We just going to ignore Fatalitee? That seems out of place.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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I know right? They translated an english wordplay into an english wordplay!
The German word "fatal" doesn't mean the same as English "fatal". It's more "disastrous" or " awkward" than "deadly", closer to "fate" than "death".
Except, they didn't. The word "fatal" is a German adjective also deriving from the same Latin root word as the English word "fatal", but contrary to the English word that means "deadly", the German word means something akin to "fateful".
So they translated an english wordplay to a german wordplay, which happens to be a false friend to an english word, thus making another, separate wordplay in English.
If anything, they translated a latin wordplay (sinister is also derived from a latin word) to another latin wordplay.
It's always kinda weird when english native speakers believe that english is the one original language of the world, when most of their language happens to just be German, French and Latin all jumbled together into a primitive mess.
I’m Dutch, and really into linguistics, I don’t believe English is the original Germanic language, I just made a fun comment because the new name still worked in english. :)
I mean Tea = Tee Deadly = Fatal
I know right, it's crazy how they just threw out a much newer Pokémon alongside two gen 1's
I don't know Pokémon at all, so I don't know which column is their real name and which is the German (presuming that's what I'm looking at).
Ah yes, the two categories, real or German
Honestly both columns sound ridiculous to me
"Real name" is quite a stretch considering that the English names are also only a translation from the Japanese originals.
Left one is English, right one is German.
There are also names that are so bad that I always use the English version. Noibat is called eF-eM like Elon musk named him.
I hate the original bird trio in german. While you have the spanish numbers in ArticUNO, LavaDOS and MolTRESS, you got just twos in german (Arkdos, Lavados and Zapdos). Also the fact, that they translated Staryu directly with Sterndu, but kept Starme litteraly the same! Not that Sternmir or Sternich would be good, it just bothers me.
German Pokemon translation is absolute peak. I used to want to work as a translator and doing the Pokemon translation or even just assisting the translators would've been the fulfilment of all my dreams.
(SCHNEPPKE OMG)
WOHIN GENAU????
fatalitee is better than sinistea change my mind. Lickitung is also inferior to the german name.
Therapist: German Pokemon names aren't real, they can't hurt you!
German Pokemon names:
Schlurp schlurp Peralta.