Dr eggman's name... A useless name discussion, that should have just honestly die out years ago, because... I'll be honest this is just stupid.
BOTH sides of the argument are stupid to be honest, the American purists who preferred the name robotnik due it sounding more intimidating, and the Japanese purists who preferred eggman due to it being the original Japan vision and also just hating American influence.
Just.... Okay let's just get this over with by describing the history of his name:
In the original Japanese version of the games, he was primarily called Dr eggman and still is to this day, he is called that primarily due to... Idk, being a fat evil guy. Tho its also theorized he was named after a lyric from the Beatles song "I am the walrus", which technically isn't far fetch? He did have a walrus like triangles in his classic outfit.
In the English translations of the games up until 1997, he was called Dr ivo (pronounced ee-vo) robotnik. He was named in the USA by dean sitton and the name Ivo was chosen because it sounded similar to evil. I did hear that robotnik was chosen cuz it sounded like "worker" in Russia, but I haven't found a source on that... That and it's "rabochiy", not "robotnik" in Russia that translates to worker.
Then like, idk, around 1997, he is referred to as both eggman and robotnik in both English and Japan. Sonic jam's official bio in Japan (despite its... Weird inaccuracies to his characterization) is the first time the name Ivo robotnik is used.
Now there's also another factor into WHEN he is named in canon, so... I'll make most of the post talking about this (cuz I need an excuse to make it longer. TvT)
In the English translation of sonic adventure 1, they gave him the name Dr robotnik like all the other games pre-1998.
But In The original Japanese version, he is still referred to as Dr eggman. So... That means he is never referred to as robotnik in Japan aside from sonic jam right? Well... no actually.
He has the name "robotnik" on screen in his cutscene where he destroys half of the moon and this is also present in the Japanese original as well, not an additional change in the English dub. (This isn't going into maria and Gerald btw)
So in English it is implied that he was called eggman since at the very earliest sonic CD (due to amy calling him that) but didn't change his name until after SA1, and in Japanese, it is heavily implied that he was called eggman since BEFORE the original game's story happened due to them meeting before it. I personally prefer Japan's implications for his name change as it is much easier to think about since he has been enemies already, but it doesn't really matter either way.
Now why did he change his name to eggman? Believe it or not, the information for his name change isn't exactly consistent.
Tailstube's explanation: https://youtu.be/TfYieaXmqrA?feature=shared
He referred to himself as eggman due to being fed up with Sonic's nicknaming him that, suggesting he did it out of pure spite than anything.
BUT.. and I'm going EXCLUSIVELY on frontiers' Japanese translation on the explanation since the English version of his egg memo didn't really help with the explanation at all.
The reason he changed the name in this game was NOT out of pure spite, but because he actually likes the name anyway. So he wasn't even offended by the name eggman to begin with unlike the tailstube's implications.
I prefer to go with japanese frontiers' explanation for the name change, cuz doing it due to being fed up sounds really stupid imo.
So why did they change the name so that he is called both? It's simple, it's so they can avoid confusion (especially because sonic and tails 2 (known as triple trouble in Japan) used the name robotnik prior to it even being canonized in 1997. Lol) of him having both names, so they change it to him having Ivo (still pronounced ee-vo btw) robotnik while his alias is now Dr eggman (basically now a supervillain ass name. XD). This is also so they can use the name Dr eggman in the English versions of the game to help unify all languages much better.
So... Yeah, he's called both, I don't see why anyone has a problem with accepting both.
People who grow up with USA stuff criticize this decision due to eggman sounding more "ridiculous" in itself... BUT to which I disagree because the name eggman ironically gives the character a more empowering feel, showing that Sonic's insults like that mean basically nothing to him and can turn it around. Plus saying robotnik sounds intimidating is kinda stupid imo, because I'd argue if you think about it, BOTH names are kinda equally stupid. So does it really matter? It's just a name.
People who love the Japan stuff criticize the robotnik name being canonized cuz it is American influence and also that it "makes no sense with Japan's naming system of using your first name.".. first off, that's false as Japanese people DO use their last name after a title. The only reason they used the first name in say, Gerald, is because his name is different from eggman's name, so obviously it is to avoid confusion but also, you don't use the first name anyway until you have a familiar relationship. (And since I should bring this up the reason doctor brief in dragon ball is using his first name is cuz dragon ball characters don't have last names anyway minus Goku's family. XD)
Plus it makes sense to canonize robotnik cuz... Can you imagine calling them "maria eggman" and "Gerald eggman"? It sounds weird to say. Lol plus they did this to expand on his family as he didn't have a confirmed family up until SA2, so like... Yeah why not use robotnik as a family name?
Me personally, I love both names. I do however used the name eggman much more as he was technically conceptualize with that name to begin with, plus I grew up with it, PLUS... Idk, I just feel like I'm more used to it. That's really the only reasons I used eggman more than robotnik, otherwise yes I love both.
In the USA lore and fleetway lore, Ivo robotnik is backwards for ovi kintobor as he was originally a good scientist before becoming evil.
In AOSTH, Ivo was mispronounced as "eye-vo" which caused many misinformation surrounding his name pronounation. The sonic 3 movie, knuckles show and English tailstube unfortunately uses this name error, but Japan tailstube calls him ee-vo.
In the Archie comics, he was originally called Julian kintobor before changing his name to ivo robotnik... Idk why.
In the 1993 Saturday morning show, his full name is Julian robotnik, disregarding Ivo entirely.
In sonic boom, it's unknown if eggman is even his real name or not due to his father being called that. Either they both have the same alias or that's their real last name in the boom continuity
In the 2020 sonic movies, his name is exactly the same as the games implications, tho as of sonic 3, he still hasn't referred to himself as eggman yet, so right now, it's just SA1 English dub's implications (as in he's not referring to himself as eggman, only his enemies are) for now. This might change in sonic 4 tho.
And uh, yeah that's it, btw.