Pokémon Confirms How To Say Rayquaza’s Name, Worlds Shattered

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Everyone who grew up playing text-based games has some proper noun they mispronounced until they heard it said out loud. I still get in arguments about whether Tidus, the name of the main character in Final Fantasy X which is never spoken in dialogue because you can change it, is pronounced “Tee-dus” or “Tide-us” (it’s “Tee-dus,” by the way). One of the earliest examples of this phenomenon I encountered as a kid concerned the pronunciation of Rayquaza, the sky-ruling dragon from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. As American children without the internet, it could be months or years before my friends and I would hear a Pokémon’s name spoken in the anime, and that was just long enough for some mispronounced names to sneak their way into our speech like an Ekans. Well, after over 20 years, The Pokémon Company has heard the mispronounced version of the dragon’s name so many times, they decided to put people on blast for it at Pokémon Worlds in Anaheim.

Rayquaza’s name is pronounced “Ray-kway-zah.” The “qua” syllable uses the long vowel to make an “ay” sound, but a lot of people didn’t know that 20 years ago when Ruby and Sapphire originally launched. However, the correct pronunciation has been long-established, as the dragon has shown up in the anime, voiced games, and official pronunciation guides. Breakdowns of its name’s origin even trace the “qua” syllable to the quasar phenomenon, given its ability to fly and breathe in outer space. Nevertheless, people love to say the long boy’s name wrong, and it’s a bit of a running joke within the Pokémon community.

Well, The Pokémon Company is tired of it, and made sure everyone at the World Championships in Anaheim knew the right way to say Rayquaza’s name. As spotted by IGN, tournament attendees were called out for mispronouncing the leader of the weather trio’s name with a graphic on the big screen at the event.

This knowledge might not be new for every Pokémon fan, but it sure was for some. One commenter astutely compared it to the GIF debate, in which people still haven’t agreed on how to pronounce the name for moving images on the internet, despite Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the image format, saying it was pronounced like the peanut butter brand. But even with the correct pronunciation staring them right in the face, short vowel truthers will not yield.

 

Odds are we’ll be hearing more about Rayquaza in the coming months, as Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Champions are bringing back Mega Evolutions, and the dragon is one of a handful of legendary Pokémon capable of undergoing this transformation. If Pokémon Champions has an announcer similar to the Wii’s Pokémon Battle Revolution, we might hear them say Rayquaza’s name with a long “A” sound over and over. Sorry to those who are still stuck in your old phonetic ways. Enjoy your psychic damage.




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