What are the most ridiculous name changes in the foreign dub of a cartoon? I've heard the French localized all of the Total Drama's characters names.
Bruce Wayne was also changed to 'bruno Diaz" in the Latin American dub, pobably because it's easier for Spanish speakers to pronounce.
Bruno Diaz is a leftover from the sixties, when both the comics translated by Editorial Novaro and the Adam West show used it.
Nowadays only the animated shows dubbed in Venezuela still use it. DC Super Hero Girls (which is dubbed in Mexico), Injustice (ditto), the Nolan movies and the DCEU all use Bruce Wayne, as do the current translated comics.
Bruno Diaz and Ricardo Tapia (Dick Grayson) are the only names still translated to any capacity at all.
Oliver Queen used to be Oliverio Reina, Hal Jordan Raul Jordan, Barry Allen Bruno Alba, Harvey Dent Luis Rios, Jonathan Crane Juan Crane, Billy Batson Memo Batson, Jason Todd Raul Zeas, Vicki Vale Rita Rios, and James Gordon Jaime Fierro.
But all those names were dropped around the eighties.
They let Clark Kent's name alone though.
Remember when Flash was called "El Destello" and Daredevil "Diabólico", which was actually pretty cool
>Daredevil "Diabólico",
And Dan Defensor to explain the DD on his chest.
Wolverine was called Aguja Dinámica.
Aguja Dinamica is only from the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends X-Men guest appearance (that cartoon was dubbed in Los Angeles. There is a previous first Mexican dub but it's lost media now).
The nineties show, Hulk Vs. Wolverine movie, and Evolution used Guepardo. The first X-men live action used Gloton, but from X2 he's been Wolverine.
All of that applies to Latin America, in Spain he's always been Lobezno.
>Gloton
The irony in that name is that THAT is the right name for a Wolverine in Spanish... however, anyone listening to it would think his name is "Glutton"
Carcayu is another Spanish name for wolverine (the animal) but far lesser known.
You forgot "Drago Dragon"
Hulk is known as La Masa in spain.
Ben Grimm aka The Thing is known as La Mole in the latinamerican dub of the 4F cartoons.
Galactus was originally dubbed as "Marte" as well.
I believe La Mole is still used in every dub, but I could be wrong.
It's such an iconic name there's even a Mexican convention named after him.
>La Mole
>"Person or thing of large dimensions"
It truly is a perfect name for the character, isn't it?
they were like "perfection" and it's usually survived in use to this day. I doubt it will stop being used in the MCU because the dubbing studio was based enough to keep the Infinity Gems instead of Infinity Stones and it's remained like that in Latin America ever since.
The latinized names were actually DC's own idea to help it's characters to gain easier acceptation on spanish talking countries.
Lex Luthor used to be called Lex Luther for no reason, though.
The name Luther was only used in the comics. The animated series and movies, including Superfriends and Donner's films, always used Luthor.
In the brazilian dub of Megas XLR, Coop is virtually always called "dude" instead of his name
Never seen anything about XLR other than a poster, but this feels right
They only used his name in the first episode. It was dude for the rest of the series.
>Piolin
Tweety comes from the English onomatopoeia "tweet, the sound birds make.
Similarly, Piolín comes from the Spanish onomatopoeia "pío".
In Spain he’s called Isidoro.
In Latin America he is Picaro for the strips and the animated show he shared with Marmaduke, but the Catillac cats series kept him as Heathcliff.
The translators wanted to keep him as Flash but they were legally forced to rename him as there already was a publication in Argentina with the Flash name legally registered.
They couldn't just call him Fast Man?
you'd be surprised, the Vertigo comic line got delayed for the longest time in Mexico because a political magazine was called that.
In polish dub his name is Harry.
>Bruno Diaz
>Bru No Dias
>Bru No Days, cause The Batman™ mostly comes at night
Most Looney tunes characters in spanish dubs. Most are just spanish versions of their names. Daffy is Pato Lucas. Sam keeps Sam but Yosemite is changed to Bigote(Mustache). Though Bugs keeps his name fully intact.
Bugs Bunny
El Conejo De La Suerte
Unrelated, but... Goofy = Tribilín.
"El Conejo de la Suerte" was more like his title or nickname, much like 'wascally wabbit' in English.
Some old comics actually renamed Serapio, go figure.
Goofy was never Tribilin in animation, only in the comics. That's a constant in Latin American name changes btw, most often comics and screen adaptations have different approaches to localization.
Some old comics also renamed Sylvester as Gatolín.
>"El Conejo de la Suerte" was more like his title or nickname
I remember renting Space Jam one time, it wasn't dubbed but it came with a very weird subtitle where Bugs was perpetually called "El Conejo de la Suerte".
>Tribilín
I remember everything referring to Goofy as Tribilín for my whole life until they stopped, felt like I fell into a completely different dimension.
As I grew I realized what happened.
I always thought that Scrooge Mc Duck had no name and was only refered for his last name (Mc Duck) because the comics called him Tío Rico.
When I discovered that his real name was Scrooge McDuck my head almost exploded.
>Tío Rico
Strictly speaking, "Rico" was the dubbed name. Thus "Rico McPato".
Make way for Flush Man!
Kermit the Frog was originally called La Rana Rene in Latinamerica (and Gustavo in Spain).
Eventually, they decided to make the name Kermit all over the world, so they even released a video of Kermit explaining the change.
In the brazilian dub he talks about how he was going to spell Kermit, but he coughed, so his name came out as Caco
Kek, they did the same video in spanish explaining he is not named "Rana Rene"
The old Hungarian releases of Spider-Man comics really like to take the piss with certain names, like Absorbing Man was Benyelő Benő (Benny Gulp-Up). His updated name, Szivacsember (Sponge Man) isn't a whole lot better. There was a whole fiasco when they dubbed a bunch of 90s and 2000s capeshit cartoons without looking at the the comics, so each character had like two, three or four different names because they didn't bother keeping them consistent. Most of these were carried over into the live action films, pissing off comic fans.
Wolverine for example is officially both Rozsomák (Wolverine) and Farkas (Wolf) that alternate depending on the movie/show/comic. But in one cartoon he was also called Pézsmapatkány (Musk Rat).
The Hungarian Transformers names are another shitshow, they kept changing them in like every comic, cartoon and movie with zero consistency. Devastator was called Pusztító (Destroyer), A Halálosztó (The Deathbringer) or just The Mega Robot in different translations. Hot Rod was called Fishing Rod in one dub. And Breakdown was named vibrator in the Marvel comics.
The latinamerican dub of G1 Transformers intially refered to the Autobots and Decepticons as Autorrobots and Deserticons. It also had some catastrophically bad mistranslations and the dubbers often adlibbed their lines rather than trying to follow the original script.
For what's worth, the voices were really good and some characters (Like Grimlock) sounded way better and intimidating on the dub, at least until the movie and season 3 came and turned him into a moron.
>The Hungarian Transformers names are another shitshow
Can't be worst than the japanese dub of Beast Machines making nightscream a blantant gay stereotype
The latinamerican G1 Transformers had a funny adlibbed scene where Kup claims that Blurr is the typical homosexual that is always present in a cartoon.
Holy shit, i thought it was subtle, but he just straight say "There always a homosexual in every tv show"
Season 3 was so fricking bad that not even the dubbers wanted to bother anymore so they adlibbed like half of every episode, in fact neither Optimus Prime and Starscream's dubbers came back for this season and so their returns sound like ass. (Optimus' dubber finally returned for the final episodes, though.)
There's also a funny scene on Grimlock's New Brain where Grimlock claims to be offended by the way everyone treat him, so he's going back to his mom's house.
During the movie he is kissed by a Junkian and he claims to hate kisses because he's very macho.
As dumb as that is, at least it's a deliberate creative choice that somebody thought would be entertaining. Whereas the Hungarian dubbers simply don't give a shit and release low effort trash full of mistakes, never keeping the translations consistent.
In the first dub of the '86 movie, the Decepticons are called Toads because of an obscure reference to an old German sci fi show where that was the name of the evil aliens. In the second dub, Unicron became Unicorn because the translator kept mishearing the name. Also Blurr is called Prowl or "Prole". And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
What old German sci-fi show?
Raumpatrouille Orion, also known as Space Patrol Orion. The aliens are actually called Frogs in the original but they're Toads in the Hungarian dub, which was carried over into the first TF'86 dub as the name of the Decepticons. They don't have anything in common apart from both being aliens.
Here's a lengthy dub comparison with the weird name changes. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/332889598
And here's the Orion show. https://youtu.be/ftDXbIDfce8
Yeah, now i'm intered on this one
The chilean dub of Garfield's old cartoon renamed Nermal as Thelma and refered as him as a girl.
If I remember correctly, this was because of a misunderstanding between Paws and Leonardo Cespedes productions, which was in charge of the dub.
For what's worth, Jim Davies crazy loved Garfield's chilean voice and often said that as far he was concerned, that was Garfield's true voice.
>For what's worth, Jim Davies crazy loved Garfield's chilean voice and often said that as far he was concerned, that was Garfield's true voice
I've read this many, many times. Do you have a source?
Not that I don't believe it, rather, I want to know if it is 100% true and not just some tall tale.
>Nermal as Thelma
That name only lasted for the first 2 seasons, afterwards, it returned to Nermal. The gender was somewhat ambiguous from the third season onwards, and mostly depended on who translated the script.
>Jon Bonachón
Fun fact: The Garfield Show was dubbed in Mexico, but Sandro returned recording his lines from Chile. They were originally calling the character Arbuckle, but Sandro kept switching it out of habit, so the directed just went along and made the permanent change there too.
US Acres was dubbed as "En La Granja" and now and then the dubbers included towns and locations from Chile whenever Orson and company talked about neighboring farms.
They also talked about Sabados Gigantes and Don Francisco.
Daisy Duck is known as Margarita in Argentina.
Does Argentina use a different translation from the other Hispanic countries? Because I'm from Peru and I don't remember her ever being called Margarita.
Margarita is a direct translation of "Daisy" aka the flower.
I am aware of that, I speak Spanish, that still doesn't answer my question.
In the Latin American dub of Garfeld and Friends, "Nermal" was changed to "Telma" (a female name) to make up for the gender change (he's female in the dub)
John Arbucle was renamed as John Bonachón in the chilean dub as well.
This wasn't the case for The Garfield Show luckily.
Cadpig - Goliath
Bloosom, Bubbles and Buttercup are BonBon, Burbuja and Bellota in the latinamercan PPG dub.
They are Pétalo, Burbuja and Cactus in the spainard dub.
I think that most dubs changed their names. The Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian and Italian dubs all changed their names to make them easier for non English speakers.
The latinamerican at least bothered to keep their names all starting with "B". (Bunny was also renamed as Bella.)
Not brazil
Kinda cursed.
I know this one is just a troll... but boy does it make me laugh...
Some toys refer to the Joker as "Charadas"
The Mexican comics refered to him as "El Comodín"
Shouldn't they just call him whatever is the commonly-accepted way to refer to the Joker in a deck of cards in a given country?
It's either "Comodín" or "Guasón", with the latter one used the most for Joker.
Though ever since the 1966 show he's been El Guasón in Latinoamerica and it's a very based name, just like Gatúbela which is Catwoman's.
>El Guasón
>Gatúbela
In my own head, I'm unable to not call them like that when talking about DC and shit in Spanish.
Funny enough, I switch "Bruce Wayne" and "Bruno Díaz" with each other so often, I can't truly say which one I use the most. I often use "Ricardo Tapia" on purpose because I've always find that localized name hilarious as frick.
oh yeah Bruno Díaz is a kino name, manages to sound very sophisticated, Ricardo Tapia sounds random as frick it's amazing it's survived this long mostly in Venezuelan dubs.
Forgot description: Jughead became Torombolo in Spanish.
>Mfw I remember that my teachers used to call me Torombolo because I was thin as a rail and was always eating or minding my own business instead of being a screeching moron like the rest of my classmates
It took me years to find an old Archie comic and finally discover why he used to call me like that.
Scooby Doo became Cowardly Crooper in Japan:
>Why are you such a coward,
>That's why everyone makes fun of you!
>Why are you so cowardly,
>That's why everyone's laughing at you!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>A disgrace to his canine friends!
>Once in a while, fight and do something good!
>Go, Go, Go Cowardly Crooper!
>Why are you such a coward,
>That's why everyone makes fun of you!
>Why are you so cowardly,
>Ghost stories make you shiver in fear!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>He holds everyone up for a delicious bone!
>Face the bad guys,
>Go, Go, Go Cowardly Crooper!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>Crooper the Cowardly pest!
>He holds everyone up for a delicious bone!
>Face the bad guys,
>Go, Go, Go Cowardly Crooper!
Latin America had a very strange way of adapting the names of the characters.
i mean, look at this shit
Stop spreading misinformation, only Homer and R2D2 are true.
Must be a seething Spaniard.
>Don Malvado
beautiful
The Beagle Boys were dubbed as Los Chicos Malos in LatAm, and as Los Golfos Apandadores in spain.
Huey, Dewey and Louie were Hugo, Paco and Luis in america and Jorgito, Jaimito and frick if I remember in spain.
>frick if I remember
Best name ever
A lot of Spanish examples, I love my language but boy sometimes they fail with translations.
Sometimes they hit the right spot like with Dick Dastardly, appropriately renamed Pierre Nodoyuna (Pierre I-always-fail) and made him French. Or how Penelope Pitstop was renamed Penélope Glamour, using an foreign word to adapt a foreign word.
Most examples come from Anime sadly.
>Most examples come from Anime sadly
Nah, localized names in anime was half the fun in those dubs. The problem was the turn of the centery when LatAm weaboos were upset the translation were not 100% accurate and made a deal out of it.
Nothing will ever top Carlos Guzmán (from Detective Conan) or Steve Hyuga (from Captain Tsubasa)
The problem is that they made a soup since they had access usually to several versions of one dub so they could choose whatever they wanted.
You should see Cat's Eye, they fricking replace Japanese names for some characters with other Japanese names. Shit's crazy. A policewoman joins the show later on and I shit you not, they show her actual Japanese name in English and then they handwave the name she gets in the dub as being her nickname.
Also after a few episodes the younger sister gets a VA change and she sounds deeper than the two older sisters.
>Carlos Guzmán
That change was done at request of TMS, just as it was done with other 90's animes like Magic Knight Rayearth, Virtua Figther and such.
Oh for Disney at the start they had names adapted
Mickey Mouse = Ratón Miguelito (literal translation)
Goofy = Tribilín (honestly literal translation)
Pete = Pedro
As far as I know Pluto and Donald got spared, although their names would be "Plutón" and "Donaldo" if we follow the others
I don't know but in the Finnish dub of Spongebob Squarepants when Spongebob is worrying about going to jail for the rancid patty, the line "they'll mop the floor with me" is dubbed as "what'll happen to me in the shower?"
How did they get away with that?
I just don't think anyone ever noticed, I'm probably the first person to even mention it online. I'm just glad our dad still let us watch it because he saw that with us and said "Maybe this isn't a kids' show after all"
You of all people should know, Satan.
Daphne from Scooby-Doo is called Diana in Hungary. When one of the movies featured someone named Diane, they changed this new character's name to Daphne.
amazing
The most Dumb name change I’ve heard in Danish was when they called Venom Krybet (The creep) and Carnage Splatter.
But simply calling Daredevil the Devil is cool.
Jughead was named Torombolo in the latinamerican dub.