Market-Based Title

Translating titles makes sense. After all, an English audience will have a better idea what a film is about when it's named Seven Samurai rather than Shichinin no Samurai.

But that doesn't mean you can't change the title around if it's already in English (or whatever the language of the market). There are multiple reasons for doing this: maybe it's a sequel and the original never came out, it uses an idiom or cultural reference that won't be understood overseas, a Pun-Based Title that does not translate into other languages, somebody else already owns a trademark on that name in your country, the original title doesn't make much sense in the country it's being released in, or maybe your marketing department has just decided that having lots of different names for the same thing is better.

Most of this is Executive Meddling from the assumption that Viewers are Morons, and it causes no end of confusion when fans from different countries try to discuss the same thing. Compare Homogenous Multinational Ad Campaign and American Kirby Is Hardcore.

Note: If something is entirely written in a foreign language, including the title, then any translation is not an instance of this trope, regardless of whether the translation is not direct (and whether it could be). That's Completely Different Title. Dolled-Up Installment and Translation Matchmaking, when the new title makes it "part of" another popular work, are also not this.

Examples of Market-Based Title include:

Anime and Manga

  • The manga/anime Chrono Crusade was officially titled Chrno Crusade in Japan because the original mangaka's English was poor and he romanized it wrong. The English release corrected the misspelling...which amazingly caused a serious backlash against ADV for not preserving the creator's admitted mistake.
    • In the recent reprint of the manga, the series has a new cover with a brand-new logo that restores the "O" in "Chrono", albeit with a different font. There's even a flame on the formerly missing O, as if to say "Okay, I get it, it needs a vowel there!"
    • The official French translation uses the original Chrno Crusade title.
  • When Viz translated Gash Bell, the main character was renamed Zatch Bell because the translators were worried that the original first name was similar to a slang term for female genitalia.
  • Outside of Japan (or at least in Singapore, the USA, the UK and Germany), Digimon Savers is known as Digimon: Data Squad.
  • Dragon Ball Kai is to be released internationally under the title Dragonball Z Kai.
    • The Japanese version of the manga is called Dragon Ball throughout its entire run. The portions that correspond with the Dragon Ball Z anime were released under that title in the US.
  • In the original Japanese as well as the English manga release of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, "Mermaid Melody" is the subtitle (although it comes before the main title... supertitle?). In the German version and ADV Films' proposed English dub, it was the other way around, probably to avoid Title Confusion.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura (the anime) was known as Cardcaptors in English speaking countries such as the US and the UK. In some other countries it is known as Sakura Card Captors.
    • However, many American viewers would know it by the Japanese title, because the bumpers on Kids' WB, the block where it aired, referred to it as "Card Captor Sakura".
  • The Slayers TV series was released outside of Japan as The Slayers. The Slayers OAV and movies retained the original name, because said versions were licensed to ADV Films.
  • Rose of Versailles became Lady Oscar for most European countries.
  • 666 Satan became "O-Parts Hunter" (a mistranslation of "OOPArts") in America. Guess why.
  • Gundam Wing has a spin-off manga named Gundam Wing Dual Story: G-Unit, which was released in 1996...the same year 50 Cent's rap group of the same name formed. When the manga was brought to America in the early 2000s, Tokyo Pop was forced to rename it Mobile Suit Gundam: The Last Outpost.
  • The English versions of Pokémon Special (North America and Singapore) were renamed Pokémon Adventures - cause, let's face it, that use of "Special" sounds a little off to our ears. In addition, the North American releases stopped for a while and are pretty far behind, so they began running a later story arc as a separate series, named Pokémon Adventures: Diamond and Pearl/Platinum.
    • When the original Adventures finished the story arc it was on, it was ended and replaced with the current Special arc (the one that follows Diamond and Pearl/Platinum) under yet another new name, Pokémon Black and White (noted as a "Pokémon Adventures special edition").
      • Additionally, Viz made the choice to publish the entirety of the Diamond/Pearl arc of Special after they published the entirety of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, so they had to add "Platinum" to the arc's name, probably to avoid confusion and/or self-copyright issues.

Comic Books

  • One 80s issue of Spider-Man dealt with Spidey busting an arms trafficking ring, complete with an Anvilicious message about gun violence. The Brazilian title was A Cidade Apresenta Suas Armas (The City Presents Its Weapons), which also happened to be the first verse of a popular, then-recently released Brazilian rock song by band Paralamas do Sucesso. It fit amazingly well, possibly because the song had a similar anti-violence theme.
  • The American Dennis the Menace cartoon was renamed Dennis in the UK, presumably due to the existing UK comic character of the same name. Likewise the British Dennis the Menace cartoon is known as Dennis and Gnasher internationally, likely for the same reason (Gnasher is the name of the British Dennis' dog, by the way).
    • The subsequent UK-Australian co-produced cartoon is called Dennis and Gnasher even in the UK, however.

Film

  • The fourth Die Hard movie is known as Live Free or Die Hard in the US, but as Die Hard 4.0 in the UK. It stands to reason that most people will simply refer to the movie as Die Hard 4, and might also have something to do with the film's plot: 4.0 sounds more "computery" than 4, and the plot is about a bunch of crackers shutting down the USA.
    • Probably the other reason it was changed is because "Live Free or Die Hard" sounds like a Tagline to a movie, and would be considered a Word Salad Title if released under that name.
    • "Live Free or Die" is the state motto of New Hampshire, a fact that's less commonly known outside of the US.
  • The title of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was changed in many English-speaking countries, where the word "shag" is considered much more offensive than it is in America.
    • It retained its title in the UK, though more prudish cinemas inserted asterisks or referred to it as "The Spy Who..." when referring to it on their display boards. Other posters simply read Austin Powers 2.
  • The movie called The 51st State in the UK is known as Formula 51 in North America, partially because the latter sounds more dynamic, partially because the 51st State is a somewhat controversial phrase in England referring to American dominance over politics/culture.
  • American executives nearly renamed the movie Snatch Snatch'd, presumably because "snatch" is an American slang term for female genitalia. It's almost certain that Guy Ritchie knew and intended this.
    • This is the same reason Team Snatch in Pokémon Colosseum and XD was renamed to "Team Snagem".
  • In the UK, the comedy Harold and Kumar go to White Castle was renamed Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies, as Brits would be unlikely to know of the association White Castle has to an American audience. Interestingly, as White Castle does not operate nationwide, there are many Americans that have never heard of the fast food chain White Castle, either.
  • The American film adaptation of the book Fever Pitch is a baseball movie about a die-hard fan of the Boston Red Sox. The original novel was about a die-hard fan of English football/soccer club Arsenal F.C. The change was made because whereas "pitch" in England refers to the football field, "pitch" in America typically refers to "pitching" in baseball.
    • That being said, it was originally produced because the Red Sox had a similar air of futility as Arsenal did at the time of the book's release. Then, the Red Sox won the World Series during production...
    • The international release of the American film is typically called "The Perfect Catch".
  • Saving Silverman became Evil Woman outside of America.
  • Presumably because baseball terminology doesn't make sense to most non-American audiences, the '90s Angels in the Outfield remake was renamed simply Angels in the UK.
    • Although the term 'outfield' is used, with much the same meaning, in cricket.
    • It's also called Angels in Japan, despite the fact that baseball is popular over there.
  • Germany has the nasty habit of changing English titles into "more easily understandable" English titles, thus Maid in Manhattan became Manhattan Love Story.
    • For a list (that's not even close to complete but still very long), see here.
    • The German title for the Britney Spears-starring box office bomb Crossroads was Not a Girl (part of the title of Spears' song for this movie).
    • Toy Soldiers (the 1991 version) being Boy Soldiers.
    • Eight Legged Freaks used its original title Arack Attack
      • That was the original US title, before it was changed in deference to some bizarre cultural sensitivity to words that kinda sound like arab or Iraq.
    • The Last Samurai became Last Samurai, along with many other examples of dropping the English article.
      • Which is weird, because German has a habit of putting articles in front of people's names and other nouns where they are dropped in English.
      • "The Sentinel" being "Der Sentinel" - even though that word doesn't exist in German.
        • ...and loads of other cool-sounding titles made German by adding German articles.
    • The OC being "O.C., California".
    • Airplane! became The Unbelievable Journey in a Crazy Airplane.
    • Ruthless People became The Unbelievable Kidnapping of the completely crazy Mrs. Stone. Rolls of your tongue, doesn't it?
    • Tremors became In the Country of Rocket-Worms.
    • For some bizarre resaon, We Were Soldiers became We Were Heroes (even though overly patriotic themes are typically looked down on in Germany).
  • This is much more prevalent with the Japanese, who changed the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to "League of Legend".
    • The Japanese also changed Snakes on a Plane to Snake Flight... though that one actually works in an Engrishy sort of way, since it's also a Snake Fright.
    • In an example of the Japanese name possibly being better than the original, they changed Batman Begins to Batman Genesis.
    • Although the Japanese name for Napoleon Dynamite is Bus Man, which doesn't make too much sense.
      • It's probably a reference to Train Man, given the geekiness of the title character. Not that there's much similarity beyond that, of course...
  • The three Quatermass films produced by Hammer were all renamed when released in the US:
    • The Quatermass Xperiment became The Creeping Unknown.
    • Quatermass II became Enemy from Space.
    • Quatermass and the Pit became Five Million Years to Earth.
    • Another release simply restored traditional spelling of "Experiment" to the first movie's title. That peculiar title only made sense in Britain, where The Quatermass Xperiment was given an X rating. The British "X" was applied to much tamer material than its American equivalent, but highlighting the rating in the film's title gave notice that the movie featured stronger fare than the norm, for those who like that sort of thing.
  • The "Weird Al" Yankovic vehicle UHF was known as The Vidiot From UHF internationally, mostly due to Executive Meddling. In the US television system, local stations in the same market operated their own transmitters on different frequency bands, where analogue VHF signals had a far greater reach than their UHF counterparts. The British system of regional stations, where the majors (BBC, BBC2, ITV, 4) transmitted from the same BBC-owned sites on adjacent frequencies, loses the North American concept. Told to come up with a new title for places where the term "UHF" did not have the same connotations, Weird Al suggested "Vidiots". It got the clumsy title in many markets because the studio still wanted to tie into the original. Al was not amused.
  • The Edith Piaf Biopic La Môme was re-titled La Vie En Rose in English-speaking markets: Piaf was known as "La Môme" ("the kid"), but only in France, so outside France the film was named after her most famous song.
  • X2: X-Men United was simply just advertised as X-Men 2 in several countries, including France, Germany, and Singapore.
  • The fourth film of the Rambo series was named John Rambo in many European countries, following the "full name" pattern of the previous Stallone film, Rocky Balboa. Also, the first movie First Blood is known simply as Rambo.
    • In Japan, First Blood was changed to Rambo (or rather Ranbo) due to the entirely appropriate homonym ("ranbo" is Japanese for "violence").
  • Same thing happened to Red Heat, at least in Italy; the title was translated to the surname of the main character - Danko.
  • An even odder case happened with the 1985 Red Sonja movie. Not only Arnold Schwarzenegger's character's name was changed to Yado in the Italian dub for some reason, but the movie is titled Yado in Italy, and the local trailer made it like he was the protagonist.
  • The UK working title for the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill was License Revoked. It was reportedly changed because US viewers were not expected to know what "revoked" means, and face it, License To Kill just sounds better.
    • The Ultimate Edition DVD documentary Inside License to Kill explains that the reason for the change was that to Americans, the term "license revoked" denotes lost driving privileges.
  • A certain anti-marijuana film became infamous under the title Reefer Madness, but its original title was apparently Tell Your Children.
  • Peter Jackson's Braindead was released in America under the title Dead Alive, because another film there already had a copyright trademark on that name.
  • Lucky Number Slevin became The Wrong Man in Australia for no apparent reason and then Lucky # Slevin for the DVD release.
    • That's "Lucky Number S7evin"!
  • When producers in America got the rights to the sequel film Godzilla Raids Again they renamed it Gigantis The Fire Monster (And even referred to Godzilla as "Gigantis" within the English dub of the film itself) because they thought that audiences wanted to see a different monster than Godzilla. Needless to say, they were wrong.
    • Other examples of Godzilla films being renamed for their US release-

Invasion of Astro Monster became Godzilla vs. Monster Zero.
Ebirah: Horror of the Deep became Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster.
Mothra vs. Godzilla became Godzilla vs. the Thing.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah became Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.
Godzilla vs. Gigan became Godzilla on Monster Island.
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla became both Godzilla vs. the Bionic Monster and, after a lawsuit from the creators of the The Bionic Woman, Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster.

    • The 1984 Godzilla and 1993 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla were titled Godzilla 1985 and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II in America, presumably because we're too stupid to tell the difference between these films and the 1954 Godzilla and 1974 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.
  • Similarly, all of the Showa Gamera movies released by AIP-TV were re-titled for their English dubs

Gamera vs Barugon became War of the Monsters.
Gamera vs Gyaos became Return of the Giant Monsters.
Gamera vs Viras became Destroy All Planets (most likely to cash in on the concurrent release of Destroy All Monsters, even though the two have nothing in common).
Gamera vs Guiron became Attack of the Monsters.
Gamera vs Jiger became Gamera vs Monster X (even though Jiger was never called that in the dub). At least got to keep Gamera in the title.

  • Danny the Dog was released with that title in France and Hong Kong, but renamed to Unleashed for the US, UK and Australia. The original title sounds like a children's program, and might cause viewers to mistake the film for a family entertainment or simply not take it seriously.
  • Wonderful Days, despite its title already being in English, was released as Sky Blue in English-speaking countries.
  • The movie 13 Going on 30 was renamed Suddenly Thirty in Australia as someone thought the title would confuse the viewers.
  • The Swedish movie Fucking Åmål was retitled Show Me Love in English, for presumably obvious reasons. The renaming, that is—the choice of new title seems less obvious.
  • The Japanese title of Legally Blonde is "Cutie Blonde", as if it really needed to sound even more hyper and cutesy. The sequel is even more hyper—the subtitle was changed from "Red, White & Blonde" to "Happy MAX".
    • The Russian title tried to preserve the pun by calling it Blondinka v Zakone, or "Blonde in Law". The "in-law" particle has a very different connotation in Russian - rather than referring to relatives-in-law, all of whom have separate terms in Russian, it refers to vory v zakone or "thieves in law", the elite of The Mafiya.
    • In French, it became "Revenge of a Blonde".
  • When Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was released, a number of countries removed the "II" so as to hide the fact it was a sequel to the lackluster Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
    • Also, when Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released, some countries flipped the title making Star Trek IV the subtitle and The Voyage Home the main title, to downplay the fact it was the fourth movie in a series.
  • Bruce Lee's debut film, The Big Boss, was originally going to be retitled The Chinese Connection for the American market in order to cash in on the success of The French Connection (as both films' plot involved drug trafficking). Unfortunately the American distributor screwed up by accidentally switching the title with that of Bruce Lee's following film, Fist of Fury (in singular), which was meant to be called Fists of Fury in America. For awhile, The Big Boss was known as Fists of Fury in America, while Fist of Fury was The Chinese Connection, until later re-releases restored the original titles.
  • To capitalize on Mr. T's popularity in the Philippines, D.C. Cab had its name changed to "Mr. T and Company" there...despite the fact that he's a tertiary character in the film.
  • A recut version of the British film The Boat That Rocked was released in the US under the title Pirate Radio.
    • It didn't help that several reviewers used the title line "The Film That Sucked".
  • The French-British CGI film The Magic Roundabout was mostly redubbed (the voices of of Kylie Minogue and Sir Ian McKellen were retained - curiously, the Evil Brit trope is averted due to the bad guy (done by Tom Baker) getting revoiced by Jon Stewart) and retitled Doogal in America.
  • Mad Max 2 was retitled The Road Warrior in the USA, due to the original Mad Max having a much more limited release and being rather unsuccessful in that country.
  • In Brazil, Total Recall got a name inspired by The Terminator; since the latter was called "The Terminator from the Future", Recall became "The Avenger of the Future".
  • Airplane! is called Flying High in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, due to the fact that that isn't how you spell it there (at least in the former two). Why they couldn't just change it to Aeroplane! is unknown (perhaps a legal issue, like many other examples on this page) but it does add a mildly amusing double entendre.
    • It isn't spelled like that in the UK either, but the film was not renamed there.
  • Walt Disney Home Video released the Terry Jones film version of The Wind in the Willows in the U.S. under the title Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to help promote Disney Theme Parks.
    • The theatrical release (done by Columbia Pictures) did retain the original title though.
  • The 1985 film Vision Quest was retitled Crazy For You in the UK and other countries just to cash in on Madonna's involvement.
  • Encino Man, a 1992 comedy, was retitled California Man for Europe and South America, presumably because everyone's heard of California and nobody has heard of Encino.
  • Dracula 2000 was released in the UK a year later than the US, under the title Dracula 2001.
  • The Sonny Chiba film Timeslip was released in the US as G.I. Samurai. Both titles are accurate, but the American one rhymes.
  • Tangled retained it's work-in-progress title of Rapunzel in Asia and certain parts of Europe. However, it also gained the title dropping foreign subtitle of A Tangled Tale. Yeah, an English foreign subtitle.
  • Dario Argento's Deep Red was titled Suspiria 2 to cash in on the success of that movie.
  • According to the Transformers Wiki, the only countries where Revenge of the Fallen kept its title intact are Italy and Serbia. Other countries use either Revenge of the Fallen Ones or simply Revenge... except for Taiwan, which has the rather badass The War of Revenge.
    • Dark of the Moon has become Dark Side of the Moon or The Hidden side of the Moon, which is also more grammatically correct than the original subtitle. However, in several other countries, it has become just Transformers 3.
  • When Captain America: The First Avenger was released, Paramount - afraid that anti-American sentiment would lead to poor box office performance outside the United States - offered its international distributors the option of removing Captain America (comics) from the title and marketing the film as simply The First Avenger. Ultimately, only Russia, Ukraine and South Korea ended up using the altered title.
  • The Avengers movie is being marketed as Avengers Assemble in the UK, possibly to avoid any confusion with the classic British TV show.
  • The Untold Story was released under many names such as Bun Man (a better translation would've been "Dumpling Man") or Five Immortals Restaurant (the name of the restaurant featured in movie).
  • In Italy, Dawn of the Dead was called Zombi. This resulted in an unrelated movie being titled Zombi 2 even though the movies were unrelated. Italian distributors ran wild with this idea; nearly every zombie movie from the 80's was given an alternate Zombi title along with a number, indicating that it is a sequel. This resulted in the "Zombi franchise" being created even though none of the movies are related.
    • The Troll films were given the same treatment. Troll 2 famously involved goblins and not trolls because it was never meant to be a sequel and originally had the more appropriate name Goblins. The Italian producer of that movie then took the horror movie Trees and renamed it Troll 3 (supernatural plants were involved in the first troll films but this movie was obviously far different). They then went on to rename yet another movie Troll 3. This time, it was the alternate title of a barbarian movie that was part of yet another B-movie franchise (a goblin costume from Troll 2 was used in the movie... and that's it). The Cinema Snob has gone into more detail about this.
  • Big Tits Zombie has alternate titles that were likely less marketable than the more commonly known title.
  • The remake of The Karate Kid was renamed The Best Kid in South Korea. This was probably due to the original not being as famous and because the distributors knew the difference between kung-fu and karate.
  • A straight-to-DVD crime thriller was released in some Asian markets as Memento 2 despite the movies having nothing to do with one another.
  • Spoofed in the Death Proof segment of Grindhouse. The movie obviously had an alternate titlecard which was quickly covered with the new "Death Proof" title. This was a common occurance in b-movies of the 70's, which this film was a parody of.
  • I Come In Peace was titled "Dark Angel" in some foreign markets.
  • The 1933 Nazi film Hitlerjunge Quex (Hitler Youth Quex) was released in the US under the title Our Flag Leads Us Forward.

Literature

  • Harry Potter
    • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone became Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in America. The book was initially marketed as a children's book, and some of the higher-ups believed it less cerebral for a kid to know what a sorcerer is compared to a philosopher. Her American publisher initially proposed changing the first book's title to Harry Potter and the School of Magic, but Rowling didn't like it; she then suggested "Sorcerer's Stone" as a compromise.
    • For the seventh book, Rowling herself suggested that translation could be based on the phrase "Deathly Relics".
  • The first novel in The Adventures Of Eddie Dickens series was called Awful End in its native country and in most others. The Awful End of the title was not a literal end, it was the house of the protagonist's Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud. Nonetheless, the American publication called it A House Called Awful End. Probably because the custom of naming houses, while not unheard of, is far less common in America than Britain.
  • The Lord of the Rings became Yubiwa Monogatari (roughly "Tale of the Rings") when it was released in Japan.
  • Philip Pullman's Northern Lights was renamed The Golden Compass in America due to the alethiometer looking like a compass. Scholastic believed "Northern Lights" would be the name of the trilogy and used "Golden Compass" as a Working Title. By the time Pullman got wind of it and things were straightened out, it was too late. Pullman really liked The Golden Compass as a title, although it was a mistake, and patterned the other titles after it.
    • IIRC, on his website, Philip Pullman states the title Golden Compass actually refers to a mathematical compass, not the alethiometer, and it's a reference to Paradise Lost.
    • The fact that the alethiometer looks like a compass (and is depicted on the cover) is just an unfortunate coincidence that leads people (and the Film of the Book) to the mistaken conclusion that the title is supposed to refer to it, a mistake that's compounded by the fact that the other two books in the series take their names from plot centric items that feature on the cover. However, the name was selected before the cover was made and before the sequels were named and it was a simple clerical error that lead to it being attached to the first book.
  • Where's Wally is published as Where's Waldo in the U.S. and Canada. They're similar enough that people both sides of The Pond have taken the other title to be a Brand X or Fan Nickname. Even creator Martin Handford refers to him as "Waldo" in many interviews and press releases. The name of the character's Evil Twin is Odlaw ("Waldo" backwards), even in the UK. Admittedly, "Yllaw" doesn't have the same ring to it.
  • Mortal Engines and its sequels are collectively known as "The Hungry City Chronicles" in America, despite the series already having a perfectly good name - the Mortal Engines Quartet. Perhaps they felt the premise of cities eating each other wasn't quite obvious enough.
  • The series The Saga of Darren Shan (originally from the U.K.) is known as Cirque du Freak (the title of the first book) in the U.S.
  • Hardy Boys:Casefiles #117 Blood Sport was renamed Duel With Death in the UK due to the controversy surrounding fox hunting.
  • Wolf of the Plains, the first book in the Conqueror series, was renamed Genghis: Birth of an Empire in America. Lords of the Bow and Bones of the Hills also got new titles, but in their case, the new names were simply the original title prefixed with Genghis:
  • Seven Ancient Wonders was renamed Seven Deadly Wonders in the US, to make it sound more like an action book.
  • The Fighting Fantasy book House of Hell became House of Hades in America, because hell can be used as a curse word over there.
  • The Poppy Z. Brite horror novel Birdland, a title that makes perfect sense when you read the story, had its title changed to Drawing Blood by the publisher. Because it's a horror novel and the main character is an illustrator. Drawing blood. Get it?
  • Two of the books in the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series had their titles changed for a US release. "It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers" became "On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God" ("knickers" in British English means women's underpants; in American English it means "knickerbockers", or knee-length trousers). "... And Then It Came Off In My Hand" was deemed to be too rude, and was changed to "Away Laughing on a Fast Camel."
  • Two Dalziel and Pascoe novels were retitled for their American release: The Death of Dalziel became Death Comes for the Fat Man and A Cure for All Diseases became The Price of Butcher's Meat.
  • Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close turned into Fleshmarket Alley for American audiences (no doubt to clarify matters).
  • The third of Stuart MacBride's crime novels is called Broken Skin, except in America where it became Bloodshot, as the publishers thought Broken Skin was too violent a title. Oddly enough, they had no problem with the fourth book being called Flesh House. MacBride got so tired of people asking if they are different books, he's put a message on the front page of his website explaining that they're not.
  • The American title of the English translation of Let the Right One In was changed to Let Me In, which removes the vampiric nuances of the original title. It was changed due to the original title being "too long". Thanks to the release and success of the Film of the Book, the title has been changed back.
    • They even thought that the author John Ajvide Lindqvist's name was too long and asked him if they could change that too.
  • Diane Duane's second Feline Wizards book, To Visit the Queen, is titled On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service in the UK. No idea why the difference exists.
    • We Brits do watch a lot of James Bond films. Possibly the publisher just figured we'd appreciate a reference to On Her Majesty's Secret Service more than one to "Pussycat, Pussycat".
  • Anne McCaffrey's Dragonseye was published (6 months prior) in the UK as Red Star Rising. There are theories about possible confusion with Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond published a decade earlier. However, many fans decided that the US publisher wasn't sure if a Pern book would be recognizable without "dragon" or "Pern" somewhere in the title.
  • Warrior Cats is simply called Warriors in the U.S. and Canada. However, due to it being more popular over there than in the UK, the shortened title is much more commonly used.
  • The sixth novel in The Hollows series, The Outlaw Demon Wails, was renamed Where Demons Dare in the UK because the publisher felt the namesake movie for the latter would be more familiar to a British audience than the former.
  • The first-published book in C.S.Forester's Horatio Hornblower series was titled The Happy Return in the UK, and Beat To Quarters in the United States. Several of the TV films similarly had alternate titles, usually while still managing a Title Drop.
  • The first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, was retitled You Asked For It when released in America.
  • Quite a number of Agatha Christie novels were given different titles in the USA, sometimes more graphically crime-related. The most notorious example was Ten Little Niggers/ Ten Little Indians/ And Then There Were None, retitled at different times in different markets as racial sensitivities changed.
  • Kiln People by David Brin was published in the UK as Kil'n People.

Live Action TV

  • The British spy series Spooks was titled MI-5 in America. "Spook" is slang for "spy" in both American and British English, but in American English it's also a (mostly obsolete) racist slur. American viewers who were unaware of that slur would probably have been disappointed that this series didn't have more supernatural elements, as "spook" is also a (slightly archaic) term for an apparition in American English.
  • Eureka was entitled A Town Called Eureka in Britain, although this was just because there was already a show called Eureka.
  • Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was just called The New Adventures of Superman in the UK because it was assumed UK viewers would not have heard of the Lewis and Clark expedition. After transferring to ITV the original titlecard is retained but the network still refers to it as "The New Adventures of Superman" (although when the final season premiered on Sky it was called by the original title). The DVDs retain the original title aswell.
  • For the first seasons, Beverly Hills 90120 was renamed to L. A. Beat in Finland.
  • Randall and Hopkirk Deceased became My Partner The Ghost when it crossed the pond. Apparently it was thought Americans wouldn't understand the title.
  • Why wasn't the Distaff Counterpart to The Six Million Dollar Man named The Six Million Dollar Woman? To start with, it was thought that having done all the R&D on Steve Austin, a second bionic agent wouldn't cost as much. But saying she was cheaper might anger women's groups. At the same time, (and with impressive double-think) they thought "The Six Million Dollar Woman" sounded like a really expensive hooker. So, Jaime Summers was The Bionic Woman. Lampshaded in one episode where Steve asks about the cost of her bionics, and Oscar says they cost less than Steve's because they were smaller, but then the parts cost more because of inflation...
  • We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian Of The Year had the subtitle changed to The Nominees outside of Australia.
  • Men Behaving Badly (the British series) was advertised as British Men Behaving Badly on BBC America to avoid confusion with an American show of the same name.
  • Wonders In Letterland became Troubles With T-Bag in Australia to avoid a copyright problem. One of the makers said that whilst neither title satisfied him, at least the second one referenced the character of the show.
  • Unaccompanied Minors became known as Grounded in the U.K.
  • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became known simply as Mighty Power Rangers or just Power Rangers in Malaysia due to the fact "morphin" sounded like "morphine". The ban is not upheld these days and it is possible to find Malay dubbed VCDs of the original series with the full name intact on the cover. Other countries such as Spain also referred to the original series simply as Power Rangers, though not for reasons of censorship.
  • The Australian television show Prisoner was billed Prisoner Cell Block H in the UK and United States (though the show itself retained the original title in the UK) and Caged Women in Canada. This was to avoid confusion with The Prisoner, an unrelated British show.
  • Home and Away is known in France as Summer Bay, which is the location of where the show is set.
  • The British version of the Game Show Family Feud is called "Family Fortunes", most likely due to the word "Feud" having stronger negative connotations over there. In Latin and South America, the show's title tends to be some variation on "100 <nationality> Said..."
  • To better cash in on Bruce Lee's popularity most Southeast Asian countries retitled The Green Hornet, The Kato Show. It's still shown on some channels to this day on late night schedules.
  • The Teen Nick airings of the Australian tweens' show H₂O: Just Add Water are aired under the shortened title of H₂O, for unknown reasons.
  • Several of the Horatio Hornblower TV films were renamed for the American market. Indeed, in the UK, the series was simply titled Hornblower, the naming being extended to include the character's first name for the US.
    • The Even Chance became The Duel
    • The Examination For Lieutenant became The Fire Ships
    • The Frogs And Lobsters became The Wrong War
  • The Canadian/French production about a police canine officer and his dog partner Rudy was called Katts And Dog in Canada. In America, it was retitled Rin Tin Tin: K9 Cop (and in France, Rintintin Junior). The only other change was to redub mentions of "Rudy" to "Rinty".
  • Ocean Girl, an Australian kids' sci-fi, was renamed Ocean Odyssey for British consumption.
  • When the late-70s adventure series The American Girls was screened in Britain, the title was changed to Have Girls, Will Travel for no apparent reason.
  • Chase was officially retitled Jerry Bruckheimer's Chase for the UK.
  • The Great British Bake Off® (UK trade marks 2557737 and 2603787, registered 2010 and 2011) had to use a different market-based title on the US Public Broadcasting Service because Pillsbury® stateside had trademarked Bake Off® for its Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest, first held in 1949.
  • In Ghana, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is called Who Wants to be Rich?, since the top payout is 500,000 Ghanaian cedi, or approximately US$286,451.

Music

  • British band Alabama 3, most well known for the theme to The Sopranos "Woke Up This Morning," is known as A3 in America allegedly to avoid potential legal conflicts with existing country band, Alabama.
  • The British band called The Beat came to be known as The English Beat in the US after discovering the existence of an American band of the same name (which is known as Paul Collins' Beat in the Europe due an agreement by both bands not to use the name "The Beat" in each other's main area of operations).
  • Due to a lawsuit from an obscure folk singer, the British rock band Suede is legally known as The London Suede in the US, even though most fans of the band in the country commonly call the band by their actual name.
  • Similarly, a lawsuit from yet another obscure artist forced the Welsh band The Automatic to go by The Automatic Automatic in the US. Again, none of their American fans call them this.
  • Once again, an obscure band caused the Jack White project The Raconteurs to change their name to The Saboteurs in Australia. Unlike the last two examples, the band is actually commonly called by this new name there.
  • The British group The Charlatans were forced to add "UK" to their name for their US releases, because a 1960s California rock band also had that name.
    • Goth rockers The Mission are known as The Mission UK in the US, due to a lawsuit by a Philadelphia-based R&B group
    • Wham! were briefly called Wham! UK in the United States due to a similarly named artist. By the time they became popular, the suffix was gone.
  • The German group Inga & Anete Humpe has an album, released in 1987, titled Swimming with Sharks. The American version of this album had basically the same cover picture, except that the group name was erased from it; this effectively changed the group's name to "Swimming with Sharks" in the US, and the album into a Self-Titled Album.
  • Japanese duo Puffy added the singers' names - Ami and Yumi - when they began releasing albums in North America, to avoid confusion with Sean "What's my name this week?" Combs.
  • And, yet another band forced to change their name in another market is the British band Bush, briefly known as BushX in Canada, due to a band from the 70s already holding a trademark on that name in Canada. This particular case is interesting as the older Bush released the trademark in exchange for the British band making a couple charitable donations.
  • Nick Lowe's album known as The Jesus of Cool in the UK is called Pure Pop for Now People in the US.
  • The song entitled Sukiyaki when released by A Taste of Honey in the US had an entirely different title and lyrics in the Japanese original. It was renamed after a traditional Japanese food dish solely on the presumption that the name would look more familiar to North American audiences.
  • In a curious aversion, The Radiators is the name of bands from the US and Australia. Both bands were formed in the late seventies, both are still playing, and neither has objected to the other, even though both have sold records in the other's country. More recently, a British band known as The Radiators from Space, which was formed in exactly the same year as the US Radiators, re-formed as...The Radiators! Still no complaints from any side, and I see albums by all three in the same bin at my local record store.
  • In a reverse US-UK case, the American soul band the Spinners were known as the Detroit Spinners in the UK because of a well-known UK folk group with the same name.
  • Australian rockers The Angels faced a lawsuit from both the glam band Angel and the 60's girl group The Angels, which forced them to use the name "Angel City" in the U.S.
  • The first Electric Light Orchestra album famously ended up with a different title in the US by accident: Someone from the US label that was distributing the album had called up ELO's manager to find out the album title, and when they didn't reach him, they left a note simply reading "no answer". Someone else thought the content of the note was the album title, and thus what was a Self-Titled Album in the UK was released in the US as No Answer.
  • Due to a lawsuit from a band of the same name, English Synth Pop duo Yazoo is known as Yaz in the US. Oddly enough, this led to a little further confusion when a pop singer who went by Yazz cropped up a bit later in The Eighties.
  • For a while, the Australian group Bumblebeez had to be billed as Bumblebeez 81 in the US, due to an existing group called The Bumblebees - apparently the use of Xtreme Kool Letterz and lack of a "the" wasn't enough to differentiate the two. They're now back to being just Bumblebeez in both countries though.
  • Due to yet another case of another band already laying claim to a name, British band The Bees are known in the US as A Band Of Bees.
  • Judas Priest's Killing Machine was deemed too violent-sounding a title, so in the U.S. it was released as Hell Bent For Leather instead.

Professional Wrestling

  • Due to Unfortunate Implications with World War II gas chambers, WWE had to rename their Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event in Germany to No Way Out (which was the predecessor to Elimination Chamber). This worked for three years, until WWE decided to revive No Way Out in 2012, which meant Elimination Chamber had to be called No Way Out while No Way Out was renamed No Escape.
  • Similarly in France, Fatal 4-Way was renamed 4-Way Finale.

Video Games

  • The Japanese Final Fantasy series suffered a lot from this. Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V were never released outside of Japan, so Final Fantasy IV became Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VI became Final Fantasy III in North America. This was bad enough, but then they dropped this scheme, and Final Fantasy VII was named that in all countries. As a result, North American fans were left to wonder what happened to Final Fantasy IV through VI, when the actual question was what happened to II, III, and V.
    • This is one of the few cases where wiser heads eventually prevailed. The various games have seen multiple re-releases, and every rerelease gives the game its "proper" number. Some non-Japanese re-releases of IV and VI do note that they were originally released as II and III, however.
  • When the original SNES game was released, Nintendo were unable to use the name Star FOX in Europe due to trademark issues involving a German C64 game of the same name. The game was therefore renamed Starwing, with Star Fox 64 renamed Lylat Wars. This issue has since been resolved and subsequent games have kept the original titles.
  • Mega Man is better known as Rockman in Japan and parts of Asia. The name change from "Rockman" to "Mega Man" was done to avoid trademark issues with the Rockman guitar amplifier.
    • Rockman DASH was changed to Mega Man Legends.
    • And the Battle Network Rockman.EXE games were brought over, not as Battle Network Mega Man.EXE, but as Mega Man Battle Network. The Battle Network pretitle was dropped after the third game in Japan.
      • Similarly, the sequel Series Ryuusei no Rockman/Shooting Star Rockman had its name changed to "Mega Man Star Force; the Star Force is an important plot element...in the first game in the series. In the sequels, it's never heard from again.
      • In the third game, the localization actually shoehorns it into the plot as the name of the team designated to stop Meteor G from crashing into earth since the Star Force was the power the Satellite Admins first gave him to save the Earth from the FMians.
  • Similar to the Star Fox example, Enix found that there was already an old RPG released in North America had used the title DragonQuest and SPI (the publisher of said game) still held the trademark to the name. Thus, when bringing the series over, they were forced to use the name Dragon Warrior. Technically it was the camelcase DragonQuest, which, while not exactly the same, was still close enough to prevent Enix from calling its video games series Dragon Quest. Disuse of the DragonQuest trademark pretty much prevented any problems Square Enix would have had with obtaining the Dragon Quest trademark.
    • And nowadays Europe drops all numbers from Dragon Quest releases, probably to avoid that little "some titles were never released there" problem. The UK seems to be exempt from this rule, however; and IX on the DS was released about a year before VI.
  • One Yoshi-themed puzzle game for the original Game Boy was titled Yoshi's Egg in Japan, Mario and Yoshi in Europe, and simply Yoshi in North America.
  • Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City was released in North America with the subtitle City Folk, for seemingly no reason.
  • Pac-Man was originally titled Puck-man, until someone figured out what would happen if a vandal changed the P to an F.
  • God Slayer: Haruka Tenkū no Sonata (God Slayer: Sonata of the Far-Away Sky) became known as Crystalis, presumably to avoid offending religious people.
  • Fahrenheit (2005 video game) was marketed as Indigo Prophecy in the US, in order to avoid confusion with the film Fahrenheit 9/11.
    • However, the uncut version (a sex scene was removed to get an M rating in the US) was released as Fahrenheit.
  • The first Jet Set Radio is known as Jet Grind Radio in North America, allegedly to avoid confusion with the band Jet Set Satellite. Apparently they weren't as worried about this confusion for the release of the game's sequel/remake, Jet Set Radio Future.
  • Metal Gear Ghost Babel for the Game Boy Color was retitled Metal Gear Solid (after its PlayStation counterpart) in North America and Europe for no reason. Although Ghost Babel can be considered a conversion of the original Metal Gear Solid in a very loose sense, it doesn't even have the same story, much less follow the same continuity.
    • The extra missions disc that came with Metal Gear Solid: Integral (the Updated Rerelease of Metal Gear Solid in Japan) was released as a stand-alone game under the title of Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions in North America and Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions in Europe.
    • Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel for the PSP is known in Japan as Metal Gear Solid: Bande Dessinée, which is a bit pretentious, considering the game was adapted from an American-produced comic book, while "Bande Dessinée" is a French term.
  • The Ninja Gaiden series was originally called Ninja Ryukenden in Japan. An odd case, as Tecmo simply switched one Japanese word for another (and with one that doesn't make much sense in context), instead of actually translating the title into English. Note that Ninja Gaiden was actually the Working Title in Japan before they eventually settled with Ninja Ryukenden. Tecmo thought that the title Ninja Ryukenden would've been too hard to pronounce for English speakers, so they kept the name Ninja Gaiden for the American version.
    • The PAL versions of the Ninja Gaiden games (particularly the arcade version and the first two NES games) were released Shadow Warriors as using the word 'ninja' was forbidden for children's toys under some European laws - see also the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles below.
  • Because they were were preceded by an older platformer, the three following beat-em-ups based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles varied a little in name depending on region. And of course, in Europe, Ninja was excised from the title in favor of Hero.
    • The American ports of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were retitled TMNT II: The Arcade Game, while in Japan it was ported with its original name; this was because in Japan, the original platformer had a Completely Different Title (Geki Kame Ninja Den/Fierce Turtle Ninja Legend).
    • The NES/Famicom-exclusive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project was treated as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Manhattan Project (with no use of a roman numeral) in Japan.
    • The SNES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time had IV added to its title, while its Japanese counterpart did not.
  • Biohazard is known as Resident Evil outside Japan, because Biohazard was too generic to be properly trademarked in America; both a band and another video game use the name.
    • The subtitle for the third game was also changed from Last Escape to Nemesis (after the titular monster), even though Jill title drops her "last escape" during the opening monologue.
  • Pokémon was originally known as Pocket Monsters in Japan. However, it's used globally including Japan, since the former title is a Portmanteau Series Nickname of the latter (Poketto Monsutaa).
    • The reason they couldn't use Pocket Monsters in the US was that it was too close to the already trademarked Monster in My Pocket.
    • Also, the original games in Japan were known as Red and Green. The English version of the series provided us with Red and Blue. (Despite this, the English versions of the remakes retained the names FireRed and LeafGreen.)
      • Despite the fact that Nintendo apparently also holds/held the trademark for "WaterBlue"...
      • In Japan there was a third game to the originals, a slightly upgraded game named Pokémon Blue. The codebase from that version was combined with the version-exclusive Pokemon from Red and Green to become the rest of the world's Red and Blue. (There was never a version released with Japanese Blue's particular combination of version exclusives outside of Japan.)
    • Because of the obscurity of the Nobunaga's Ambition series outside of Japan, Pokemon x Nobunag's Ambition had it's title changed to Pokémon Conquest.
  • The arcade Beat'Em Up Kung-Fu Master (ported to the NES as Kung Fu) is called Spartan X in Japan, where it was a Licensed Game for a Jackie Chan movie of that title.
    • Amusingly enough, said film is also an example of this trope; It's known as Wheels on Meals" pretty much everywhere else in the world.
  • Many early Japanese game consoles had their names changed for the overseas market:
    • Subverted with Nintendo's Family Computer: it actually has many differences between itself and its overseas counterpart, the Nintendo Entertainment System. The Super Famicom, however, is a straight play of this trope: it's almost identical to the Super NES aside for the shape of its cartridge slot.
      • The Super Famicom only has minor differences to the North American SNES, the PAL verison is 100% identical, however a lockout chip prevents most games from working on the other console.
    • Sega's Mark III was released as the Master System overseas (a name later used in Japan for a revised version of the Mark III). Its successor, the Mega Drive, was released as the Sega Genesis in North America (but was still called the Mega Drive everywhere else). As a result, its Add On, the Mega CD, became known as the Sega CD in America. The Super 32X in Japan was exported to Europe as the Mega 32X and to America as the Genesis 32X.
    • The PC Engine became the TurboGrafx-16. In Britain it had a limited release just as the TurboGrafx with no number.
  • On the subject of Shin Megami Tensei, its more kid friendly spinoff Devil Children has been given several names to circumvent the rather unfortunate connotations "Devil Children" has in western countries. When Atlus translated the GBA games, they were named Demi Kids and TMS Entertainment is adamant in referring to the anime tie-in as DeviChil: Goddess Rebirth (as a side, this series did get some airtime in Italy).
  • Bully became known as Canis Canem Edit (the motto of the fictional Bullworth School, Latin for "dog eat dog") in the UK due to controversy over the title. It has since died down and the Updated Rerelease was released under the title Bully.
  • When Namco of America localized Tales of Eternia, they named it Tales of Destiny II in a bid to catch the people who had seen the only other Tales game they had published in America, and also to avoid lawsuits concerning He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This proved to be a bit awkward for everyone when Namco released Tales of Destiny 2, a direct sequel to Tales of Destiny. Presumably NoA learned their lesson when translating Tales of Symphonia, and the rest is history.
  • It's A Wonderful World became The World Ends With You because every variant of the original title that Square Enix could come up with was already trademarked.
  • For no fathomable reason, the three PlayStation 2 Ace Combat games all had their titles changed in Europe.
    • Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War got off the lightest, merely losing the number to become Ace Combat: The Belkan War
    • Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies became Ace Combat: Distant Thunder
    • The worst casualty was Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War which became the spectacularly dull and generic Ace Combat: Squadron Leader.
  • River City Ransom was released as Street Gangs in the PAL regions.
  • Elebits is called Eledees in Europe. It's a pun on LE Ds, small electronic components which produce light for indicating the circuitry conveys the electricity properly.
  • All of the sequels to Ratchet and Clank have had their subtitles changed in Europe - Going Commando became Locked And Loaded and Up Your Arsenal was just called Ratchet & Clank 3. Presumably by then changing the title was simply a tradition, as Deadlocked became Gladiator and all Ratchet and Clank Future titles had the "Future" part removed.
    • Except in Ireland, where Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked retained their original titles.
      • In Norway, Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal apparently kept their original titles while Deadlocked was changed. There's hardly any consistency.
    • The exceptions are the PSP games (which were developed by a different team who have links with the original team), which are named Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank in both regions.
    • Pre-Ratchet and Clank, Insomniac Games' second entry in the Spyro the Dragon series was named Ripto's Rage! in North America and Gateway to Glimmer in Europe.
  • Blizzard Entertainment's early Flashback clone Blackthorne was renamed Blackhawk in certain European countries for some reason. One possible explanation was due to sharing a name similar to a brand of British cider, Blackthorn; though this is unlikely for want of an 'E'. The GBA rerelease retained the original Blackthorne title.
  • Illusion of Gaia is known as Illusion of Time in Europe.
  • The Wild ARMs sequels all have subtitles in Japan (such as Wild ARMs: 2nd Ignition or Wild ARMs: The 4th Detonator. In North America, these were all dropped for plain old numbers.
  • For some strange reason, the game known as Dewprism in Japan was turned into Threads of Fate in the US.
  • The arcade version of Contra was released as Gryzor in Europe, presumably to distance the game from the Iran-Contra scandal, since support for the Nicaraguan Contras was considered politically incorrect in Europe. However, the arcade version of Super Contra kept its original title in Europe for some unknown reason. The subsequent console versions were released under the Probotector title, replacing the human characters with robotic counterparts. This was done so that the games could be sold to children in Germany without any problems due to the country's strict censorship laws. This lasted until Contra: Legacy of War for the PlayStation, in which all subsequent releases were the same as their American counterparts.
    • In Japan, Operation C is simply called Contra, Contra III: The Alien Wars is known as Contra Spirits, Contra: Hard Corps is known as Contra: The Hard Corps, Contra: Shattered Soldier is known as Shin Contra, Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX is known as Contra: Hard Spirits, and Contra 4 is known as Contra: Dual Spirits. Additionally, the NES version of Super Contra was shortened to Super C for its American release, although its Famicom counterpart was still called Super Contra. Had the Famicom version of Contra Force been released, it would been known as Arc Hound.
  • In Japan, the Famicom version of Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones is titled Double Dragon III: The Rosetta Stone (same as its arcade counterpart, only with a Roman numeral instead of the Arabic "3"), while Super Double Dragon is called Return of Double Dragon.
  • In Europe, Castlevania Bloodlines is known as Castlevania: The New Generation, while the SNES version of Castlevania: Dracula X was retitled Castlevania: Vampire's Kiss.
  • Game Boy Wars Advance was retitled Advance Wars for its western release since it was first Wars game to get an international release and most western players would've not been familiar with the earlier Game Boy Wars games that were released only in Japan. When the DS sequels were made, the English versions kept the Advance Wars name, while the Japanese versions changed it to the Famicom Wars moniker of the series' home console installments.
    • The second DS game in the series is known as Advance Wars: Days of Ruin in North America and Advance Wars: Dark Conflict in Europe and Australia.
  • Some of the Street Fighter games are titled differently between regional releases and even console ports.
    • The very first Street Fighter was released for the Turbografx CD as Fighting Street.
    • In Japan, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition is known as Street Fighter II Dash, while Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting is known as Street Fighter II Dash Turbo. The word "dash" is not spelled out on the title of either game, but represented by a prime mark (′) as a sort of Stealth Pun (both games were derivatives of the original Street Fighter II). The SNES port of Hyper Fighting is simply titled Street Fighter II Turbo in all regions, while its Genesis counterpart is known as Street Fighter II Dash Plus in Japan and Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition everywhere else.
    • Super Street Fighter II Turbo was originally called Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge in Japan.
    • The Street Fighter Alpha series is known as Street Fighter Zero in Japan and Asia. The second game, Street Fighter Zero 2, had an Updated Rerelease for the arcade in Japan and Asia that was titled Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, which then got ported to the home consoles as Street Fighter Zero 2 Dash. The console version was released in America as Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold and in Europe as Street Fighter Alpha 2 Dash.
    • The GBA version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 is known as Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper in Japan, taking its title from a Japan-only upgrade of the arcade version. Thus, the PSP version, Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper became Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX.
    • The console version of Street Fighter: The Movie is known as Street Fighter: Real Battle on Film in Japan. The game was retitled in America to cash in on the arcade version, despite the fact that its a completely different game.
    • The PS versions of the Vs. games dropped the "EX Edition" subtitle for each game when they were released outside Japan (hiding the fact that they were watered down ports that removed the tag team feature).
  • The arcade version of the original Gradius, as well as the three MSX games in the series, were released under the Nemesis title outside Japan. In a form of Recursive Import, the Nemesis name was used in Japan for the two Game Boy games (the second which came out as Gradius: The Interstellar Assault in North America) and Nemesis '90 Kai for the Sharp X68000 (an enhanced remake of the MSX version of Gradius 2). The arcade version of Gradius II was also released as Vulcan Venture in Europe. And Salamander became Life Force in the U.S., though the arcade versions differed a bit more than in name.
  • Samurai Spirits is known as Samurai Shodown outside Japan: an odd case considering the international title actually misspells the replacement word ("Showdown").
    • It was supposed to be called "Shogun Shodown", a punny if not so clever title. However, for some reason, the misspelt word stayed that way.
  • The original arcade version of Bionic Commando was released as Top Secret in Japan, while the Famicom version is known as Top Secret: Hitler no Fukkatsu ("The Resurrection of Hitler"). The series then changed to the international title of Bionic Commando in Japan, beginning with the Game Boy version.
  • The PS version of Soul Edge was released as Soul Blade in North America and Europe due to trademark issues with the original title thanks to professional trademark troll Tim Langdell (the same guy who attempted to sue Electronic Arts over the title of Mirror's Edge). This is why subsequent installments were released as Soulcalibur.
  • The Backyard Sports games are known by their original name, Junior Sports, in Europe.
  • Digimon World 3 became known as Digimon World 2003 in Europe. It's been speculated to have been done to avert likely confusion resulting from Digimon World 2 not being released in Europe.
    • The following game was known as Digimon World X in Japan, but renamed Digimon World 4 in North America and, strangely, Europe.
  • Shadow of the Ninja, like other Ninja examples in this article, was retitled Blue Shadow in the PAL region.
  • The Natsume-developed Famicom shoot-'em-up Final Mission received a slightly enhanced NES localization for the American market with the unfortunate title of S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team. The PAL version was given the more sensible (if generic) name of Action in New York.
  • Intra-region example: Gaplus was rereleased under the name Galaga 3 to make it more clear that it was a sequel to the original Galaga. Somehow, they skipped making a "Galaga 2."
  • The Super Shinobi, the first Shinobi game for the Mega Drive, is known as The Revenge of Shinobi outside Japan, while its sequel, The Super Shinobi II, was retitled Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master for its overseas release.
    • Shin Shinobi Den is known as Shinobi Legions in America and Shinobi X in Europe.
  • Legacy of the Wizard was titled Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family in Japan. However, "Dragon Slayer" remained the name of the Sword of Plot Advancement, and Broderbund Software left somewhat confusing references to "the Draslefamily" in the manual.
  • The Data East run-and-gun shoot-em-up Bloody Wolf is known as Battle Rangers in Europe since "Bloody" is considered a profane word in England.
  • Ray Force is a huge offender. The original Japanese and American arcade releases are called RayForce, and the European verison GunLock. The Japanese console release? Due to trademark issues, it was renamed Layer Section. And when Acclaim got the rights to public the Saturn port in North America, they renamed it Galactic Attack. Its sequel, RayStorm has a lesser example of this; the Japanese Saturn port is called Layer Section II, but all other versions retained the original title.
  • Enix had a rhythm game in Japan known as Bust A Move. Unfortunately, Puzzle Bobble had already been released under that title outside of Japan, so Enix's game had to be released as Bust A Groove in the West.
  • The LucasArts RTS "Rebellion" was marketed in the UK as "Supremacy".
  • The original Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is known as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels overseas due to the unrelated version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (a modified localization of Doki Doki Panic') that was released in its place. The Game Boy Color port featured in Super Mario Bros. DX, known as Super Mario Bros. For Super Players, is actually an almagam between the original Super Mario and the Japanese Super Mario 2, as it uses the game system and graphics from the former and the stages from the latter.
  • MOTHER 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back, better known outside Japan as EarthBound. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, it's the only Mother game to actually have been released outside of Japan. Also, EB's opening tagline, "The War Against Giygas", said "Gyiyg Strikes Back" in the Japanese version (still printed in English, though). The reason for the change is obvious: since the original MOTHER wasn't released outside Japan, Giygas had no reason to "strike back" as far as American players knew and keeping it would've been confusing, especially in the days before people could easily find out that the first MOTHER did in fact exist.
    • Speaking of MOTHER, the leaked English prototype and early promotional materials indicated that in the original plans to internationally release it (which obviously never happened), it was also going to be renamed Earth Bound. Given that inevitably more people are going to emulate the English prototype than they are the Japanese version, the people who polished up the prototype ROM dump to make it playable renamed it MOTHER 1 to avoid potential confusion with the EarthBound we already knew and loved; said name is now arguably the name by which it's more commonly known.
  • The Ar tonelico series has had its rather lengthy titles shortened for each installment. The first game, Ar tonelico: Sekai no Owari de Utaitsudzukeru Shoujo (The Girl who Continues to Sing at the End of the World) became Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia. Similarly, Ar tonelico II: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujo-tachi no Metafalica (The Girls' Metafalica that Resounds through the World) became Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica. Lastly, Ar tonelico III: Sekai Shuuen no Hikigane wa Shoujo no Uta ga Hiku (The Girl's Song that Pulls the Trigger of the World's Demise) broke the pattern with Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel.
  • The Konami arcade game Green Beret was released in North America as Rush N Attack, exploiting the Cold War hysteria at the time (if it isn't so obvious, "Rush'n Attack" is a play on "Russian Attack").
  • Pokemon Trozei was named Pokémon Link in Europe.
  • Kirby Mouse Attack is the European name of Kirby Squeak Squad.
  • Astyanax was originally titled The Lord of King in Japan.
  • Forgotten Worlds was originally titled Lost Worlds in Japan.
  • The Slam Masters series of Wrestling Games are known as Muscle Bomber in Japan, although the second arcade game (Muscle Bomber Duo) kept its original title outside Japan for some reason.
  • Vampire became Darkstalkers for its english release, while its sequel Vampire Hunter became Night Warriors.
  • Tenchu: Dark Shadow was changed into Dark Secret for its English release.
  • Cannon Dancer was changed into Osman for its English release.
  • Two out of the three games forming part of Three Wonders had their names expanded: Roosters became Midnight Wanderers: Quest for the Chariot and Chariot was given the subtitle Adventure through the Sky.
  • Sinclair Research changed the titles of several early Hudson Soft games when publishing them for the ZX Spectrum: Bomberman became Eric and the Floaters, Cannon Ball became Bubble Buster, and Itasundorious became Driller Tanks.
  • The sequel to Level-5's Playstation 2 action-RPG Dark Cloud is known as Dark Cloud 2 in North America...and Dark Chronicle everywhere else.
  • A Russian video game called Turgor ("Тургор") was released as Tension in English-speaking countries, and then re-released as The Void.
  • Robo Warrior was originally known as Bomber King in Japan.
  • Tokushu Butai Jackal, Konami's overhead jeep shoot-em-up for the arcades, is known simply as Jackal worldwide and Top Gunner in the states. Strangely, the Famicom Disk System version was released under the completely different title of Final Command: Akai Yōsai ("The Red Fortress"), while its NES counterpart was titled Jackal in the states (yet, it never came out in Europe).
  • Of the Aleste series, various installments were distributed internationally by four different companies, who obscured the relations between them with different titles. All Aleste games distributed by Sega became Power Strike outside Japan (including one game that was never released in Japan); Musha Aleste dropped "Aleste" and made a backronym of the rest; Dennin Aleste became Robo Aleste, keeping the series title for once; and Super Aleste became Space Megaforce with a translation as corrupted as the title.
  • Puyo Puyo, after Compile's demise and Sega's complete takeover of the series, has been distributed internationally under the name Puyo Pop. The only previous releases outside Japan had been some quite strangely Dolled Up Installments of the first game.
  • A few of Compile's Casual Video Games were also subjected to this trope, with Lunar Ball becoming Lunar Pool and Party Games for the Sega Master System becoming Parlour Games.
  • Outside of Europe, Rayman M was known as Rayman Arena due to the fact that it was thought that people would think that the 'M' stood for 'mature'.
  • The arcade version of Star Force was released outside of Japan as Mega Force(no relation to the Atari game or Space Megaforce).
  • With the exception of the first one, all the games in the Professor Layton series have different titles in the US and UK markets.
  • PlayStation 2-era Dragonball Z fighting games provide a rather odd example. Japan's Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! is localized as Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi in America—essentially trading in Gratuitous English for Gratuitous Japanese.
  • Various Compilation Rereleases of Konami games have renamed Tutankham to Horror Maze, Quarth to Block Game, and Twinbee to Rainbow Bell.
  • Resonance of Fate is known as End of Eternity in Japan.
  • Despite being named Thunder Force everywhere for the second and third games, Thunder Force IV was inexplicably renamed Lightening Force in North America. Yes, that's a force that lightens things, not a Lightning Force. They would later go back to using Thunder Force for number 5.
  • The U.S. release of Data East's Beat'Em Up Crude Buster was titled Two Crude in arcades and Two Crude Dudes on the Sega Genesis.
  • The title of Toaplan's Platform Game Wardner no Mori was usually reduced simply to Wardner outside of Japan. Some arcade releases, however, went under the name Pyros, and the scrapped NES localization was to have been titled Pyross.
  • Sol-Feace was retitled Sol Deace in the West, probably due to the latter half sounding similar to "feces."
  • The survival horror game Demento was released as Haunting Ground in North America.
  • Mortal Kombat game are usually published with an untranslated title in France. But Mortal Kombat: Deception was translated to "Mortal Kombat: Mystification" because "déception" is the French word for "disappointment".
  • The Puzzle Game known in Europe as Solomon's Key 2 (which is a literal translation of the Japanese title) same was renamed Fire 'n Ice in the U.S.
  • The Barbarian beat 'em ups by Palace Software, Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior and Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax were released as Death Sword and Axe of Rage in United States.
  • Taito America shortened the title of Rastan Saga to Rastan, but then released its sequel under the title of Nastar Warrior. The Sega Genesis port averted this, being titled Rastan Saga II in both U.S. and Japan.
  • Darius II was released as Sagaia outside Japan, and Darius Force was released in America as Super Nova.
  • The Ignition Factor was titled Fire Fighting in Japan.
  • Rushing Beat and its two sequels all made it out of Japan, but under three different names: Rival Turf!, Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers.
  • Super Stardust HD was released under the title Star Strike HD in Asia and Japan. Perhaps the original title isn't hardcore enough for Japanese markets?
  • Castlequest for the NES was originally released as Castle Excellent in Japan. This raises the question of what the international title of Castle Quest, an unrelated Strategy RPG for the Famicom, would have been. Answer: a translated version of Castle Quest for the NES was previewed under the title Triumph, but only the Game Boy version was released overseas in Europe, under the Castle Quest title.
  • Rocky Rodent was released in Japan under the title Nitro Punks: Might Heads.
  • For a while, Bomberman was known as Dynablaster in Europe. There were also a few Bomberman games (Bomber Boy for the Game Boy and the Irem arcade games) that that were retitled Atomic Punk for American release.
  • Speed Freaks was known as Speed Punks outside of Europe.
  • The Nintendo Entertainment System version of The New Zealand Story was for some reason released in the U.S. as Kiwi Kraze: A Bird-Brained Adventure!.
  • Irem's Arcade Game Mr. Heli no Daibouken was released outside Japan as Battle Chopper, but the Western computer ports dropped only the Japanese words and were titled Mr. Heli.
  • Turok 2: Seeds of Evil was titled Violence Killer: Turok New Generation in Japan.
  • Aztec Wars was released in Europe as The Aztec: True History Of Empire, as Aztec Empire in Poland, and as Die Azteken in Germany.

Western Animation

  • Because British policy forbade the mention of ninja in children's programming, the 1987 series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles there (although the "Ninja" part was retained for all three live-action films, even when screened on The BBC - the same channel that screened the cartoon!). The policy was lifted by the time the 2003 series came around, and that one was not changed.
    • Lampshade Hanging when the Turtles made an appearance in the charity Massive Multiplayer Crossover comic book The Comic Relief Comic. The presenters of the Comic Relief telethon, Lenny Henry and (comic book geek) Jonathan Ross, got into an argument as to what they were called while introducing them. They were finally billed as Teenage Mutant Turtles.
  • Similarly, Transformers: Beast Wars was known in Canada as Transformers: Beasties, because the word "war" could not be used. This is especially weird considering that the show was actually produced in Canada. Strangely enough, this didn't affect the French dub, which aired in Canada under the title Guerre-Bêtes ('War-Beasts'), even though it was known as Animutants in France...
    • The first series of Beast Wars was released in Japan under its English title; however, for reasons relating to the way shows are broadcast in Japan, the second and third were released under the title Beast Wars Metals. Beast Machines then became Beast Wars Returns.
    • Also, Transformers Generation 1 for some reason became Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer when it was released in Japan. Later, Transformers: Car Robots would become Transformers: Robots in Disguise when it was released in America.
    • This happened to the Japanese-made Unicron Trilogy as well. Transformers Micron Legend became Transformers Armada (despite the impressive lack of any armadas at all) Transformers Superlink became Transformers Energon, and Transformers Galaxy Force became Transformers Cybertron.
      • Other way around, really, since all three lines were created by Hasbro and renamed for the Japanese market. Also, the 'Armada' was the huge armada of ships that faced off against Unicron.
      • Hey, if you watch The Transformers: The Movie again, you'll note "Cyclonus and his armada" are two robots (Cyclonus included!)... very small armadas are nothing new in Transformers.
        • We do have Tidal Wave, who can split into three parts. Maybe he's the armada.
  • Similarly, Mainframe's (the same studio behind Beast Wars) Shadow Raiders was named such because it was loosely based on a US-based toy line named War Planets, and they couldn't include War in the name of a children's cartoon in Canada. Initial US runs restored the series name to War Planets to match the toys... but later runs kept the name Shadow Raiders which was the original for the series, but a Market Based Title compared to the toys it was based on. Confused yet?
    • In fact, after the release of the cartoon (which was a huge hit) the toys where renamed to Shadow Raiders for the Canadian market.
  • Batman Beyond was renamed Batman of the Future in Europe, Latin America and Japan.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender became Avatar: The Legend of Aang in the UK, most likely because "bender" is a derogatory British term for homosexual.
    • However the cover of the box set of season 3 released in the UK has the The Last Airbender subtitle on the cover rather than The Legend of Aang which was on the boxsets of the first two seasons.
    • The Legend of Aang title was also sometimes used in Australia, despite the fact that "bender" is unheard of in Australia. Since Australian and British DVDs are both PAL, however, they probably just switched the region on the DVDs. On the TV show, however, it uses The Last Airbender.
    • The American version of Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots managed to slip the "Legend of Aang" subtitle through. Then again, the game's developpers (Blue Tongue; you may know them for De Blob nowadays) are based in Australia, and this is the same Licensed Game series that insists that Invader Zim always be capitalized as "INVADER ZIM" for no apparent reason.
  • Remember Garfield and Friends? Remember those sketches with Orson the Pig? In the US, they were known as "U.S. Acres", while in Canada and elsewhere outside the US (except for Australia) they were known as "Orson's Farm". The DVD set was made using the international masters, so they use the "Orson's Farm" title even in the US.
  • In Britain there was once a Top Cat brand of cat food. This led to The BBC changing Top Cat to Boss Cat up to the late '80s. Seeing as they only changed the show's title, and not its theme song, or the lead character's name, it was rather a token gesture.
    • And indeed they eventually did call it by its proper name.
  • The Lion King 1 1/2 became known as The Lion King 3 in the UK.
  • Space Goofs became known as Home To Rent in the UK.
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes is known as Jimmy Cool in some areas.
  • In Israel, both Batman Beyond and X-Men: Evolution are known as ______ - The Next Generation - probably after the Star Trek. Never mind that it is totally wrong with the second example.
  • Unsurprisingly, "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" was released outside the U.S. as either "G.I. Joe: An International Hero" or "Action Force: An International Hero." This could be considered a same-language example of Cultural Translation. However, there's more to it: Action Force was actually its own continuity before being merged with G.I. Joe.
  • The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! is being released in countries other than the UK as The Pirates: Band of Misfits, which actually isn't as strange of a title.
  • The Land Before Time is known as Littlefoot in Japan.

Other

  • Subversion: a popular urban legend says Chevrolet had to call the car Americans know as "Nova" something else in Spanish-speaking locales, because no va in Spanish means, "[It] doesn't go." The phrase actually does mean "it doesn't go" but there was no effect on the car's sales due to the fact that the word nova means the same thing in Spanish as in English. Snopes.com link
  • GM currently markets the Astra with the same model name and several different marques; Saturn Astra in North America and Japan, Holden Astra in Australia, Vauxhall Astra in the UK, Opel Astra in the rest of Europe....same car.
    • In the case of Vauxhall and Opel, Vauxhall is nowadays basically (barring the odd Australian V8) just the British equivelant to the rest of Europe's Opel, and all their model names match. The Astra name was originally from the Vauxhall Astra, in the case of Opel it replaces the Kadett name (in most other cases the Opel name replaces the Vauxhall one, like the Cavalier being replaced by a Vectra).
    • Same thing occured with Lotus's Opel Speedster, it was called the Vauxhall VX 220 in the UK while it was called the Speedster in the rest of Europe.
    • In The Twenties, Ford expanded overseas by opening branch plants. GM expanded by buying smaller companies, which kept their names.
    • Australian GM subsidiary Holden has recently struck the really rather good Astra from it's model range, and replaced it with the Cruze... which is a rebadged Daewoo. Yay?
  • Camera company Minolta marketed its SLR cameras as Alpha in Japan, Maxxum in North America and Dynax in Europe. Now that Minolta's camera division has been taken over by Sony the cameras are marketed as Sony Alpha worldwide.
  • Toyota's (discontinued) MR 2 (1985-1998) was known simply as the Toyota MR in France. "MR 2" in French can sound like "est merdeux", which roughly translates to "is shitty".
    • Their 3rd Generation MR-S (1999-2007) was called the MR 2 Spyder in North America, and the MR Roadster in Europe.
  • The Mazda MX-5 / Miata (US, old) / MX-5 Miata (US, current) / Roadster (JP). The Mazda Roadster used to be Eunos Roadster (one of Mazda's three short-lived marques in the '80s) as well...
  • The Nissan "Z" series of sportscars have always carried the name "Fairlady" (or Fairlady Z) in their home country. Nissan's US market director didn't want to sell a sportscar with such a name and used the company internal code instead 240Zback in 1969 and the pattern stuck.
    • Similarly, the Silvia is sold in the various overseas markets it appears in as the 200SX (or with a different engine as the 240SX in the US at one point, but the less said about those the better).
  • Also from Nissan, Mexico saw quite a bit of their cars badged with a Japanese name just to hype out their exotic Japanese appeal. Examples are the Nissan Sentra / Hikari / Tsuru / Tsubame, and the Nissan Silvia / Sakura.
  • Honda hasn't bothered with ITS Acura brand in Europe at all; they're just badged as Hondas. Nissan had a similar approach with ITS Infinti brand until launching a European division in 2008.
    • The Honda NSX was sold in the US as the Acura NSX. IIRC, the idea was that Americans would not buy a $60k+ Honda, but would pay that for an Acura.
  • The 2003- Dodge Viper SRT-10 is sold under the name of SRT-10 in the United Kingdom, since someone else owns the Viper name.
  • "St. Pancras International" station in England is referred to at a number of stations run by railway company Thameslink as "St. Pancras Midland Road".
    • St. Pancras, along with other London terminals such as King's Cross, are "officially" known as London St. Pancras, London King's Cross et cetera, presumably to make life easier for national and international travellers not familiar with London's stations.
  • Outside of the UK, cleaning product "Jif" was known as "Cif". It was eventually changed to "Cif" in the UK.
    • The initial change may have been due to the fact that there's a brand of peanut butter here in the States that goes by the same name.
    • It's always been "Jif" in Australia.
      • Maybe they're the same product!
        • The name Cif wasn't considered useable in the UK because it apparently made people think of syphillis. Not the best way of selling a cleaning product.
  • Diet Coke is marketed in some countries as Coca-Cola Light. In fact, this '90s Elton John spot (in which The Dead Rise to Advertise) was simply re-edited for overseas markets.
  • Snickers bars were marketed in the UK under the name "Marathon" until the late '80s, presumably because marketers didn't believe that British consumers would publicly consume a snack that sounds like "knickers".
    • The name change was something that people complained- with various levels of seriousness- or comedians made endless jokes about for literally years afterwards. 20 years on, it still hasn't died down completely...
    • To make the matter even more confusing, there now exists a "Snickers Marathon" bar, billed as an energy bar.
  • Oil of Olay was originally marketed to UK women as Oil of Ulay (pron. YEW-lay). Even Brits with no knowledge of the world beyond their shores would have recognised Olay (Olé!) as a festive cry beloved of stereotypical Spaniards, and marketers were clearly worried that nobody would be able to buy or sell it with a straight face. It was also sold as Oil of Ulan in Australia and New Zealand, and Oil of Olaz in France; Italy; Germany; the Netherlands; Belgium; and Germany. In 1999, Procter & Gamble would rename it Olay across all countries except for Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, where it simply became Olaz.
    • Maybe that's a wierd QWERTY/QWERTZ joke.
  • Honda was going to release a car called "Fitta". Which caused great controversy in Sweden, where fitta is basically our answer to Britain's "cunt". So instead they called it "Fit" and "Jazz".
  • Kellogg's Frosted Flakes are called Frosties in the UK and France. And Corn Frosty in Japan.
  • Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies are known as Coco Pops in the UK. They became known as Choco Krispies in the UK at one point, but the title bombed and it was changed back. Meanwhile on the continent of Europe, countries such as France and Poland continued to use the title Choco Krispies.
    • France at one point used Choco Pops before switching to Choco Krispies. They eventually switched to using Coco Pops.
  • Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles in Australia.
  • Fast food chain Burger King is known as "Hungry Jack's" in Australia, due to the name "Burger King" already being trademarked by a takeaway food store in Adelaide. When the trademark lapsed in the late '90s, the American franchise Burger King started opening up their own restaurants in Australia in competition to Hungry Jack's (featuring some, but not all, of the same burgers) -- by 2002 the Burger Kings in West and South Australia had been turned into Hungry Jack's restaurants but in the Eastern States (or at least Victoria) there are still a mixture of Hungry Jacks and Burger Kings.
    • In fact, Hungry Jack's in Australia is an entirely separate company from Burger King that just happens to license the Whopper and Tendercrisp. The history's actually quite fascinating, if you like that sort of thing.
  • The popular Japanese powdered milk soft drink, "Calpis" was unable to carry its name to the English speaking market (you should know it already). It was renamed "Calpico" at Asian supermarkets and most package labels still carry the original katakana spelling.
  • Inverted by the Ford Fusion: Same name, two different cars: a Fiesta-based tall wagon in Europe and a biggish sedan in the Americas. Done at the last minute because the latter was meant to have been called "Futura" but they had lost rights to the name.
    • Both inversions and straight instances of this trope are very common in the car market, made even more confusing when combined with name reuse and revivals, international product range divergences, and so on. For example EU vs. US Ford Escort, etc.
  • Hellmann's mayonnaise. "Known as 'Best Foods Mayonnaise' west of the Rockies".
    • Similarly, Dreyer's Ice Cream became Edy's Ice Cream (named after a different company founder) when it started releasing east of the Rocky Mountains. In this case, it was to prevent confusion with already-established ice cream maker Breyers. On the other hand, people west of the Rockies can get both Dreyer's and Breyers and there doesn't seem to be any problem telling them apart.
  • In Asia, Panasonic's line of long-life alkaline batteries is called Evolta. In Europe it's called Evoia.
  • Radio has an example of this trope. Global Radio calls all its radio stations (with the sole exception of XFM, Choice and LBC) either Heart or Capital - Heart being the "hot AC" or adult-contemporary station, reminiscent of MyStar 98 in Tallahassee, Florida, USA or Capital (named after London station Capital 95.8), which has a playlist reminiscent of Z100 New York. All heritage names (Fox FM, GWR FM, Chiltern FM, TEN-17 FM, Essex FM, Mercury 102.7 FM, SGR FM, SGR Colchester, Red Dragon FM, Southern FM, Power FM, Radio Broadland, Galaxy Northeast, Galaxy Manchester, Galaxy Yorkshire, Galaxy Birmingham, 102.7 Hereward FM/Hereward, Orchard FM, Gemini FM, Lantern FM, Q103, Leicester Sound, Trent FM, RAM FM, 106 Century FM, Watford's Mercury 96.6, Beat 106) disappeared to be replaced by these "generic" brands. Needless to say listeners were not amused...
  • The Renault 5 was sold in the US as the Renault Le Car. ("Le car" means "the motor coach", or maybe even "the because"…)
  • In the latter half of the 1980s, Ford used the brand name "Merkur" in North America for two car models, the Merkur XR4Ti and the Merkur Scorpio. These were localized versions of the European-originated Ford Sierra XR4i and Ford Scorpio (which itself was called "Ford Granada Scorpio" in the UK). (Incidentally, in Gunsmith Cats, Roy's car is a Sierra XR4i, and it's called by that name and visibly has a "Ford" badge on the front, despite the story being set in the US.)
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