Unpronounceable words in video games.
- A more Meta example, any MMO, or general Online game that allows you to make Characters/Accounts with letters with umlauts or tildes in and around the letter and trying to pronounce it properly.
- One of the game's in Capcom's 1942 series of Shoot Em Ups is called "19XX". So, is that "Nineteen Hundreds", "Nineteen ekks ekks", "Nineteen exty ekks," "19 variable variable", "Sometime in the 1900s", "Nineteen *coughcough*"...?
- Mr. Scratch, the Big Bad of Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Not because his name is too difficult to pronounce, but because you are actively prevented from pronouncing it. Whenever his name comes up in the manuscript pages, Alan's narration is Sound Effect Bleeped with a burst of white noise.
- Angband has a unique quylthulg named Qlzqqlzuup.
- In Assassin's Creed III, the main character is given the name Connor by his mentor because he finds the name Ratohnhaké:ton way too troublesome to pronounce as well as to better blend into colonial society. Similarly, Connor's mother will tell others with trouble pronouncing her name to just call her Ziio.
- Bayonetta: The real name of the Dea of Paradiso is not "Jubileus". That's just a name given by her worshippers because her real name is filled with divine syllables and is outright unpronounceable.
- One of the unlockable characters in The Binding of Isaac is named ???.
- Black★Rock Shooter The Game: Some of the Apostles subvert this with four-(Latin-)letter names that look unpronounceable in English (and probably don't get any more points in Japanese), but have legible pronunciations used in dialogue. Others have names whose pronunciation just doesn't line up with how they're spelled. The game helpfully solves both problems by subtitling their names with the proper pronunciations in angle brackets: MEFE <Mii>, MZMA <Mazuma>, SZZU <Shizu>, CKRY <Karli>, XNFE <Nafe>, LLWO <Lilio>, and SAHA <Zaha>
- The Formless Oedon in Bloodborne is one, unlike most Great Ones in-universe which their names can be pronounced (such as Amygdala and Ebrietas), Oedon's real name is not pronounceable, the closest pronunciation people can come up with is "Oedon". Kos (or some says Kosm) could have been qualified if not for the name is confirmed as "Kos" in The Old Hunter DLC.
- Equals symbols are basically equivalent to showy hyphens in Japanese, this trope only kicks into effect for non-Japanese audiences:
- Dragons in games based on Dungeons & Dragons seem to often have very long, Punctuation Shaker names. Frequently they get a much, much shorter name that are probably something they picked up to make communication easier.
- Baldur's Gate had Thaxll'ssylia and Nizidramanii'yt.
- Neverwinter Nights featured Akulastraxas and the Guardian White Dragon, or Ma'fel'no'sei'kedeh'naar.
- The sequel added Nolalothcaragascint. This might be a subversion as it's pronounced exactly the way it's written: NO-la-loth-care-uh-GAS-kint. It's still long, though, so most characters shorten it to Nolaloth.
- Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon has the weapon manufacturer Qhrqwhqhr.
- The Elder Scrolls
- The Psijic Order, the series' resident Omniscient Council of Vagueness Magical Society which sometimes steps in to protect the world from threats it is not ready to handle, originally had the name "PSJJJJ", which is deliberately unpronounceable. "Psijic" is merely a phonetic transcription of non-Psijic's attempts to pronounce it, which seems to have been adopted by the Psijics themselves, at least when speaking to non-Psijics.
- "Ayalea", a Nymph from the Daggerfall in-game book A Scholar's Guide to Nymphs is, the author admits, merely "a poor phonetic transcription" of her real name, which is "a word that sounds more like a light wind blowing through a small crack in a hollow chamber."
- Dreugh, a race of aquatic humanoid octopi, tend to have names like this along with the use of a Punctuation Shaker. Known Dreugh names include Zizzikkiz'Tk and Kra'gh, as well as Dreugh place names like Mor-Galg and Djaf.
- In EverQuest there are almost too many to count. Examples include Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar (nicknamed Lord Bob), Iqthinxa Karnkvi (Zoo), and Zun`Muram Kvxe Pirik.
- the expansionGates Of Discord has a bunch of zones with names that look like Scrabble leftovers, such as Vxed, Qvic, Txevu, Riwwi, and Yxtta. Even worse are the NPC names: how the hell are you supposed to pronounce "Zun`Muram Kvxe Pirik" or "Tunat`Muram Cuu Vauax?" This, (among many other things), is a big part of why Gates is almost universally regarded as the worst Expansion Pack.
- One area in Final Fantasy XI is named the Temple of Uggalepih, sometimes referred to by fans as the Temple of Unpronounceable. Also, the area simply known as Pso'Xja.
- FFXI uses tab to complete words for auto-translation. Various hard to spell/remember or hard to pronounce things are often shortened by writing out the "tab". For instance, a body armour called Pahluwan Khazagand simply being referred to as "Pahltab body".
- Fire Emblem:
- Fae of [[Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is only called that because the rest of her name is formed of syllables that humans are physically incapable of saying or hearing!
- In the Japanese version of Fire Emblem: Awakening, Nah's name is ンン (Nn). The symbol it's spelled with is the only Japanese symbol to be a consonant without a vowel, and can never begin a syllable, much less a word. She herself even knows how weird her name is.
- Five Nights at Freddy's 2, one animatronic is named 'RWQFSFASXC'. If you want to pronounce that, you'll need a lot of extrapolation and silent consonants.note
- In Granblue Fantasy, Zooey's actual name isn't properly pronounceable by humanoid vocal chords. However, she dislikes being called Grand Order, and when meeting the party eventually hits on "Zooey" as a compromise for a name, being a series of sounds reasonably close to part of her proper name.
- Guild Wars has a few, including Qwytzylkak and Yxthoshth.
- The Time Patrol Agent in Hourglass of Summer has a long unpronounceable name, so she always goes by "Lee Jane".
- The gnome in King's Quest I who asks the player to guess his name, which turns out to be Ifnkovhgroghprm.
- Marathon Infinity features an evil and incomprehensible being called the W'rkncacnter. Marathon in general really had fun with this: we also have the S'pht, and their long-lost brothers, the S'pht'Kr. The species used to live on Lh'owon, and may have been engineered by the Jjaro...
- In Mega Man Star Force, Geo's wave alien pal Omega-Xis tells him to call him "Mega" instead since "humans get it all wrong."
- Say the X like an S.
- Used for drama for the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo in the Metal Gear Solid series is a Japanese attempt at this, as the lack of an L sound in Japanese (the source of the infamous "Ls replaced with Rs" stereotype of Asians) makes their name essentially unpronounceable in Japanese.
- Network Adventure Bugsite, a lesser-known Mon game, has an entire evolution family of these: ***@, ***#, ***♪, and ***★. Keeping in mind that all the Bugs have computer-related names, the intention may have been for their names to resemble passwords.
- The random seed nature of the dimensions results (at least in the English version) in One Way Heroics place names often being odd, vowel-less globs of consonants. One of the random prologues even lampshades the situation.
- In Paint!!! the person who hires the main character and their inept crew of painters is named Mr. Ostinolypakalopodopous. After several attempts at pronouncing it the main character decides to call him "sir".
- Meanwhile in Planescape: Torment, also based on Dungeons & Dragons, you can meet a guy in a bar whose name is the letter "O". Not an iteration of the letter "O" like the one on your screen, but the concept of the letter "O". If you convince him to say it, you have a transcendent experience and gain a permanent boost to wisdom.
- In Pokémon, several glitches' names are a mess of miscellaneous symbols and boxes.
- In Pokémon Gold and Silver, your rival introduces himself by saying, "My name is ???", before kicking you out of his way. It’s generally accepted that his real name is Silver, which was used in a few adaptations and canonized in Pokémon Masters.
- RuneScape has the Stalkers. Hilarity Ensues from attempts to pronounce names like Lakhrahnaz, Khighorahk, Ihlakhizan and Haasghenahk. At least the last one, Shukarhazh, is a bit more pronounceable, but mostly limited to people who speak languages that are pronounced exactly as they are spelled (Finnish, Latin etc.). Much amusement can also be had with the inevitable guttural sounds involved in such K-heavy names.
- In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, whenever someone speaks YHVH's name, it's garbled in the voice acting.
- One of the alien races in Star Control is named the Mmrnmhrm. The third Star Control game introduces the Daktaklakpak, whose full name is an insanely long equation. This also applies to the Eternal Ones, whose name in every language is a far longer equation beginning with ∞1.
- Super Mario RPG. A member of the Powers That Be takes interest in Mario and company. He introduces himself as "♡♪!?" (or, in the Japanese version, a bunch of weird symbols
◊), but admits that it may be too difficult for mortals to pronounce, so they should just call him "Geno", the name of the wooden doll he is using as a vessel. - In The Talos Principle, you can read QR codes left by a bot named %§&$§/$&(#().
- Nrvnqsr Chaos from Tsukihime. Someone needed to buy that vampire some vowels. note
- This is lampooned in Carnival Phantasm, where Nrvnqsr actually pronounces his name successfuly (relatively speaking; he simply calls himself Nero Chaos), but when he is instead asked to spell it....
- For that matter, Trhvmn Ortenrosse. Having vowel-less names seems to be trend among the elder vampires.
- Final Fantasy XII has the Viera Mjrn (pronounced in-game as something like "me-ern"), Krjn, Ktjn, and Jote (pronounced "yo-tay").
- Viera apparently write Y sounds as Js. Hardly unpronouncable, just Scandanavian. (Thor's hammer is pronounced mee-YOLL-neer, by way of comparison.)
- In World of Warcraft, most players will not know how to pronounce C'thun or R'khem without reading their article in the wiki.
- Murlocs speak in some weird language that consists of MRRGLE sounding things, however, when you learn their language in an area of Borean Tundra, you can understand them, but they have the same overly long, hard-to-pronounce names.
- The Murloc language, also shared by the lobster-like Makrura, is called Nerglish. It's one of the few languages that there are no real translations for at all. Some of them have completely unpronounceable names, such as Mmmrrrggglll.
- Murlocs speak in some weird language that consists of MRRGLE sounding things, however, when you learn their language in an area of Borean Tundra, you can understand them, but they have the same overly long, hard-to-pronounce names.
- The name of the Boron race in the X-Universe series is a human invention that has no relation whatsoever to what the species calls itself. This is mainly because the Boron are Starfish Aliens whose language consists mainly of clicks and pheromones. Likewise humans do not have the vocal structures necessary to reproduce Paranid words. The Split are a lesser example; humans can learn the spoken language but not the sign language that complements it, since we don't have six digits on each hand.
- In Yume Nikki, Uboa's name, in katakana, is "ウボァ." In Japanese, the "ボァ" sound (romanized as "boa" or "Ubwa") normally does not exist, which makes him all the scarier.
- This is also what the Emperor cries out when he is killed. Of course, in this instance, it is hilarious and more than a little narmy.
- Them's Fightin' Herds has Fhtng Th§ ¿nsp§kbl, a demon whom the unicorn Oleander can summon from a magic book. As she can't pronounce Fhtng's name either, she refers to him as "Fred".
- A late-game boss in Library of Ruina, Distorted Yan has its name rendered into gibberish in Korean (enlxmfflsdis), English (얀샋ㄷ요무), Mandarin Chinese (rnfgmadbjg), and Japanese (,D@;Q 7 Y) depending on which language the player is using. However, each name is a cipher based on typing one language on another's keyboard, all of which translate into its true name.
- Undertale gives us the joke word giasfclfebrehber.
