UC Gundam Mecha Naming Conventions?

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Mafty
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UC Gundam Mecha Naming Conventions?

So this may be an odd question, but Tomino often seems to be known for using rather unique/unusual names for characters and mecha. Is it ever stated how he (or whoever at Sunrise comes up with mech names) decides on the name? i know some names are portmanteau names and others have roots in mythology or different languages, but there are several that seem to lack that. For example ( Gelgoog, Bolinoak-Sammahn, Barzam, Berga-Giros, Zollidia, Shokew, Gottrlatan, etc).
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MythSearcher
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Re: UC Gundam Mecha Naming Conventions?

Mafty wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:26 am So this may be an odd question, but Tomino often seems to be known for using rather unique/unusual names for characters and mecha. Is it ever stated how he (or whoever at Sunrise comes up with mech names) decides on the name? i know some names are portmanteau names and others have roots in mythology or different languages, but there are several that seem to lack that. For example ( Gelgoog, Bolinoak-Sammahn, Barzam, Berga-Giros, Zollidia, Shokew, Gottrlatan, etc).
Just like most of the other naming convention in the Robot Genre, most of the time you have no idea because they just use whatever sounded cool at the moment.
If you think Overlord is anything reputable, it seems like they like to use Dakuten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakuten_and_handakuten) for the robot names. Gundam having 2 characters with dakuten, Galgoog has 3, Barzam 2, etc. Well, that doesn't really work because you get a bunch with only 1.
But I guess it just goes with whatever is less common sounding, so you don't accidentally step into controversial issues like Keroro referring Earth as Pokopen in the manga. Which actually just stemmed from the local name of kick the can in Japan but happens to be a homophone to the Chinese term of "Not enough"(不夠本) where Japanese soldiers used pejoratively on Chinese and hey, wasn't that just so conveniently an invader?(Hence the term for Earth was changed to Pekopon in the anime)
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: UC Gundam Mecha Naming Conventions?

Some of the early Zeon mecha names in the First Gundam series were originally Japanese in-jokes or slightly modified onomatopoeia.

"Zaku", for instance, having been derived from 雑魚 (Zako, lit. "small fry", "nobody", "unimportant person") as befitting its status as the enemy cannon fodder robot.
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MythSearcher
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Re: UC Gundam Mecha Naming Conventions?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:44 am Some of the early Zeon mecha names in the First Gundam series were originally Japanese in-jokes or slightly modified onomatopoeia.

"Zaku", for instance, having been derived from 雑魚 (Zako, lit. "small fry", "nobody", "unimportant person") as befitting its status as the enemy cannon fodder robot.
There is a further reason for that.
Zaku is also the sound effect they give for when soldiers are marching.
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