Godzilla: 20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know

If you ever discuss movie monsters with someone who considers themselves a bit of a know-it-all, they will always bring up the fact, "You know Godzilla's name isn't really Godzilla, right? It's actually Gojira. It was mistranslated when the film was brought to America".

At first, there's no reason to doubt this fact. They even make a reference to the pronunciation of the character in the 1997 remake.

However, this isn't true.

Godzilla's name has never been Gojira. This misconception comes from a phonetic misunderstanding. Asians tend to turn a light “l” sound into a rhotic sound. In laymen terms, they turn “l’s” into “r’s.”

Also, the “dz” sound isn’t used in the Japanese language. The closest sound that is used in Japanese is “zh.” As a result, a Japanese person tends to pronounce Godzilla as “Goh-zhi-ra.” When this word is said quickly, Westerners noticed Japanese people called the creature, “Gojira,” and assumed that was the monster’s original name.

This is shown perfectly in the 2014 film, Godzilla, when Ken Watanabe's character calls the creature "Godzilla" but it sounds like "Gojira" in his accent.