Games titles that sound funny in your native language

[justiceiro]

So, in my country, there are dozen of jokes centered around the sound a certain game titles does when pronnounced in my native language, without context.

There is:

That literaly mean "I farted" in portuguese.

Another classic is halo, that means "drain", so...

Any of your own?

 

[Delphine]

Payday sounds like a homophobic slur in French, so that's hella awkward to talk about it at times. I make sure to use the English pronunciation but even then, that makes such a slight difference from the French one, that people could still be looking at you weirdly.

 

[Lant_War]

Gran Turismo is indeed not a game about some great vacations

 

[nsilvias]

persona = person

 

[Phamit]

Pokkén kinda sounds like german word for Smallpox, probably the reason why it's called Pokémon Tekken here instead. Well I hope this was the reason, because it's pretty funny.

 

[pagrab]

Halo is "hello?" in Polish. It can also be used in a phrase "wielkie halo" which translates to "big deal" (used ironically).

Also - not a title, but "kupa" means "shit" in Polish and it always cracks me up.

 

[saenima]

Save 80% on Kona on Steam

Northern Canada, 1970. A strange blizzard ravages Atamipek Lake. Step into the shoes of a detective to explore the eerie village, investigate surreal events, and battle the elements to survive. Kona is a chilly interactive tale you won't soon forget.

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It's literally cunt in portuguese.

 

[Chackan]

So, in my country, there are dozen of jokes centered around the sound a certain game titles does when pronnounced in my native language, without context.

There is:

That literaly mean "I farted" in portuguese.

Another classic is halo, that means "drain", so...

Any of your own?

Click to shrink...

Man, I never read the title "Payday" as "peidei" lol

In my head is always "dia do receber dinheiro" :P

Save 80% on Kona on Steam

Northern Canada, 1970. A strange blizzard ravages Atamipek Lake. Step into the shoes of a detective to explore the eerie village, investigate surreal events, and battle the elements to survive. Kona is a chilly interactive tale you won't soon forget.

store.steampowered.com

It's literally cunt in portuguese.

Click to shrink...

Yep lol this one is really something!

 

[toilet_sandpaper]

When The Legacy of Goku launched for the GBA my teenager me made some jokes with "delegacia" of Goku (Goku's Police Station)

 

[KernelC]

colombian upcoming game Cris Tales isn't funny in spanish but it's super awkward to say. Since crystals in spanish is cristales, the word olay between Tales and Cristals doesn't translate smoothly.

Not a game but Ghibli's Laputa Castle in the Sky in spanish it's TheWhore Castle in the Sky

 

[Jakenbakin]

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage

But then again they probably sounds less absurd if you don't speak English.

 

[McNum]

Halo 3: ODST

ODST said fast will pronounced the same way as cheese (Ost) in Danish. And, of course, now that I know it, it is how it's pronounced in my mind whenever I see it.

They might be orbital drop shock troopers or whatever, but to me, they're cheese.

 

[Katarn343]

Many Hispanic people pronounce Halo as "jalo", which crudely translates to "I pull", so you can imagine the jokes around that.

If you understand this, I'm sorry. I just had to put an example.

 

[ThorHammerstein]

Not a game but Ghibli's Laputa Castle in the Sky in spanish it's TheWhore Castle in the Sky

Click to shrink...

I too genuinely wondered what that movie was about.
Oh, and the car also called Laputa as well. Whores on wheels I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Does anyone know what language Laputa actually comes from? Cuz what were Ghibli and Mazda(?) going for when naming them?

 

[Firebrand]

I don't know about funny, but Swedish:

Gris = "pig"
Super Mario = "is Mario boozing?"

 

[justiceiro]

When The Legacy of Goku launched for the GBA my teenager me made some jokes with "delegacia" of Goku (Goku's Police Station)

Click to shrink...

Lol

Many Hispanic people pronounce Halo as "jalo", which crudely translates to "I pull", so you can imagine the jokes around that.

If you understand this, I'm sorry. I just had to put an example.

Click to shrink...

Nice.

 

[ZiZ]

Knack

In arabic it means "he fucked" or the past tense of the verb to fuck.

When they localized Knack 2 they changed it to شاطر (Shatter) which can be used in a similar way to the phrase "good boy". It can also mean "one who splits something" which works well with knack who is a good boy and can split himself into lots of little pieces.

 

[Sorel]

Payday sounds like a homophobic slur in French, so that's hella awkward to talk about it at times. I make sure to use the English pronunciation but even then, that makes such a slight difference from the French one, that people could still be looking at you weirdly.

Click to shrink...

Yeah... made it hard to recommend honestly.

 

[EvilSmurfKing]

I live in Brazil, and I know a bunch of guys in Paraguay that calls Call of Duty as CARLOS DUTY

 

[Clown_im_OP]

This is something I can't wrap my head around:

"FUT" (short for FIFA Ultimate Team everywhere in the world) is a very derogatery term for "vagina" in parts of southern Germany but especially in Austria. Think "cunt". Especially in the latter this is immediately the first association someone has when hearing that term, and messages with "Happy FUTmas", "Happy FUT Anniversary" (which were all real headlines on the Playstation store for example) and so on have brought me and my friends lots of joy, even that pic up there makes me chuckle. And we don't even play FIFA.
How no one at EA Germany or Austria - if that even exists - ever thought "Hm, maybe we should just call those FIFA Points around here" is beyond me.

 

[Clown_im_OP]

Sorry, double post

 

[Deleted member 274]

Anno sounds exactly like the word Ano which in spanish is the direct translation of Anus

 

[Voyevoda]

So, in my country, there are dozen of jokes centered around the sound a certain game titles does when pronnounced in my native language, without context.

There is:

That literaly mean "I farted" in portuguese.

Click to shrink...

In French, Payday sounds like a homophobic insult.
However, P.T sounds like "fart" (péter).

Which is why I always pronoune it in English, when I talk to French people about this wonderful game. (saying it in French would sound ridiculous when I'm trying to tell how good it is)

 

[Tunesmith]

Super Mario = "is Mario boozing?"

Click to shrink...

I've quite frankly never read the games' titles as a question like that so never made that connection. But true enough!😁

Another one in Swedish, especially if you're from the west coast:

Title itself means taking a shit, the subtitle just adds narrative.

 

[Deleted member 543]

I too genuinely wondered what that movie was about.
Oh, and the car also called Laputa as well. Whores on wheels I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Does anyone know what language Laputa actually comes from? Cuz what were Ghibli and Mazda(?) going for when naming them?

Click to shrink...

The Ghibli film is a reference to the flying island in Gulliver's Travels. In the novel, Laputa is meant to represent Great Britain and it's likely Swift was intentionally calling it a whore. Unfortunately Ghibli didn't realise that when they took the name for their own flying island.

I imagine Mazda just took the name from Ghibli.

 

[ThorHammerstein]

The Ghibli film is a reference to the flying island in Gulliver's Travels. In the novel, Laputa is meant to represent Great Britain and it's likely Swift was intentionally calling it a whore. Unfortunately Ghibli didn't realise that when they took the name for their own flying island.

I imagine Mazda just took the name from Ghibli.

Click to shrink...

Pretty cool. Didn't remember that from the story. Thx :)

 

[Schlauchkopf]

This is something I can't wrap my head around:

"FUT" (short for FIFA Ultimate Team everywhere in the world) is a very derogatery term for "vagina" in parts of southern Germany but especially in Austria. Think "cunt". Especially in the latter this is immediately the first association someone has when hearing that term, and messages with "Happy FUTmas", "Happy FUT Anniversary" (which were all real headlines on the Playstation store for example) and so on have brought me and my friends lots of joy, even that pic up there makes me chuckle. And we don't even play FIFA.
How no one at EA Germany or Austria - if that even exists - ever thought "Hm, maybe we should just call those FIFA Points around here" is beyond me.

Click to shrink...

I'm german and never heard that word and there doesn't seem to be an EA Austria so there you go...no-one here understands weird austrian slang!

 

[Bold One]

 

[Deleted member 8593]

Knack

In arabic it means "he fucked" or the past tense of the verb to fuck.

When they localized Knack 2 they changed it to شاطر (Shatter) which can be used in a similar way to the phrase "good boy". It can also mean "one who splits something" which works well with knack who is a good boy and can split himself into lots of little pieces.

Click to shrink...

Works perfectly in so many ways because Knack definitely fucks.

 

[TeddyShardik]

This is kind of a reach but "Nier" is just one letter (another e at the end) from the German word for kidney.

And, in the wider area around cologne you could just pronounce it as is. :P

Knack

In arabic it means "he fucked" or the past tense of the verb to fuck.

When they localized Knack 2 they changed it to شاطر (Shatter) which can be used in a similar way to the phrase "good boy". It can also mean "one who splits something" which works well with knack who is a good boy and can split himself into lots of little pieces.

Click to shrink...

This is a bit funny to me, because "knack" is an onomatopoeia (as pronounced in German of course) for something shattering or breaking in half.

 

[KKHN]

Gran Turismo is indeed not a game about some great vacations

Click to shrink...

It's a different case, the term "Gran Turismo" was related to the automotive world even before Polyphony games.

 

[Clown_im_OP]

I'm german and never heard that word and there doesn't seem to be an EA Austria so there you go...no-one here understands weird austrian slang!

Click to shrink...

Yeah it's definitely more of an Austrian thing. One friend of mine from Munich knows it (or about it, as an Austrian word), other people from farther north have never heard it.
It's our own little Austrian thing that we can laugh at EA about I guess :>

 

[Giever]

EDIT: Never mind, beaten. :(

 

[Deleted member 11479]

Kakarot = kakarott = poop rat

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

Kakarot = kakarott = poop rat

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Kakarot = Caca rote = poop burp/belch in french

 

[Last_colossi]

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lmao, ok this is amazing.

 

[ActWan]

"Metal Gear" in Hebrew basically means "I love chalk".

 

[Deleted member 35653]

'Dark' is very similar to the world 'darkë', which means dinner in Albanian.

 

[Xiaomi]

I imagine German reactions to "Myst" are pretty funny (mist means "crap" or "manure").

In Taiwanese Mandarin, Pokemon is translated as "magical babies," which isn't really a translation quirk so much as just a funny thing to call it in my mind.

 

[Deleted member 5725]

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How is this possible on Nintendo platform lol?

 

[toilet_sandpaper]

Not exactly game related (well, there are games where he is a character, and when they localized those games they went with the Brazilian version), but Count Dooku from Star Wars had its name changed to Count Dookan in Brazil, because it sounded like Count of the Asshole.

I used to play a lot of Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds - that Age of Empires II with a Star Wars skin - in portuguese, and when I discovered his original name I had some laughs.

 

[Spyware]

Kukui
I still can't say the name of this free game and the Pokémon SuMo professor the way it is meant to be pronounced. It's "Ku-ku-i" or something?
I think of it as "kuk-UI", because kuk is pretty much the penis equivalent of "cunt" in Swedish. (Is there a word as harsh as cunt for the male genitalia in english? I can't think of one.)

But yeah. Pretty much "dick UI".

 

[Santerestil]

"Gatto" means cat in Italian.

...and if I think about it, the title is pronunced almost as "fregato" - as in screwed or tricked.

 

[Thagirion]

persona = person

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In Spanish yes
In Portuguese persona is persona like the original intent of the word

 

[Last Jon Standing]

Not exactly game related (well, there are games where he is a character, and when they localized those games they went with the Brazilian version), but Count Dooku from Star Wars had its name changed to Count Dookan in Brazil, because it sounded like Count of the Asshole.

Click to shrink...

The same thing happened to Captain Panaka, who was renamed Panás in Brazil. In Brazilian Portuguese, "panaca" means something like douchebag.

 

[Deleted member 53692]

Payday sounds like a homophobic slur in French, so that's hella awkward to talk about it at times. I make sure to use the English pronunciation but even then, that makes such a slight difference from the French one, that people could still be looking at you weirdly.

Click to shrink...

I like the game but hate the title for that reason, I can't talk about it publicly without having to make sure everything is heard correctly. Really a bad name.

 

[Tempy]

Anything with "Director's Cut" in it sounds a bit naughty in Dutch because "cut" sounds like "kut" which is a vulgar slang for vagina.

 

[BlackRainbowFT]

Not really a game title... but I remember my grandfather giving me the side-eye when I said that my Nintendo 64 was called "64" because it had 64 "mega dicks" (bitte, pronounced exactly like the word bit, means dick).

 

[Shopolic]

Ni no Kuni
Kun (Koon) means ass in Farsi and Kuni is a curse word!

Also Kos means vagina here. So this part of Bloodborne was really funny for me!




Ahh, Kos...

 

[Leplutorius]

Princess Peach always made me chuckle.

"Peach" is pronounced roughly like "picz" in Polish.

"Picz" is a slang term for vagina.

Yeah...