.

KKKHHHAAAAAAAAANNNNN

This is a great idea. Personally I've never known how to pronounce Raikou. What do you do with that "ou"?

That being said, it'd be nice to go back through these and write out the pronunciations with the phonetic alphabet to avoid ambiguity (e.g., Kangaskhan's "Khan" being "kon").

Idc what it says, Nidoran will forever be pronounced Ni-doe-ran to me. And Pidgeotto is pidg-ee-oh-tow

I have a book with pronunciations and it says pidgeot is pid-JEE-ot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Age of Kings (Post 4476952)

I completely understand where you're coming from, and can do there. I'll probably edit it a bit here and there for clearer interpretation. To be honest, it was quite late the first round, and I got most of them from the old "Official Pokemon Handbook" for this Gen 1 batch, which I had to edit to make more sense here and there.

You're right on the C thing. I tried to catch as many as I could, but think in c's if that makes sense. I'll revise to improve clarity though.

Also, you're right Ashenlock. Genesect isn't in this... I guess the coming movie is all we'll have for a bit...

EDIT: Also, being completely honest again, this Gen 1 list was a sort of Beta to see how I should efficiently go about doing the rest to make them clearest. These criticisms are helping me a lot to plan how to assemble the other 548 names now instead of editing all 649 at once.

If you wanna know about Genesect you should probably use the pronunciation from the Dex App once they reveal the password.

The official Arceus pronunciation still bothers me. I mean, I don't hate it, but I've been using Ar-see-us for so long it takes me a second to realize I'm "supposed' to use the official one.
That's the only major one that stuck out when I went through the dex. Some were slight variations on the emphasis, and I'm surprised I got Suicune right all this time even though English isn't my main language XD (Tidus too, not Tye-dus/Tide-us, for FFX fans)

[And since this thread is bound for nitpicking: Ivysaur's eyes are NOT purple.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Jorgen (Post 4477176)

Well, I don't know if this is official, but I've always said it Rye-KOO. I sincerely hope I am correct - since Rye - COW would just be stupid. Also, what is so wrong with Are-KEY-us? I've said it like that since I first saw the name!

I'm assuming these are from the anime and not necessarily how these should logically be pronounced.

I really hate how they say several names in the show, namely MY-low-TICK, AR-kee-us, and GEAR-uh-TEE-nuh (gear-a-tina? Really?) Please tell me that Milotic at least will be 'my-LAH-tick' (same syllable emphasis as 'exotic'). My issue with 'AR-kee-us' is mainly that the 'c' in Arceus' name looks like a soft C-- My thought was that if they wanted it pronounced with a hard C, they'd just spell it with a K. (Also, AR-see-us just sounds flat-out better to me, but that's my opinion.) Giratina I've always thought should be pronounced something like 'Gi-RAH-tih-nah' (probably with a hard G)-- mainly because, again it sounds better to me... Though I think this one is because it avoids the incredibly-dumb sounding pronunciation of the female name 'tina' in there. That may be how it's pronounced in Japanese, but the cultural context of 'tina' is different for Japan, being as it's not really a name like it is here.

Also, I recently realized something about Blastoise's name.
It's a combination of the words 'blast' and 'tortoise', right?
Well, here's the thing. Tortoise is pronounced 'TORT-iss' (or TORT-uss)... It's not pronounced 'TORT-oyz'. So logically, shouldn't Blastoise's name be pronounced 'BLAST-uss' or 'BLAST-iss'? (It really sounds weird to the ear, but it's probably just nostalgia-headphones, if you think about it. I wonder if the 4Kids dubbers actually knew that and decided it should be pronounced differently, or if they were just downright too dumb to realize it.)

Incidentally, I'm not going to argue that 'BLAST-oyz' isn't the 'official' pronunciation, this is just food for thought.