Pokéfact: Because It's Punny

Oh my god, a Pokefact! These are becoming rarer than rare candy (which you should go buy in the store). And my bad jokes, bring us to today’s pokefact: the Puns of Pokemon.

Pokemon is just a book of puns. Some are clever and some, yeah, not so much.

Let’s look at some main characters: Ash Ketchum and Tracey Sketchit. Try and guess what they do. Well, there are species known as the red ash, the green ash, the blue ash, and the indigo ash and Ketchum is a more clever spelling of ‘Catch ‘Em’ and you know Ash, he gotta catch ‘em all (and then later abandon them and go to a new region, but whatever.) Tracey, is just trace with a ‘y’ and his surname Sketchit didn’t even try to be not obvious.

Professor Oak fits into the whole tree-related names for professors theme (I did an article on that, awhile back. I would link, but I am a slacker if you have yet to figure that out.) And he may not know the name of his own grandson, but there is actually a type of oak tree called the Garry Oak. Oh, the irony.

In Generation 1, we have the gym leaders Brock (rock) and Misty (water), pretty self explanatory there. There is Lt. Surge, who is an electric type leader and Erika (grass), erica is a genus of heaths. Koga (poison) is named after Kōga-ryū, a historical school of ninjutsu, and guess who is a student of ninjutsu himself! He later leaves his daughter, Janine (also poison), in charge Fuchsia Gym and if you reverse the syllables of her name (and deleting an e), you end up getting ‘ninja’ and like her father, Janine is referred to as “The Poisonous Ninja Master.” Then there is gym leader, Sabrina (psychic), may be a reference to the title character in “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” Blaine, which is very similar to blaze, only uses fire-types (shocking!). Finally, there is Giovanni (ground), ‘gio’ being the derived form of ‘geo’, which is Greek for Earth. It also can also be a play-on to his resemblance of a mafia boss, who are typically Italian.

Enter Generation 2 with Falkner, which is another name for a falconer, and he just so happens to be a flying-type leader. And there is Bugsy, which is beyond obvious. Comeon Pokemon, make this just a bit more difficult! After, there is Whit(e)ney; white being a very normal color, and Whitney is a normal-type leader. We have the ghost leader, Morty, mort is French for death. There is Chuck, a fighting-type leader, possibly named after another famous Chuck. Jasmine (steel), is pretty self exploratory. There is Pryce, which rhymes with ‘ice,’ his type. Lastly, there is Clair (dragon), it rhymes with lair, as in a dragon’s lair.

Next with Generation 3 (seriously, are people still reading), we start with Roxanne, the beginning of her name, as well as her type, being similar to rock. There is Brawley (fighting), his name being like Brawl, which means to fight, and Wattson, a electric-type leader, and electricity are measured in watts. Fire-type Flannery sounds like flame. Norman is a letter away from normal, also his choice pokemon. Winona, the flying-type leader, sounds a lot like wind. Then there is Tate and Liza, the psychic duo, if you add their names together it sounds like levitate.  Finally there is water leaders, Wallace or Juan, both vaguely sound like water.

Generation 4 (I should put this much effort into my school work.) starts with the rock leader, Roark, which sounds like ore or rock. And Gardenia is a specializes in grass, obviously enough. Maylene, sounds a lot like melee, and she is a fighting-type leader. Again, Crasher Wake, is very self explanatory. There is Fantina (psychic) similar to phantom. Steel-leader, Byron, is iron with a b in front of it. Candice, ends with ice, and guess what she battles with? And gen 4 ends on a sad pun note with Vol(t)kner, who unshockingly (see what I did there?) is the electric type leader.

Finally, with Generation 5, we get even more punny names! We start out with the trio, each having a food name, relating to their type; Chili being from chili, Cress being from watercress, and Cilan being from cilantro. Then there is Lerona, from normal, her type. Burgh, the bug leader, simply sounds like bug. Most likely Nikola Telsa (who was an electric engineer, physicist, and inventore) we have Elesa, who battles with electric pokemon. Ground-leader, Clay, is not too difficult to figure out, neither is flying-type leader, Skyla. Brycen, like all ice leaders, has a ‘ice’ in it. We end gen 5 with Drayden and Iris; Drayden being a form of Drake or Dragon and Iris being named after the Flaming Dragon Iris.

Has anyone headdesk-ed yet? I have yet to go through the Pokemon!-- No, I’m just kidding. I think you see my point/fact, though for the record basically every single pokemon has name relating to apperance, type, behavoir, ect. A lot are bilingual, but don’t worry. That doesn’t make it any harder to figure out. In Japan, there is a pokemon called Giaru, which translate to ‘Gear’. It is so difficult to figure out what it looks like.

What did you learn from today’s pokefact? That the Pokemon team, though they deserve tons of respect, are not very creative.