dailynewsnblog
After 30 years and well over 1000 Pokémon in the National Dex, coming up with snappy names for Pocket Monsters is tough. Add in all the languages the games are localised into, and potential issues around certain words and puns which don’t translate well, and it’s no wonder that people have different ways of saying certain ‘mon.
Some are easy, but all it takes is a couple of vowels to throw things open to interpretation. Stir in regional pronunciation conventions depending on your mother tongue (and, in the case of English, its hodgepodge of inconsistent pronunciation and spelling) and there are loads of ways to pronounce some of the best-loved, well-known Pokémon.
So today, we’re asking how you say the names of 22 Pokémon that are often pronounced differently. If you’re after official pronunciation, Serebii has a handy, up-to-date list showing how The Pokémon Company itself says these names, and we’ve added our interpretation of the official versions below each entry.
So, in alphabetical order, let’s see how the majority pronounces the Pocket Monsters below…
Note. It’s worth mentioning that we covered a selection of divisive Pokémon names many moons ago. Rather than redirecting you to another article for those, we’ve incorporated the vintage polls below. If you voted before, thank you! Your votes will still be registered.
Also, using the International Phonetic Alphabet below would be ideal, but not all readers will be familiar with that. Therefore, all the phonetic spellings below are approximate, with the stressed syllable denoted by the capital letter…
Arceus
Kicking things off, we looked at the big A’s pronunciation a few years back:
Mythical, but also Normal, Arceus is a spiky, horsey-looking thing which also manages to baffle onlookers with its name.
Official pronunciation: Ark-ee-us
Alomomola
And we covered this palindromic Pokémon in the past, too:
Amola… Alomalo… Alamo… This word has metathesis written all over it.
Official pronunciation: uh-Loh-muh-Moh-luh
Chinchou
A final vintage poll before we get into the new ones (that’s the way the cookie crumbled going alphabetically!):
This Water / Electric-type looks simple enough but throws in a curveball with that final ‘ou’. Chin-chuu? Chin-chow (rhymes with ‘OW’)? Chin-cho (rhymes with ‘show’)?
Official pronunciation: Chin-chow
Hydreigon
We start the new batch with Gen V’s Dark/Dragon-type. The ‘drei’ in the middle comes from the German for ‘three’ (with its previous two forms containing ‘eins’ and ‘zwei’), but how do you say it in English?
Official pronunciation: hai-Drai-gon
Illumise
Jeez Louise, it’s Illumise! Or should that be Jeez Loui-say, it’s Illumise! Or perhaps…
Official pronunciation: ee-loo-Mee-zay
Linoone
This one presents questions due to that double-O and no-one (or, perhaps, noone) can agree on if it’s split or not.
Official pronunciation: lai-Noon
Kyogre
Something about this Gen III Legendary makes us want to swap the ‘o’ and ‘g’ around, for some reason.
Official pronunciation: kai-Oh-guh
Kyurem
Sticking with the ‘k’s and the Legendaries, we’re not sure if this one’s a key or a cure.
Official pronunciation: Kyoor-rem
Mienshao
A Gen V fighter, this is obviously mee-Enn-shao… or that’s what we thought until we heard other suggestions…
Official pronunciation: Meen-shau
Nihilego
Well, the last bit’s got to be ‘lego’, right? Or is that just our bias for Danish plastic coming through?
Official pronunciation: nai-uh-Lee-go
Quaquaval
The watery Gen IX starter evo is appropriately slippery when it comes to its name.
Official pronunciation: Kwak-wuh-vul
Rattata
What’s this? A Gen I mainstay!? Surely everyone says this the same! It’s like frittata, no?…
Official pronunciation: Ra-tat-ta
Rayquaza
Another Legendary, we always liked to imagine him as Ray Quasar, otherworldly ’70s lounge singer.
Official pronunciation: ray-Kway-zuh
Regice
This one’s made of ice (ice, baby), so the correct pronunciation would seem clear. Reg-Ice, like ‘choc-ice’, no? Would that it were so simple…
Official pronunciation: Redge-ice
Reuniclus
Oof, buckle up for options with this Gen V Psychic-type
Official pronunciation: ree-yoo-Nee-klus
Shiinotic
The tricky ones seem to congregate in Gen V, don’t they? Although we can only think of two real variants for this one.
Official pronunciation: shee-Nah-tik
Silvally
This is sil-Valley. Definitely. 100%… Er, 90% 80%…?
Official pronunciation: sil-Val-ai
Sudowoodo
This Rock-type mixes ‘u’, ‘oo’, and ‘o’ in the same word, highlighting just what an illogical nightmare mess pronunciation can be. Unless you’re mixing ‘doe’ (as in deer, a female deer) and ‘do’ (as in ‘What did you do?’) in the same word, there’s really only two ways Sudowoodo can go.
Official pronunciation: Soo-doe-Woo-doe
Suicune
[Here] we’ve got Suicune, the Legendary Water-type. The troublesome ‘C’ and ‘E’ complicate matters with this one depending on your mother tongue.
Official pronunciation: Swee-koon
Xatu
Going back to Gen II, we’ve got a case of the Professor Xaviers…
Official pronunciation: Zah-too
Yveltal
A Dark / Flying beastie, it likes to throw opponents off their guard as they try to pronounce its name. Evil-tell? Yevel-tel? Yu-vetal? Novotel? Oh, it just incinerated us with a Hyper Beam.
Official pronunciation: ee-Vel-tal
Zoroark
And having gone from A to Z (hmm, should have gone from Z to A…), we finish up with another Gen V tongue-twister. How many syllables are you going with?
Official pronunciation: Zor-oh-ark
And there we are. Let us know in the comments if there are any other ‘mons you find to be particularly divisive when it comes to PokéPron.
And as for the word ‘Pokémon’ itself?! Some people say that weird, right? Well, we asked that question long, long ago, too, but let’s embed the poll again here for posterity:
How do you say ‘Pokémon’? (1,317 votes)
- “Poker-mon”
- “Poke-y-mon”
- “Pockee-mon”
- “po-Kay-mon”
- Other
Please login to vote in this poll.
