There's something to be said about Hero association and it's tendency to give awful hero names to random heroes. In the latest chapter 221 - Emerging Power, Hero Names Victims Association wants Saitama to become their executive because he's the highest ranked person with a name that bad.
And not without good reason, because their names are just as bad. Red nose, Dr. Grumpy Pervert and The Great Degenerate are honestly wild and the Hero association commitee should be fired for making people put up with such names. Names have power and they can easily give a hero bad reputation simply by associating them with the name. Nobody wants to be named pervert or degenerate or toupee or what have you.
Chapter 45 - Hero name
Taking two hours to decide horrible names without any input from the heroes themselves is honestly criminal. Sure, some heroes have fine names like Genos when he's named Demon Cyborg, but not allowing the hero to name themselves is just another strike in the long list of things Hero association could do much better in.
Saitama knows better than anyone the power of reputation and how fleeting it is, especially with his latest run-in with Amai-mask and how he turned from hero to monster and all that good reputation was gone in an instant. Saitama's hero name is bad enough, but it is easy to associate such a silly hero name with negativity, rather than if his hero name was actually great and cool, then people would actually believe in him and have faith in him instead of just making assumptions.
That's why he's so serious about this new organization at the end of chapter 221 - Emerging power, even if it's a bit humorous how he takes a simple name association organization so seriously. But no doubt he's eager to see if he could change his hero name through this organization, because he's always been really self-conscious about his bald head.
There have also been times when someone asks Saitama his hero name and he's hesitant to answer because he knows the other would laugh about it. A hero name should be something one could carry with pride and announce their name to the skies like Stinger and not have to hide it because it's that bad.
In chapter 87 - Monster side, Garou asks Saitama for his hero name but Saitama mumbles it because he doesn't want to become a laughing stock. It's no use however when Manako asks Saitama for his hero name, Flashy Flash is within eartshot and instantly makes fun of his hero name in chapter 131 - Won't lose! It's quite ironic that someone redundantly named Flashy Flash would say how little thought went into Saitama's hero name when the executives spent 2 hours deciding hero names for Saitama and Genos. Saitama is naturally pissed and starts to bury Flashy Flash back beneath rocks.
Saitama thinks his name is such bad rep that he thinks even Garou the hero hunter would not stoop to hunt him because of his silly name, thinking it's not worth it to go after that kind of hero who definitely doesn't sound very strong. It's not a flattering name and something to just get used to, it's a stain on his already floundering reputation.
That's why when push comes to shove and the Hero Names Victims Association comes knocking, Saitama gets the support and initiative to get his name changed to something more appropriate.
Behind the name of the Origin Trio (Deku, Bakugo, Shoto)
Ok, to be fair, I don’t know if their trio name is the Origin Trio for the English speaking heroaca fans but in Japanese we call them オリジン組 (the group of origins) because they are the three (in the UA side at least) that had their :Origin story/episode.
To start off with our protagonist, 緑谷 Midoriya 出久 Izuku. His last name 緑 (read ‘midori’ meaning green) 谷 (read ‘ya’ meaning valley) is a realistic Japanese surname and I’m sure there’s plenty of people with it irl with that exact kanji. Deku probably was given that name because of his green hair!
出 (read ‘izu’ meaning to exit/release) 久 (read ‘ku’ meaning long time). Literal meaning wise, there’s not much that relates to him as a character. His name is more of a play on words for his hero name, Deku.
I’m not sure how it was explained in the English version, but in a scene when Katsuki and Deku are little kids, Katsuki teases that Izuku’s kanji can be read as Deku and that Deku is a good for nothing/someone who can’t do anything. That’s because 出 can also be read as ‘de’ so reading the ‘izu’ part ‘de’ makes Deku.
Now there might be people who abbreviate as a slang or dialect that I don’t know of, but as far as I know, Deku alone doesn’t mean good for nothing. It is the word 木偶の坊 Dekunobou that means good for nothing. Still, it’s similar so that’s were Kacchan is coming from.
To add on, when Ochako changes the way Deku views his name, she says 「頑張れって感じ」 ‘ganbare tte kanji’ meaning “it’s a give it your all/rooting for you/work hard kind of name” and that is probably because Deku also sounds similar to 出来る ‘dekiru’ which means “(I) can do it”. That plus his personality probably made her want to root for him which is why she said that. A name that was used to tease him as someone who can’t do anything got changed to a name of confidence of “I can” with someone rooting for him. Which is why it was important for him.
One more VERY important thing about his name is that it shows that he's the 9th user of OFA. Nine in Japanese 九 can be read as 'kyuu' or 'ku' - the latter being in both IzuKU and DeKU. I have an entire post for the OFA user names having their designated number.
Fun fact: Horikoshi’s first idea for BNHA was to have a protagonist with no quirk work hard as a hero in a world where quirks rule and the name for him was 赤谷 Akatani 海雲 Mikumo. It means 赤 (read ‘aka’ meaning red) 谷 (this same kanji read ‘ya’ in Midoriya is read ‘tani’ here) 海 (read ‘mi’ meaning ocean) 雲 (read ‘kumo’ meaning cloud). The original ideas that are released to the public are not colored, so I can’t say for sure, but his image color was probably red which got changed to green for Deku.
There is also another page that shows his original design and it has the name ヤミクモ ‘Yamikumo’ and I think that was supposed to be like “Deku” where it’s a nickname and becomes his hero name. The ‘ya’ comes from the other way of reading ‘tani’ in his last name (Akatani) and it is stuck together to ‘Mikumo’ which is his first name. But there’s an actual word 闇雲 (also read ‘yamikumo’ but with different kanji) that means blindly or without an idea (of where one’s headed). It has a kind of negative connotation (because the kanji for 'yami' used is darkness) but not as much as Deku which comes from full on name-calling.
Also, as a last note on Deku, his mother's name is 引子 (Inko, meaning to pull + child), referring to her quirk of pulling things closer and the 'ko' (meaning child) ending is veeeeeery common ending for girl names (although it's now a little outdated). Her name is full on referring to her quirk but it is worth mentioning that Izuku's name also starts with い (i). Deku also takes on his father's name 久 (read 'hisashi' here as a stand-alone kanji) for the latter part of his first name.
Going on to Bakugo. 爆豪勝己. His last name 爆 (read 'baku' meaning explosion) 豪 (read 'go(u)' meaning talented/strong/large in the sense of extraordinary) is referring to his quirk and natural talent. As Kaminari and Kirishima sometimes call him 才能マン 'sainou-man' meaning Talent-Man or someone full of natural talent (aka prodigy).
His first name 勝 (read 'katsu' meaning to win/go beyond or above) 己 (read 'ki' meaning oneself) is referring to his stoic-ness of always challenging and evaluating himself on his own regard and how he is always trying to improve and win against/be better than his past self. As seen in him not accepting the 1st place in the sports festival because it was not a win in his standard.
His nickname, かっちゃん Kacchan is just 'Ka' from his name called in a affectionate/close nickname-way. -chan is an ending you might most often see for girls (like Tsuyu-chan) but it's commonly used for little kids too. And it's really common for friends especially when young to take that first alphabet and put -chan with it to make it a nickname. Hell, my name is Karin and my mother calls me Kacchan.
The extra 'c' when written in english is just referring to that little っ which is not pronounced but is like a pause/hiccup...kind of hard to explain since it doesn't exist in English. We need to type the extra 'c' for that to come up when on a keyboard which is why in the English it's there.
Going onto his hero name 大爆殺神ダイナマイト 'dai baku sas shin dynamight'... it does mean Great Explosion Death God Dynamight... How everyone says it's immature, there's this thing in Japan called 厨二病 'Chuunibyou' or middle school disease where people get into cringey things thinking they're "cool". It's kind of that, as Best Jeanist said it was like an elementary school 2nd grader's name choice, he's meaning that it's so cringey that it's even below chuunibyou lol. There's also a thing in Japanese called 四字熟語 'Yojijyukugo' where 4 kanjis that aren't typically read together are connected and they have a theme or moral meaning. Bakugo's kind of making one up here - 大爆殺神 Daibakusasshin, like what young people do thinking it's "cool"... so it's cringey. And to top it off, he's including words like death and god. But of course, he has his respect for All Might in the name DynaMIGHT which is significant in how he sees All Might vs how Deku (who couldn't adapt his name) sees All Might.
Fun Fact: 'Bakugo' had a different kanji, 爆轟 (the 'gou' part is the kanji for Todoroki which means to resound/spread). He also had a different hero name 爆心地 which is the Japanese word for ground zero (the center area of an explosion).
Finally on the Bakugo family, Katsuki's name is actually very dear, because the two kanji is a combination of his parents' names, his father, 勝 (Masaru, which also can be read as 'katsu') and his mother 光己, (Mitsuki meaning 'mitsu' for light/shine referring to her glycerin quirk and 'ki' taken for KatsuKI).
I did an entire analysis for the names of everyone in the Todoroki Family so Shoto's name analysis is there. The only thing worth mentioning I think is that his hero name ショート Sho-to is pronounced basically the same but is missing the 'u' in Shouto. It's probably a stylization thing, which I will get into next.
Finally a note on hero names, it doesn't only apply to Deku and Shoto, but even though they come from their names which have kanji, the stylization for it is in katakana. I think it's worth mentioning since it gives off a different nuance.
First, there's three different ways to write in Japanese and they're all used for different purposes. There's kanji, the characters derived from Chinese that I mainly translate in these posts, and there's the alphabet. There's only one alphabet but there's two ways to write each letter in Japanese. There's hiragana (the rounder looking one that is used in conjunction with kanji in sentences) and there's katakana (the sharper looking one that was made to use for non-Japanese derived words).
That's why many hero names in BNHA is written in katakana - because they come from english words (like endeavor, best jeanist, hawks, etc.) Hero names like Deku and Shoto which are stylized in katakana basically make it more Foreign-like. I would imagine it would also help in keeping their actual names on low profile because even if it's the same pronunciation, it's more personal if you know the kanji of the actual birth name.
Which is why you may have realized that during the midst of battle in the war, when everyone's getting desperate, they're calling each other by their actual name and is throwing out all professionalism about calling by hero names. But then there is Iida and Tsuyu-chan who still continue to call everyone by their hero name which really give them the impression of reliability and makes us watchers feel safe when they arrive.
First, I can't belive there is no speedster names after the swiftest of the Gods of Olympus !! I'm not sure if he's exactly the god of speed, but he's close enought anyway !
Second, like many other people, I think Bart should become Mercury instead of Flash, and Mercury is also known as ???? Hermes !! So if Thadd was the inertia and Bart the impulse, when Bart becomes Mercury Thadd should become Hermes ! So it's stay in the theme !
Third, I like Thadd juste having is own identity as a hero and not juste take over the name of an other speedster.(even if it keeps a link with Barts name)
Fourth, it's just funny ! Like, Mercury is some kind of copy of Hermes, when Thadd is what we can call a copy of Bart ! I like the irony !
Fifth, because no speedster have use this name yet there is no connotation nor legacy behind it, so that allow Thadd to be who he wants ! A hero, a vilain, a anti-hero, anything he wants ! And even the non-heroic options make sens with the name Hermes 'cause the guy's also the god of thieves !
Yeah, I know Hermes is alredy a character in the comics, but he's not really important and he's not considered a speedster, plus it wouldn't be the first time two entirely different characters share a name.
Also, why Thadd could decide to change his name ? Well, it could just be because Bart change his so Thadd want to do the same, or, in a redemption scenario, Inertia could be a bad remember about all the bad Thadd has done.
Anyway, I had this idea after I hadn't sleep for like 48 hours so it's may not really make sense but I like it !
