Funny Pun Play With My Dragon Balls
At the core of things, Dragon Ball started out as more of a comedy series than a hardcore action series. As things went on, the characters leaned more into action than they did humor, but the roots of Dragon Ball's comedy can still be seen far into Dragon Ball Z.
This is why it's not particularly surprising to see so many characters named after literal food. Akira Toriyama prefers doing gag manga, which is why everything before or since Dragon Ball Z has leaned into comedy. Even Dragon Ball Super has strong comedic elements, which seems to be why Toriyama is more comfortable doing outlines for the work these days. How many characters have fans noticed with names which were actually jokes?
11 Kakarot Refers To Carrot
As every Dragon Ball fan knows, Kakarot's Earth name is "Goku." That's what the cast knows him as for most of the series, starting with Dragon Ball. Son Goku is a reference to the character Sun Wukong from Journey to the West, with "Goku" being a different way of reading Wukong. Much of Dragon Ball's beginnings are owed to Journey to the West, though much of these references are done after the first arc. As for Goku's name "Kakarot," it's a permutation for carrot, which is yet another vegetable name to fit in with all of the other Saiyans.
10 Gohan's Name Means Meal
When speaking about Goku's son, Gohan might not seem like such a punny name to people watching outside of Japan, but the character's name can actually mean "rice" in Japanese. More frequently though, it means "meal," and can be paired with different prefixes to explain what meal it is. "Asagohan" means "breakfast" while "bangohan" means dinner, as "asa" means "morning" and "ban" means "night" in Japanese.
9 Vegeta Is Short For Vegetable
The son of King Vegeta, the Prince of All Saiyans has probably one of the most obvious pun names in Dragon Ball Z. The character's name is just a shortened version of vegetables, which is actually pretty common for most Saiyan names which tend to be some type of a vegetable. This makes even more sense considering the planet's name was Vegeta, meaning anyone from the vegetable planet should probably be named after them.
8 Pan Might Mean A Kitchen Utensil, But It Also Means Bread
The first child of Gohan and Videl, Pan would go on to become a major part of Dragon Ball GT... even though the show never allowed her to go Super Saiyan for some reason. The character is still a baby in Dragon Ball Super, and it'll likely be some time before fans get to see her as an adult. Pan also has a food-based name, which actually means "bread," making her a major staple food much like her father!
7 Babidi Teams Up With Bibidi & Majin Buu To Make A Spell
Babidi is the magician responsible for unleashing the evil monster known as Majin Buu onto Earth. The character played an important role in the first half of the Buu Saga, using his Majin tattoo to power characters up, until he awoke Buu who eventually turned on him. As for his name, it's part of a magical incantation that's made up of his name, his father's name Bibidi, and their "creation's" name Buu. It comes directly from the animated movie Cinderella, which is one way American culture influenced arguably the most popular anime of all time.
6 Cooler Teams Up With His Family To Continue The Storage Puns
Cooler was introduced to the series in the Dragon Ball Z films, specifically in the movie "Cooler's Revenge." Since the name is pronounced "Kura" in Japanese, it comes from a specific Japanese phrase known as "Meshi Demo Kura," which specifically means "Let's chow down."
However, English localizers realized this wouldn't translate to non-Japanese audiences, and more importantly broke from the other names with King Cold and Frieza. Changed to Cooler, the character maintains his tie to the rest of their family.
5 Tarble's Name Combines With Vegeta's
The other son of King Vegeta, and Vegeta's younger brother. Unfortunately, none of the Saiyan blood that normally burns so bright inside of Vegeta and Goku seems to exist in Tarble. The character isn't much of a fighter at all, and would much prefer living in peace. Interestingly, the obvious pun in his name is "Table," which means he isn't one of the usual puns for Saiyan characters. But when fused with Vegeta's name, it becomes the full word for "vegetables."
4 Master Roshi's Name Literally Describes Who He Is
It can be easy to look at Roshi's name and think he's one of the only characters who doesn't have a name based on some sort of pun. But no, Master Roshi's name in Japan is Kame Sennin, which translates to Turtle Hermit, roughly. Kame means Turtle and Sennin can mean a lot of things, but usually, they're legendary beings who boast long lives. His name directly explains exactly who he is.
3 Bulma & The Briefs Family Describe Underclothes
Bulma's name is something that most people wouldn't catch, but her entire family's name is based on underwear. Bulma is pronounced "buruma" in Japanese and means bloomers, while her son is named Trunks. Her daughter is named "Bulla" which is another way of saying bra. Even Bulma's older sister is named Tights. And to be clear, their last name is "Briefs," so apparently they all got into the naming gag after a while.
2 Emperor Pilaf Has A Name That Might Make People Hungry
The original villain of Dragon Ball, Emperor Silaf was a character who eventually turned into a joke after his first attempt at ruling the world fell through. Something about Oolong having the power to wish for literally anything and choosing a pair of soft underwear must've broken the guy.
But Emperor Pilaf should sound familiar—pilaf rice is a popular rice dish. His partners Shu and Mai form the word "shumai," which is a form of Chinese dumpling.
1 Piccolo & His Family Certainly Enjoyed Their Instruments
Piccolo gets his name from the Demon King Piccolo, who very clearly had a naming scheme in mind when he got to Earth and started making twisted clones of himself. The character must have been obsessed with musical instruments, with his own name being based on the woodwind half-flute. But it wasn't just him—he also had his children: Tambourine, Cymbal, Drum, and more. Together they would've formed a pretty neat orchestra. It's too bad their encore would be destroying the planet.
Source: https://www.cbr.com/dragon-ball-character-name-puns/
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