Unnecessary Japanese to English name changes!

[Solio]

Fun Fact: The German translation actually kept Judy's Japanese name, Misuzu.
The localization team probably saw her sparkly anime eyes and said: "Yep, seems legit."

 

[Lanstar]

Funnily enough, "Frita" in this game was actually named the equivalent of "Wendy" in Japan. I guess I understand their reason, given how Wendy's is a fast food franchise, and they didn't want to infringe on the name.

 

[Shinjukuwu]

Those names are cute! I actually quite like Lilian for Bunnie.

 

[JKDOS]

Fun fact: Lolly's catchphrase is Bonbon. There is a villager in the game named Bonbon, whose name is Lolly in the Italian version.

 

[John Wick]

I like them fine the way they are now.

I can't imagine Fang being named Siberia, even though there are Siberian wolves, it's more suited to a tiger, IMO.

 

[LoyalDragonfly]

This always puzzles me in games, and Animal Crossing is no exception. It's even caused confusion while playing with my sister. When we were both playing New Leaf at the same time, I was playing on my American 3DS and she was playing on her Japanese one. I had Keaton (Frank in Japanese) in my game, and she had... Frank (Hulk in Japanese). Cue the confusion when either one of us mentioned Frank. It makes me think of how they swapped out various Street Fighter names during the localization process. Was this a similar situation, where the localization team were like "Siberia? Nah, Fang just sounds better."? I wish they hadn't; the original names sound just fine to me, and I'd rather names be the same when applicable, for consistency if nothing else.

At any rate, it's not really that big of a deal. I'm not upset about the localized names being different, just confused as to why the change was even made in the first place.

 

[StarlitGlitch]

I play in both English and Japanese and I think about this quite a bit. Rosie's name in Japanese is "Bouquet" in katakana. I guess they wanted something that sounded more like a real name?

There's so many of these though. Raymond is Jack in Japanese (I guess because of Halloween they had to change it), Marshal is Jun/June, the list goes on and on. Most of them I get why they change but there's quite a few I felt like they could've kept the same just for my sake lol. It's like my confusion from knowing some Pokemon names in English and some in Japanese and not being able to communicate with anyone about it.

 

[Uffe]

i didn't know they were changed
luna is a much more fitting name for ruby ♡
i do prefer the name whitney over bianca though, especially since there's already a bianca

also i've been wondering lately why crackle is called spork in other countries
it's a bit odd, neither are proper names so they could have just picked one

Are you from the Netherlands? He goes by the name Crackle in Dutch, which is why I asked. Spork is most likely a play on words of pork, which is what pig is when it comes to food, and a spork is a spoon + fork. In German he's Schwarte, which is rind like bacon, which of course comes from pigs. I can see why Ruby isn't named Luna. They could have kept that name, but Luna is the tapir for the Dream Suite. Ruby happened to have red eyes, just like a ruby. I'm fine with the names the English translation got, but it is strange that they changed the names for certain characters. Maybe there was a different meaning for them. Just like when Super Smash Bros. Melee was being made, they changed Popo's name in the German translation, because Popo means butt.

 

[MadisonBristol]

I think it's weird Adelaide became Melba. Both names refer to cities in Australia. But I do love "toasty", which wouldn't work with Adelaide.

 

[niko@kamogawa]

I am sure the localisation team has a good reason why they needed to alter their names. They are probably trying to avoid stereotyping. And also they needed to avoid names that may appear sensitive to the western audience.

It doesn't matter to me though. I like their current names.

 

[Xara]

while i’m not sure why their names were changed, i’ve always thought that “natalie” was such a pretty name and would’ve loved for that to of stayed diana’s name and “luna” suits ruby really well, too!

although, i’m glad that not all villagers kept their original names as i honestly can’t imagine calling whitney, beau, bunnie, fang or audie by any other name aha. :’)

 

[LoyalDragonfly]

I am sure the localisation team has a good reason why they needed to alter their names. They are probably trying to avoid stereotyping. And also they needed to avoid names that may appear sensitive to the western audience.

That's the thing, though. With names that are just... names, like Natalie and Peter, what's the problem? Unless there's something that I'm missing here. I've tried to think of reasons why certain names might appear suspect overseas and I've come up with nothing.

 

[Che5hire Cat]

Unpopular opinion, but I like Monica more than Audie. I know they wanted to honor the AC grandma by giving the peppy wolf her name (which is also a lovely idea ngl), still I think Monica would have fit a bit better to the character. I guess Ruby's name got changed because they already had plans to make an NPC named Luna, which was also the case later? Or perhaps they thought Ruby may would works better because her eyes are red, just like rubies? As for Judy, I'm kinda surprised they changed her name in English, yet in German, they kept her Japanese name. Otherwise, I don't mind the changes for the other names, although Chachamaru is more adorable than Dom.

 

[Feunard]

So, I've been wondering why the English names in AC Japan were changed in the English version.

I understand that Japanese names such as Chachamaru (Dom), Gurumin (Bluebear) and Misuzu (Judy) were changed to make it easier for the English speaking person.
But why change the English names?

Here are some examples of English names (some European?) that where changed in the English version:

Whitney = Bianca
Diana = Natalie
Bunnie = Lilian
Beau = Peter
Ruby = Luna
Fang = Siberia
Audie = Monica (I understand this was changed to honor the famous AC grandma)

What do you think?
Do you think they should've kept the original English names?

I don't understand why they called her Whitney either and I actually believed she was called Bianca in the English version too. Turns out Bianca is another female villager in the English version.
I can understand Siberia though, it sounds like a female name to me. Same for Lilian, which sounds like a male name to me. Maybe they changed their names for such reasons.
As for Audie, she is called Monica in the French version too. I'm surprised to discover that she shares her Japanese and French names.

 

[Jam86]

Are you from the Netherlands? He goes by the name Crackle in Dutch, which is why I asked. Spork is most likely a play on words of pork, which is what pig is when it comes to food, and a spork is a spoon + fork. In German he's Schwarte, which is rind like bacon, which of course comes from pigs.

ahh i'm from the uk but he's still called crackle here, also i didn't even notice he had pork in his name lol
makes sense now haha

 

[Uffe]

ahh i'm from the uk but he's still called crackle here, also i didn't even notice he had pork in his name lol
makes sense now haha

That's neat. Yeah, at first I wondered why his name was Spork, but then thought maybe it was because "pork" is in his name. Kind of like S'mores.