Why are ponies so commonly renamed in other countries?

[Esbayne]

I'm curious if anyone knows the reasoning behind why so many G1s have different names in other countries. It's not really a thing in the other gens, but holy crap, it seems like every other pony is called something different in other countries!! I've been wondering about this for quite a while.

My first thought would be that it could possibly be due to language barriers or translation issues. That would make sense, but I realized that most of the ponies they change the names for could totally be translated anyway, but they decide to rather just pull a random name out of a hat. Like for example, someone in another thread mentioned that in the movies in Sweden, Bowtie was 'Isabella.' Like... Wat? Where did that one come from? Most of the ponies names do seem to get directly translated anyway, when need be. The ponies they change the names of seem to be quite random.

UK ponies are the main 'culprits' (lol) I'm thinking of here. There's no language barriers or translation errors to be had there, because you guys speak English just as well, so why do SO many ponies there have entirely different names? (Honestly, some of them I like better, but not all- If a pony has both US and UK names, I use whatever one I think sounds better)
I'm wondering if maybe Hasbro had a separate branch of the company in the UK that controlled their releases, which is also why there are so many UK exclusives, and US ponies that never made it there. But even so, why would they still change the names of ponies that both branches of the company would agree on to release?

It's just kind of confusing in the long run and makes no sense in my opinion.
Does anyone have any ideas on what Hasbro was thinking?

[Taffeta]

So this is just from the Uk perspective. (I consider your ponies renamed).

No. I'm kidding xD. For the most part the US release is first anyway.

From 1985 Hasbro UK controlled releases here, including packaging. The packaging styles used by Hasbro UK were also utilised in a lot of other European countries. Sometimes they even packaged just for export to Scandinavia or South Africa. They had creative input for sure. I don't know how much input they had outside the UK aside the packaging thing, but they definitely made the call on stuff here.

In some cases there seem to be cultural changes with names that maybe Hasbro felt would resonate more with the kids? Like Slugger ---> First Base. The slang meaning of First Base is not really so prevalent here, and especially not in the 1980s. We don't really have baseball, but we have rounders, which also has bases. I think they actually considered not selling that set here. It's only a guess, but when the US had them, we had Mountain Boys, which were all weathery and not sport/US culturey. But I think they sold well, and so ultimately we got the brothers too, although some changed names to make them sound a bit less US-culturey, and others just...didn't? (Like Tex and Quarterback O.o)

Another cultural rename is probably Sorbet Surprise, because Sherbet in the uk is not ice cream related but rather sweet (candy) related. And I think some of the names, while not incomprehensible here, just maybe didn't sound "British" enough? I always think this with Sugarberry. Strawberry Fair seems more "British" somehow...if that makes sense?

But that isn't always the case because, erm, Tic Tac Toe and Cotton Candy? In the UK those things are "Noughts & Crosses" and "Candyfloss" respectively. It's especially weird with the TE ponies, as they went to the trouble of choosing to include a pony with a US name, rather than Quackers or Bright Eyes O.O whose names are quite neutral.

Some of the names are maybe not UK renames, too. There's that tantalising image somewhere in a US Hasbro Catalogue of a MOC Sundae Best pony with the name Cherry Berry. Ok, so the name wasn't used for that pony, ultimately, but the name WAS used in the UK, even though it wasn't used in the US. So that suggests some names may have begun in the US as well but got changed, maybe due to problems licencing them.

I imagine a lot of UK names are licensed for use in the UK, maybe Europe - whereas they might not have been as easy to trademark worldwide. But that's just a guess.

I think Hasbro US reused names to save money, because they had existing licences already. In the UK, I think they cut sets short to save money, but didn't mind giving them mostly different names. There isn't a "Sunbeam" in the UK, for example, but the US has two. We have both versions of "Sky Rocket", but only the 7 Characters "Bright Eyes" and only the TAF "Fifi".

The exception to that is Gingerbread, which was reused as a UK name for the Candy Cane the US calls Molasses. She was confusingly sold under both names here :/ It's the only time the UK Hasbro used a duplicate name for a pony available under a unique name in the US.

So lots of reasons really. The one that muddles me about a lot is the Tropical set, because of the fact Hula Hula is used in both places but not for the same pony. It makes me wonder if this set originally had just a list of names and they were applied later to ponies. The UK names for this set make more sense name to symbol but the US set is using duplicate licences that were used for Fairy Tails as well - so I really think that this set started off universally with the UK names (or some of them), but Hasbro decided to save money in the US and somewhere Hula Hula got shifted from palm trees (logical) to boat (not logical).

The short answer is "I don't know". But it's fun to theorise.

[LadyMoondancer]

In addition to saving money, Hasbro can "retain" a trademarked name by reusing it.  This is probably why they immediately threw a pony named Sundance into the G2 line.   Of course G2 Sundance looks nothing like G1 Sundance.  But that doesn't matter.  It's all about showing that the name hasn't been 'abandoned.'  (It's also why, amusingly, some ponies share names with G.I. Joes and Transformers.)

I'm not sure how the intersection of UK and US laws would play out over trademarks.  I wonder if some US pony names were already trademarked to other companies in the UK?  Like, perhaps some UK toy company had trademarked a toy figure called "Molasses", thus causing Hasbro UK to reuse "Gingerbread"?

I think in some cases, though, Hasbro UK just changed names because they felt they'd thought of something better.  I mean, they had to print up their own backcards for the UK anyway.  So why not renamed Jabber & Jebber to Tickles & Giggles, etc.

[Taffeta]

I think Molasses is not that British either. At least not in context of a food related pony set. We only had the US name because of imported US boxed ponies by Woolworths.

Sundance also wasn't used in g2 over here. She is Sunsparkle. So I guess there is no similar benefit here...

[BlushingBlue]

I can't speak definitively about every instance of renaming, but I remember back in the G3 days when Hasbro reps admitted that they carefully chose the names they wanted for their "main characters" because of how easy they would be to export internationally. Even though they sounded silly, names like Scootaloo and Cheerilee were found to be 1) easy to trademark and 2) not accidentally off-putting in other languages.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the renamed ponies in G1 were due to those reasons as well. Either they couldn't get the trademark and/or the US name sounded funny to a non-English audience. Not that this is the case but just for example, if the syllables in "bowtie" sound ugly in Swedish or are slang for something vulgar or whatever, and if they can't secure the trademark for "fluga" (which is what google translate is telling me is Swedish for "bow tie") then they might just pick a name that is non-representative of the US name but pleasant for the local audience.

Hasbro-UK probably didn't have it any easier, even if like you say, they do speak English "just as well" (some might argue better ). If a certain US name couldn't be trademarked or didn't make cultural sense to a UK audience, they tried to change it to something appropriate that wasn't already an English-language pony name. Given how often Hasbro-US reused names in their own lines, purposefully or not, I imagine that got pretty hard after a while!

Plus, as Taffeta points out, other countries' Hasbro divisions were probably not given up-to-the-minute information about what Hasbro-US was doing. Even the US ponies' names often changed over and over during development, sometimes right up until they had to commit the packaging to print. And this was back in the day before email and digital photos were commonplace, so any updates were likely worked out over fax if they bothered at all.

[LadyMoondancer]

Italy is the most amazing in regards to renaming.  Some ponies got names that related somewhat to their color, their symbol, or their US name.  (Like Moondancer became Luna (moon).)

But then you get Tiny Bubbles becoming "David."  Well . . . okay. 

[nessa16]

Italy is the most amazing in regards to renaming.  Some ponies got names that related somewhat to their color, their symbol, or their US name.  (Like Moondancer became Luna (moon).)

But then you get Tiny Bubbles becoming "David."  Well . . . okay. 

David?....   Right....
Is that David...or Da VEED!  Like the sculpture.

[Taffeta]

Italy is the most amazing in regards to renaming.  Some ponies got names that related somewhat to their color, their symbol, or their US name.  (Like Moondancer became Luna (moon).)

But then you get Tiny Bubbles becoming "David."  Well . . . okay. 

David?....   Right....
Is that David...or Da VEED!  Like the sculpture.

David is fine. It's when you get Filiberto and Guendalena that I start to call the practice into question...

Hi there. Here are my twin baby ponies. Their names? Fil and Guen....

Isabella also seems a popular choice. In Italy it's either Sniffles or Snookums, I think Sniffles...

Going back to the UK and the ever changing names before production, let's not forget the original production names for Ice Crystal and Thundercloud seem to have been Frosty and Storm. Given all the hassle over Bumblebee not so long ago (I think I'm right about it being Bumblebee?), I am not surprised they decided to change 'Storm', but somewhat surprised they managed to trademark Thundercloud. But then his release was strictly limited to the UK, Scandinavia, and some parts of South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia I believe?) so maybe it didn't matter? (It's possible there are other places too but I don't know for sure).

Frosty may also have hit similar problems. Ice Crystal is more unique and thus less likely to cause issues.

[Mami Tomoe]

It could be cultural because some cultures have certain words that are innapropriate while here could be a joke

[Esbayne]

Interesting info/theories/input, thanks for sharing everyone! Still definitely interested so keep them coming! Very interesting read!

Hasbro-UK probably didn't have it any easier, even if like you say, they do speak English "just as well" (some might argue better ). 

I didn't mean it that way, sorry about that. I meant it like "just aswell," like "they speak English also," my wording was bad there.

[Taffeta]

Interesting info/theories/input, thanks for sharing everyone! Still definitely interested so keep them coming! Very interesting read!

Hasbro-UK probably didn't have it any easier, even if like you say, they do speak English "just as well" (some might argue better ). 

I didn't mean it that way, sorry about that. I meant it like "just aswell," like "they speak English also," my wording was bad there.

*stokes the controversy fire*
Well, if you want to be technical about it, we speak English. You guys speak American, which we probably don't speak quite as well...

*runs away before she is pelted with fakies*

[Esbayne]

Interesting info/theories/input, thanks for sharing everyone! Still definitely interested so keep them coming! Very interesting read!

Hasbro-UK probably didn't have it any easier, even if like you say, they do speak English "just as well" (some might argue better ). 

I didn't mean it that way, sorry about that. I meant it like "just aswell," like "they speak English also," my wording was bad there.

*stokes the controversy fire*
Well, if you want to be technical about it, we speak English. You guys speak American, which we probably don't speak quite as well...

*runs away before she is pelted with fakies*

Lmao, I'd agree with that. Though to be honest, I grew up in Canada with a Canadian father, but have lived in the US half my life as well with an American mother. I get told I sound American by Canadians, and get told I sound Canadian by Americans. It's boggling, lol.

[BlushingBlue]

I didn't mean it that way, sorry about that. I meant it like "just aswell," like "they speak English also," my wording was bad there.

No worries, just having a bit of fun!

My dad was American-born but lived in England for a while, and he gave me a lot of English-English children's books which messed with my grammar and vocabulary something awful when I was young. I got teased pretty mercilessly for trying to "act dumb" and/or "sound fancy" when I didn't know the American-English names for things. (Mainly rain-related things like galoshes, since we lived in the desert. I think I knew what a "brolly" was before I ever had to carry an umbrella!) It must have come along at just the right time developmentally, because I still find myself slipping into English-isms on occasion and have to backtrack and "fix" things for an American audience.

Sorry, that got pretty far off topic!

I think in some cases, though, Hasbro UK just changed names because they felt they'd thought of something better.  I mean, they had to print up their own backcards for the UK anyway.  So why not renamed Jabber & Jebber to Tickles & Giggles, etc.

Ha, I can totally see myself doing something like this if I were in charge at Hasbro-UK, especially with those terrible newborn twin names! Imagine trying to look up "Bunkie" in the OED

[Taffeta]

I admit to being still bewildered by who came up with Jebber and Jabber. I mean, I understand 'to jabber on' about something, but I would rather associate that with an old person stereotypically...babies babble. They don't jabber. Tickles and Giggles are stupid names but at least make sense for babies. Ditto Fleecy & Fluffy rather than Speckles & Bunkie. Unfortunately Tuggles and Toddles are just...erm...yeah. But Sticky and Sniffles are also bad names - Sticky? Because of the hobby horse having a stick? Do you guys call hobby horses stick horses or something? As for Sniffles - Hasbro, you used that already.

On a side note to that, did you guys know that Hasbro UK (bearing in mind only 3/6 of that year's twins were sold in the UK) went to the trouble of redoing the back  art of the boxes to remove the twins we didn't have. They also then edited the stories to replace 'mama' with 'Mummy' and to correct the names to the UK release...BUT they forgot to remove Big Top & Toppy's image from the box front?

I think there are probably a lot of cases like that in naming. Blackberry Pie, for example, rather than Boysenberry Pie. I am not even aware if we have/use the term Boysenberry here. I only ever heard of it in the name of this pony in the US, whereas we have a lot of Blackberries.

I also remember Kim at DV being confused and describing Bluebell's symbol as larkspur, when it's bluebells - which may suggest sometimes the natural world has differences as well?

The princess ponies also make more sense to me with gemstones. Some of the US names do make sense (ie Tiffany means white, albeit not a fan of humanoid names on ponies) but others are a bit...Serena also has that human name issue and I guess Primrose kind of does as well. But Primrose is annoying to me because primroses are stereotypically yellow, and she has not a single piece of yellow on her anywhere. Plus butterfly symbol? Nope. Royal Blue also sounds like a paint match. I wish Sparkle had been Lilac, that would have been kind of pretty...

I definitely think Tiffany and Serena at least are more American names than UK names. But then there are some fairly neutral changes as well, eg Sweet Tooth/Lollipop. I don't really know why it was changed from Sweet Tooth over here unless Lollipop was the original overall name and the US had to change it because it was such a common word it was hard to license?

Spoiler tagging the off topic language babble to not distract from the thread:

Spoiler

On the off topic topic, one of my university friends from my MA days was from Michigan, and when she came over here to study, we had some hilarious word confusions. But I also remember she fastidiously learned the UK spellings for her academic papers (she didn't need to, the university doesn't prejudice against US spellings in academic submissions!) and then when she went home she kept getting them muddled up and getting teased by her American colleagues Poor girl.

I find it entertaining how for the most part American slang is widely known and understood in the UK thanks to TV imports and movies and such like (albeit sometimes I have to explain words used in Castle to my confused mother, the retired English teacher, who 'likes to know!') but I remember when I was working in the library, often having to translate British terms for American visitors as the same doesn't happen with our TV much over there.

At the moment I'm helping a visiting Japanese scholar with her English and she keeps checking that certain vocab is ok in England, and also the UK pronunciation. But the big difference is the directness of language between the UK and the US, which often trips up visiting Japanese because they learn US English. When I was in Japan, I saw a few TV programmes on learning English, both regular and business English (I found it interesting) and some of the Business dialogue would work ok in the US but would be considered familiar/borderline rude in the UK...which made me really think about my language over again.

[Esbayne]

(ie Tiffany means white, albeit not a fan of humanoid names on ponies) but others are a bit...

Wait, Tiffany is Pearl though in the UK, right?
I've been calling her Pearl since I discovered the online pony community as a kid, I always -hated- Tiffany, with a firm belief that ponies do not need human names, as well! >.> Glad someone feels the same! I was so happy to discover she had an alt name, and Pearl was so beautiful to me. I always tried making up names for her before that, but once I discovered Pearl, she's been Pearl ever since.