Warning, this little segment may be weird to some of you, but screw that, I do what I want 🙂
There is no real point in hiding that I’m Polish (and proud one, too!). There, I just solved the mystery of my weird grammar for you. Anyway, being Polish feels good, contrary to some popular belief.
But if you’re Polish AND a Pokemon fan, iiiit fuuucking suuuucks. We’re a giant black hole right now, as far as GameFreak and Nintendo are concerned. No real publisher working with them is available in our country at the moment, meaning everything Pokemon-related (mainly games) has to be shipped from other EU countries, like UK or Germany, which can be quite troublesome sometimes. It’s been for over a year like that, and for now nothing indicates it will change anytime soon.
We don’t have Gamestops over here either. YEAH, I KNOW! Crazy.
That’s how it can make you feel sometimes.
But we somehow deal with it, for the time being. It makes you think, however, what would it be like if Pokemon was celebrated as a franchise here like in other places… events, movies in theaters, all that promotional stuff we never get to have inside our borders (thanks god for Wi-Fi!).
Sometime around the first 2 generations, it was actually like that. Pokemon was BIG here. The main games were popular, Anime aired on TV, TCG was booming, there was shitload of promotional stuff, a series of stickers in every bubblegum, even potato chips were OK to be infestated with ANYTHING, as long as it had the face of Pikachu on it.
We never integrated the franchise enough though. No Polish translation of the game available (well, to be honest, NO console games were translated to Polish at that time), thanks god we at least had the anime dubbed (though that is dubious joy, as I can’t really say our anime dubs are anything to be proud of).
At least the openings were good… well, the first three.
That being said, we didn’t even DREAM about having our own names for Pokemon, like Germans or French do. Wouldn’t it be fun?
NO WAY. One reason it would never work, is because it sounds RIDDICULOUS. Any attempt at making Pokemon names Polish results in laughter and uneasiness. And that’s PRECISELY why I will try it now.
If you DON’T KNOW Polish (because so many foreigners learn our language :P), or simplifying, you’re not Polish, you may skip this one unless you’re REALLY interested (who knows, maybe you’ll pick a few new words for your slowly improving Polish vocabulary! One can’t communicate with “kurwa” alone, can they?)
We will take the Geodude family to shoot at first. That’s GEODUDE, GRAVELER, GOLEM.
Just in case someone doesn’t know what they look like (but then what the hell are you doing here anyway)
Let’s see, two of those reference rocks with “geo” and “gravel”. There’s also “dude”. Gives us enough to work with.
Geodude in Polish is…
KAMIETEK from “kamień” (a small stone/rock) and “Mietek” (a shortened version of Mieczysław, a Polish name). The way it sounds can also bring the word “miotać” (throwing) into mind! Hey, ain’t that clever, it’s almost as the original, japanese name, イシツブテ (Ishitsubute, which comes from 石 “ishi”, meaning “stone” and 礫 “tsubute”, meaning “stone thrown at somebody”).
We got that one by the ass!
One of the first search results when googling “Mietek”
Time for Graveler…
ŻWIROMAN from “żwir” (gravel) and “Roman” (the name). Also sounds like “Gravelman”, the newest superhero, or “Gravel maniac”, someone passionately interested in gravel. I don’t know what exactly a gravel maniac would do, but there you go.
That definitely solves the mystery of Gravelman’s hobbies.
Golem for last…
GŁAZENON from “głaz” (a large stone, a boulder) and “Zenon” (a Greek name quite popular in Poland a few decades ago). I don’t know, but it somehow gives the name some… importance and power.
What your typical Zenon (or Zenek) would look like.
There you go, Geodude line in Polish! KAMIETEK, ŻWIROMAN and GŁAZENON. You can now show off at parties and throw them around, if only to be proud that no one knows what the fuck you’re talking about.
Next time we will look into inspiration behind… that’s a secret! Here’s a hint for you, though. Can you guess what I will be talking about?
Hint, hint!
Leave a comment and tell me what you think. Also feel free to give your own suggestions for names of the Geodude line, either in Polish, or in your own language (if yours shares the same fate as ours :<).
