Where did the Langenstein as Irma's surname come from?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

I did a deep dive on this earlier this year, didn’t come up with much. I searched posts here with various possible spellings. I can only assume it came from a fanfic that might even predate this forum.

I also think someone might have edited IMDb to reflect it back when you could do that easily and that helped it stick.

Fanon that became canon.

I believe ssomething similar happened with Pokémon. In many fanfics you see Brock being called Brock Slate and Misty being called Misty Waterflower, even though in the anime, the manga and the video games... they're literally just called Brock and Misty. In fact, it's quite rare for Pokémon characters to have surnames, so I dunno why fanfic writers felt like Misty and Brock needed surnames.

[Coola Yagami]

I think they gave Ash a last name cause he's the main character and I guess 4Kids or whatever felt Ash Ketchum was more marketable than just Ash. I believe in Japan he was just Satoshi. No surname.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

I think they gave Ash a last name cause he's the main character and I guess 4Kids or whatever felt Ash Ketchum was more marketable than just Ash. I believe in Japan he was just Satoshi. No surname.

Because his name is a play on the gotta catch'em all slogan. And naturally, his mother, Delia, also has the same surname as him.

In many countries outside the US, kids grew up with the English dub names as well, like here in Portugal, for example.

Not all countries got the English Pokémon names, though. Germany and France have their own names for them.

This was still in that weird time where Japanese anime and game characters got their names changed to European-sounding names when exported to Europe and USA. Captain Tsubasa suffered that too a decade before. Kids grew up knowing Oliver instead of Tsubasa and Mark Lenders instead of Kojiro Hyuga, for example.

Inazuma Eleven does that in the video games, but no one likes that anymore because that series has been around ever since the internet was already a big thing. Plus many people just watch anime with subs these days.

Pokémon just keeps the localised names of characters and food out of habit/tradition, I guess.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

I think they gave Ash a last name cause he's the main character and I guess 4Kids or whatever felt Ash Ketchum was more marketable than just Ash. I believe in Japan he was just Satoshi. No surname.

No, it was to match the lip flaps in the English dub. His name is just Satoshi in Japan with no last name.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

No, it was to match the lip flaps in the English dub. His name is just Satoshi in Japan with no last name.

And, like I said, a play on the gotta catch 'em all slogan. Ash gotta Ketchum all, basically.

Pretty smart marketing, imo.

[CyberCubed]

Yeah, in Japan the catch 'em all logo doesn't even exist. That's why people were confused why Ash wasn't capturing every pokemon he saw or completing the Pokedex, because in the anime the writers never intended to do that. Also helps that the anime treats the Pokemon as real creatures with personalities and not game data like the games, so giving a main character a whole bunch of pokemon they'll never use is pointless.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yeah, in Japan the catch 'em all logo doesn't even exist. That's why people were confused why Ash wasn't capturing every pokemon he saw or completing the Pokedex, because in the anime the writers never intended to do that. Also helps that the anime treats the Pokemon as real creatures with personalities and not game data like the games, so giving a main character a whole bunch of pokemon they'll never use is pointless.

There was a Kanto episode where they showed what happened to the Pokémon Ash caught that were stored in the PC. It's a whole episode where Prof. Oak has to feed dozens of different Pokémon everyday plus the 40 or so different Taurus Ash caught that one time

[sdp]

They got rid of the Catch em all slogan after Gen 2 though it did come back I think for Gen 6 I think once Pokemon Go made Pokemon popular again with casuals.

Also Pocket Monsters was the name of the games until I think Gen 8, Pokemon was only an abbreviation, it's only in the last decade or so that Pokemon was also the name of the franchise in general.

Let's not forget that the gaijin names for the different Pokemon became the official international names, only Japan has their own names for the Pokemon. Other countries have to use the english puns as their names.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sdp

They got rid of the Catch em all slogan after Gen 2 though it did come back I think for Gen 6 I think once Pokemon Go made Pokemon popular again with casuals.

Also Pocket Monsters was the name of the games until I think Gen 8, Pokemon was only an abbreviation, it's only in the last decade or so that Pokemon was also the name of the franchise in general.

Let's not forget that the gaijin names for the different Pokemon became the official international names, only Japan has their own names for the Pokemon. Other countries have to use the english puns as their names.

In France, Germany and I'm pretty sure South Korea as well many of the Pokémon have their own localised names.

In Germany, Geodude is Kleinstein. Snorlax is Relaxo. Charmander is Glumanda. Just to name some examples.

In France they also translate the names of characters from other series. Rosalina from Mario Galaxy is named Harmonie iirc in French.

No idea about Spain and Italy. Those are also two European nations that literally translate everything, so I'd not be surprised.