The Pokémon Company has issued an important clarification to address common mispronunciations of certain pokémon, including Rayquaza and Kingambit.
It may have started with only 151 pocket monsters, when Pokémon Red and Green launched in 1996 (Blue was later), but there are now 1,025 pokémon in total across nine generations of mainline games.
Some of those have become household names, like Pikachu and Eevee, but others have been cast into obscurity because they’re, quite honestly, pretty dumb. If you’re buying a plushie of Klefki or Trubbish, please consult your nearest doctor.
Beyond their designs, the sheer amount of pokémon has led to increasingly convoluted names, most of which are rarely ever said aloud because there’s no voice acting in the games.
That means, if it isn’t said in the anime series or elsewhere, people are largely left to interpret them as they see fit.
How to pronounce Pokémon names
This lack of clarity in Pokémon pronunciations bubbled over at this year’s Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, California. At the event, a noticeboard was beamed across the halls to tell attendees: it’s ray-kway-zuh, not ray-kwah-zuh.
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A few days after the event, The Pokémon Company issued corrections on several other Pokémon beyond Rayquaza, causing pandemonium among Pokémon diehards.
The other pokémon in question were Illumise (pronounced ee-loom-mee-zay, French style), Drapion (drap-ee-on), and Kingambit (kihn-gam-bit).
The most baffling is perhaps Farigiraff (fuh-rig-uh-raff), which appears to abandon all its clear ties to the pronunciation of ‘giraffe’.
‘This makes no sense,’ one X user wrote in response. ‘It’s a GIRAFFE.’ Another, shaken to the core, simply added: ‘This will always p*** me off.’
If you want a list of how to pronounce every pokémon, from eec-kins to sin-da-kwill, there is a comprehensive guide on fan site Serebii.net to get angry over.
While The Pokémon Company is yet to announce the next batch of monsters for generation 10, it recently revealed a new mega evolution for Victreebel (vick-tree-bell) set to debut in Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
The upcoming title is a sequel to 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus and takes place in the Paris-inspired Lumiose City from Pokémon X and Y. It features revised real-time battle mechanics, along with a new multiplayer battle mode between four players.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is set to launch October 16, 2025 across Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
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