Originally posted by mpanty
Yeah... well it doesn't surprise me the names vary from the Japanese to the French version...
Hell, they vary from the French Manga to the French DBZ version themselves!
For example:
Manga version - DBZ version
Piccolo (the Namek, and Earth's God) - Petit Coeur (little heart)
Sangoku, Sangohan, Sangoten - Goku, Gohan, Goten
Satan (Videl's dad) - Hercule
...
The names in the FUNi English version are also different from the English (Japanese Romaji) manga or the Japanese DBZ. The reason of course is lipsynch.
Manga version - FUNi DBZ version
Piccolo (sometimes Piccoro, but for Japanese, that's the same) - Piccolo (what kind of name is 'Little heart'?!?)
Son Goku, Son Gohan, Son Goten - Goku, Gohan, Goten
Kuririn - Krillin
Kame-sen'nin - Master Roshi (based on his Japanese title Muten Roshi, 'the invincible master')
Kami-sama - Kami (basically the same, Kami-sama just means God Kami, and Toriyama also uses sama to indicate beings from another world, instead of just god)
Kaio-sama - King Kai
Satan - Hercule during Cell saga, Mr. Satan during Saiyaman and onwards.
The one thing to remember is that no DBZ name has any one 'correct' spelling in Romaji, their are at least six ways to transcribi Kana to Romaji. So Bulma or Buruma is the same, and both right.
What's also nice is that Son Goku is treated as a Japanese name, which means it has a Kanji symbol, and it's pronunciation is written in Harigana, while he treats all other names as foreign, and subsequently writes them in Katakana.
A language with three alfabets, always nice...