Sun and Moon player characters' names

[NovaBrunswick]

Usually, in the Pokémon games, the playable characters each have default or ‘canon’ names to act as a placeholder if the player doesn’t want to name them:

• (Heart) Gold/(Soul) Silver: Ethan, Lyra
• (Omega) Ruby/(Alpha) Sapphire/Emerald: Brendan, May
• Diamond/Pearl/Platinum: Lucas, Dawn
• Black (2)/White (2): Hilbert, Hilda, Nate, Rosa
• X/Y: Calem, Serena

However, in the case of (Ultra) Sun/(Ultra) Moon, the player characters are never given ‘canon’ names; instead, they’re simply called Sun and Moon. An early trailer for Sun & Moon showed their names as Elio and Selene, but this never came up when the games were released.

I still like to call them Elio and Selene, as they sound cooler than Sun and Moon. I’ve also thought about calling them Solanis and Lunella, which fits with the ‘sun/moon’ theme.

Do you think Nintendo is running out of ideas for what to call the protagonists, and are just going the way of the Adventures manga by calling them after the game versions they’re from?

 

[Satoshi & Touko]

I still like to call them Elio and Selene, as they sound cooler than Sun and Moon. I’ve also thought about calling them Solanis and Lunella, which fits with the ‘sun/moon’ theme.

Do you think Nintendo is running out of ideas for what to call the protagonists, and are just going the way of the Adventures manga by calling them after the game versions they’re from?

For me, their names are Elio and Selene, both for SM and for USUM. They are actual people names and Selene is an absolutely gorgeous name imo.

I’ve seen some things around the web saying that the female protagonist’s name is Luna, and that the USUM protagonists are actually called Ray and Ailey, but I’m not paying attention to those claims. I’m staying firmly with Elio and Selene.

As it goes for the second part of your post that I quoted, I feel that it’s the latter, unfortunately. I hope not; that to me just reeks of laziness and/or not caring.

Edit in response to below post: Fair enough. But until there are official confirmed names, I’m sticking with Elio and Selene.

 

[Bguy7]

It's not that they're running out of ideas, or getting lazy, it's simply that (Ultra) Sun and Moon were the first games since Gold and Silver where the opposite gender character doesn't appear in the game in any way. Without appearing in-game, there's no real way to give the characters official names. Remember how Green hadn't been given an official name prior to Let's Go, and we all called her Leaf? It's the same thing, because she never appeared unless you played as her until now. And Ethan was referred to as Gold until Heart Gold/Soul Silver gave him an in-game appearance if you played as Lyra.

The reason we can't say Elio and Selene are the names is because pre-release material always used strange names. Before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out, the characters were called Orlando and Ashly. Before X and Y came out, the characters were called Xavier and Yvonne, and so on. Since none of those became official names, we can't assume the Elio and Selene, which were names used in the exact same way, are official names either.

 

[Dragalge]

We literally have merchandise confirming the female character’s name being Selene. Nothing for the male character but yee there’s an official figma for her like what they’ve done with to some other female playable characters.

 

[NovaBrunswick]

I’ve seen some things around the web saying that the female protagonist’s name is Luna, and that the USUM protagonists are actually called Ray and Ailey, but I’m not paying attention to those claims. I’m staying firmly with Elio and Selene.

Aren’t the US/UM protagonists actually the same people as the S/M protagonists, just with different outfits and appearances? US/UM take place in a parallel universe to S/M.

And Ethan was referred to as Gold until Heart Gold/Soul Silver gave him an in-game appearance if you played as Lyra.

And if you’re Ethan, Lyra acts as a sort of assistant (though not really, as she doesn’t battle or travel with you).

Before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out, the characters were called Orlando and Ashly.

The reason Orlando (Brendan) and Ashley (May) were chosen for the OR/AS demo was because they were apparently the closest-sounding words - or at least start with the same letters - as Omega and Alpha.

 

[Bguy7]

Aren’t the US/UM protagonists actually the same people as the S/M protagonists, just with different outfits and appearances? US/UM take place in a parallel universe to S/M.

They are indeed the same people, but they were given completely different prerelease names than the names given to them during Sun and Moon's prerelease. That's just another example of why we can't trust prerelease names.

The reason Orlando (Brendan) and Ashley (May) were chosen for the OR/AS demo was because they were apparently the closest-sounding words - or at least start with the same letters - as Omega and Alpha.

Not only that, Orlando starts with OR, as in Omega Ruby, and Ashley starts with AS, as in Alpha Sapphire.

Anyways, that's how prerelease names tend to work. They give the characters names that are tangentially related to the games. Elio and Selene are names based on Helios and Selene, gods of the Sun and Moon, Aliey and Ray are both names meant to invoke light, Xavier and Yvonne started with X and Y, et cetera.

 

[NovaBrunswick]

Aliey and Ray are both names meant to invoke light

Ray I get, like a ray of sun. Ailey is a little more obscure.

 

[Bguy7]

Ray I get, like a ray of sun. Ailey is a little more obscure.

Ailey is an Irish name that means light. It also invokes the word ray, given the -ay sound it starts with.

 

[NovaBrunswick]

Ailey is an Irish name that means light. It also invokes the word ray, given the -ay sound it starts with.

I’ve heard it more as Aileen or Eileen.

 

[Bguy7]

I’ve heard it more as Aileen or Eileen.

Doesn't really matter if it still means the same thing.

 

[Nerdy McNerdface]

I don’t know if I still have the image, but one time my brother got a magazine that came with one of those mini-intends catalogues they get paid to put in. I was bored and since SM had released around a month or two ago at that point I flicked through just to see if it was there. It was a catalogue for kids so some of the pages came with small puzzles, and indeed, SM’s had one. On there four people were listed - Mallow, Sophocles... Elio and Seline.

It was an official kid’s catalogue released after SM’s release. Because of that I don’t refer to them under any other name. Feel free to use other names but that catalogue makes me think those are definitely canon.

 

[Bguy7]

I don’t know if I still have the image, but one time my brother got a magazine that came with one of those mini-intends catalogues they get paid to put in. I was bored and since SM had released around a month or two ago at that point I flicked through just to see if it was there. It was a catalogue for kids so some of the pages came with small puzzles, and indeed, SM’s had one. On there four people were listed - Mallow, Sophocles... Elio and Seline.

It was an official kid’s catalogue released after SM’s release. Because of that I don’t refer to them under any other name. Feel free to use other names but that catalogue makes me think those are definitely canon.

Sometimes, even after the release of the games, the prerelease names continue to be used, despite already having been proved to not be the canon names. The best example I can think of right off the back is that the instruction manual for Diamond and Pearl referred to Dawn as Dia.

And really, even if that magazine was officially licensed, it wasn't put out directly from the Pokémon Company, so it's a somewhat ambiguous source. Basically, whoever was writing that catalogue just needed a name, and since there was no confirmed name, they just went with the prerelease name. That's not really canoninzing.

 

[Nerdy McNerdface]

Sometimes, even after the release of the games, the prerelease names continue to be used, despite already having been proved to not be the canon names. The best example I can think of right off the back is that the instruction manual for Diamond and Pearl referred to Dawn as Dia.

And really, even if that magazine was officially licensed, it wasn't put out directly from the Pokémon Company, so it's a somewhat ambiguous source. Basically, whoever was writing that catalogue just needed a name, and since there was no confirmed name, they just went with the prerelease name. That's not really canoninzing.

That’s why I said feel free to use other names. It’s canon to me, but other names are still fine. After all they are a renameable protagonist.

 

[Bguy7]

That’s why I said feel free to use other names. It’s canon to me, but other names are still fine. After all they are a renameable protagonist.

There's no such thing as "canon to me." You're fully welcome to use the names as you please, of course. But the term canon implies official and indisputable.

 

[shoz999]

We literally have merchandise confirming the female character’s name being Selene. Nothing for the male character but yee there’s an official figma for her like what they’ve done with to some other female playable characters.

Personally I like the names Elio and Selene however there is a huge problem with trying to determine the character's name based on merchandise alone before the canon names are finalized in that merchandise uses placeholder names. These placeholder names established by the merchandise have never really been proven to be canon in the games so far. This is what happened when an official toy figure that used the placeholder name, Leaf, was advertised some months ago. In one particular Pokemon forum site, I saw a bunch of cocky Pokemon fans jump to conclusions and became their most toxic giving the middle finger to the Pokemon fans who thought Green was going to be the canon name. They were so confident that with the toy figure alone, they thought "Leaf" was 100% canon. In a ironic change of fate, suddenly the name "Leaf" was proven 100% non-canon by GameFreak directly when Let's Go Pikachu & Let's Go Eevee, a main series video game, was released which made a chunk of Pokemon fans attached to the "Leaf" name go into great denial, desperately and failing to prove that Leaf is canon but ultimately with no real proof.

So what did I learn from this? There's a HUGE difference between an official name and a canon name. Leaf is technically an official name that GameFreak has used as a placeholder before Green was finalized as the canon name in the games themselves. Merchandise WILL NEVER 100% determine a protagonist's canon name. Anyone who claims that merchandise will determine a protagonist's name, take it with a grain of salt. What it does prove is that it is but one of many official names GameFreak uses, most likely as a placeholder.

So what can you argue from Elio and Selene being likely the most legitimate names? That unlike Leaf and Green, there aren't really any other official names outside of Selene and Elio that fits with the naming pattern of the games. Green made so much more sense over Leaf simply because it fits with the color/game-version themed name pattern of Gen 1, Red, Blue and Green. However after Gen 1, there is no game-version name pattern anymore. After Gen 2, it's more human-sounding names with a theme behind it and literally the only names outside of Sun and Moon are Elio and Selene. Basically what I'm saying by default, Elio and Selene makes a lot of sense until GameFreak pulls some random name out of nowhere like they did with Ethan and Lyra.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

The U/SM PCs will always be Sun & Moon to me because that's what I choose to call them

Just like how the Let's Go characters are Kakeru & Ayumi, or BW being Touko and Touya

 

[SWMegaFan]

Well, when in doubt, refer to Bulbapedia