History Main / IncidentalMultilingualWordplay

* In ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'', a wacky armadillo boss is named Sillydillo. Both the Latin American and Castilian Spanish translations were coincidentally able to translate this as "Armadiloco", a pun on "armadillo" and "loco" (crazy) that works even better than the original name.

*** The sprite for the Gambler Trainer Class is a man wearing a red longcoat and fedora hat, making them look a lot like a stereotypical detective. [[{{Bowdlerise}} The English translators took note of this and changed the class to P.I., as in Private Investigator]], but the fact that they're still flipping a coin and their dialogue and leitmotif was left completely unaltered (they talk a lot about chance and luck) still makes the translation fairly obvious.

** Mario and his PaletteSwap twin brother were both named by Nintendo of America, They named the twin brother Luigi, an equally common Italian name. In Japanese, this is rendered as ルイージ (ruiji), a Japanese word that means "similar", or "to resemble", leading to some serendipitous wordplay.

* Similarly, the part in ''Film/ManOnFire'' where Pita asks Creasy the name of his last girlfriend and he answers "Notyou"[[note]]"Notyou?" "Notyourbusiness"[[/note]] was translated in Spanish as "Queti" (pronounced Katy).[[note]]"Queti?" "Quet(e)importa?" -- literally "What's in it for you?", but equivalent to "Not your business".[[/note]]

* In an episode of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'', main character Suletta makes a joke where she explains she forgot about something by saying "Suletta wasureta"--''wasureta'' means "to forget", and rhymes with her own name. As luck would have it, her name is one syllable away from rhyming with the English word "forget" already, so the translated version could just say "Suletta forgetta" and completely maintain the joke.

** In an episode, Sheldon and Leonard play ''TabletopGame/{{Pictionary}}'' against Penny and Amy. One of the words is "polish" (as in nail polish), but Sheldon misinterprets it as "Polish" (as in the nationality), and begins to draw lots of Polish things, confusing Leonard. Penny then draws a simple image of nail polish and Amy gets it immediately. This is one of those jokes that is especially hard to translate because it still has to conform to the images onscreen. Fortunately in Spanish "Polish" and "polish" are ''polaca'' and ''laca (de uñas)'', respectively, and Penny's clarification to Sheldon ("It's ''polish''. Small ''p''.") becomes "Es ''laca'', sin ''po''." ("it's ''laca'', without ''po''."). A previous round was based on a similar confusion between "present" (the current time) and "present" (a gift), a dual meaning which also exists in Romance languages (though it's more common to just use those languages' respective words for "gift").

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'', Mr Krabs says to [=SpongeBob=] "You're just a kid, and to be a manager, you have to be a man. Otherwise they'd call it ''kidager''". This works just as well in German, where the words for "manager" and "man" are the same as in English (though "man" is spelled "Mann").

* 'In 'WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'', Mr Krabs says to [=SpongeBob=] "You're just a kid, and to be a manager, you have to be a man. Otherwise they'd call it ''kidager''". This works just as well in German, where the words for "manager" and "man" are the same as in English (though "man" is spelled "Mann").

* In ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'', a wacky armadillo boss is named Sillydillo. The Spanish version was coincidentally able to translate this as "Armadiloco", a pun on "armadillo" and "loco" (crazy) that works even better than the original name.

* ''WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker'': In one of the shorts, a drowning man asks for someone to give him a '''b'''oat, but someone mishears him and throws him a '''g'''oat, prompting him to say "I said boat, not goat!" In the Brazilian dub, the wordplay works just as perfectly, with the man asking for a "bote" (boat) and being given a "bode" (goat).

** In the Brazilian dub, the sloth [[IronicName Flash]] is renamed 'Flecha', meaning "arrow", retaining both the sound and the connotation of speed. Interestingly, he shares this name with Dash Parr from ''Franchise/TheIncredibles'' in the same dub, which makes it rather funny when the two characters have a friendship in the[[VideoGame/DisneyHeroesBattleMode Disney Heroes mobile game]].

** In the French dub, the scene where Judy pulls a hustle on Nick got an hilarious upgrade: after saying that it was a "carrot" (understand like a "[[MotivationOnAStick Carrot on a Stick]]", reinforced by her showing the carrot-shaped microphone), Finnick bursts out in laughter, mocking Nick for having been "carroted" which in French, means being the victim of a scam.

* "Pochi" is a common name for dogs in Japan. It lines up very well with the also-common "Poochie/Poochy" in the English-speaking world (for instance, in the name of [[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi's]] canine companion.

* One reason why Kit Kats are [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff very popular in Japan]] is because they are pronounced as "kitto katto", which sounds similar to "''kitto katsu''", meaning "you will surely win".

** Erika was also one of the only characters to ''not'' have a DubNameChange, because it turns out that her name is ''also'' a western name. In fact "Erika" is actually an anglicised version of an old norse name, while English speakers may have been more familiar with the spelling [[InconsistentSpelling "Erica"]] with a C.

** In his first appearance in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogTripleTrouble'', Fang the Hunter was originally renamed "Nack the Weasel" in non-Japanese territories. While none of his titles across the series' history refer to his species (he's a jerboa), "Weasel" can also be used to refer to a devious person, preserving the antagonism in his name.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' has the Imperial Steam Tank -- a [[SteamPunk steam-powered]] battle tank created by the engineers of the Empire -- a nation based heavily on Renaissance Germany and with no small nod to the stereotypical Prussian militarism of the early 20th century. In German it is called, as one might expect, ein Dampfpanzer ("steam tank"), which also serves as a very Warhammer-ish pun on the classic Kampfpanzer ("battle tank").
** In a few instances, the game lore depicts the Skaven, a race of [[MadScientist mad science]]-driven ratmen, as using a telecommunication device called a "farsqueaker". The literal Polish translation is ''dalekopisk''... which is also a hilarious pun on ''dalekopis'', an antiquated name for a telegraph.

** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E6TreehouseOfHorrorV Treehouse of Horror V]]": In "The Shinning" (a parody of ''Film/TheShining'') Homer writes "No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy" on the walls. The Latin American Spanish dub translated it to "Sin televisión y sin cerveza Homero pierde la cabeza", making a good rhyme while conveying the same thing. The European Spanish dub's version is "Sin tele y sin cerveza, Homer pierde la cabeza", which is exactly the same minus the lack of a DubNameChange for Homer and the shortening of the word "televisión".

* In the Latin American Spanish dub of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse,'' Pink Diamond's name is changed to "Diamante Rosa", which is a correct translation that [[spoiler:adds an extra layer of foreshadowing to the revelation that she was Rose Quartz all along]].

* When the later ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' movies started playing up Godzilla as a god of destruction, no translation was needed for the English versions, since "God" is already in his name.

[[caption-width-right:350:Image courtesy of Tropers/{{Xenothekid}}]]