this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
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Pika is pronounced "pie-kuh" generally. Pikachu comes from pika pika (japanese onomatopoeia for "sparking/sparkling" usually with the connotation of clean) + chuu (sound a mouse makes/squeak).
Actually it comes from pika(-tto), the onomatopoeia for a lightning strike.
Not according to an interview by the creator of Pikachu, Atsuko Nishida:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211108083831/https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/creator-profile-the-creators-of-pikachu/
That’s… what I said?
Its light in general, not lightning
“pika” on its own is a sudden flash of light. This onomatopeia is very old (edo era old). What kind of light flashes do you think you’d find 400 years ago? There was pretty much just lightning. Not to be confused with the repeated “pika pika” which like the other commenter said indicates more of a glimmer or shiny and is way more common today.
Actually, name of many Pokemon are multi layered
So there is no wrong, but both right
It is the beauty of Pokemon names and even concepts
Watch some lockstin and gnoggin if interested in this topic 😇
Yeah I just think it's kind of neat how the names of English pokemon are formed in a similar way to how they are in Japanese.
They're the same. The "pika" is from "hika", which refers to light.
I think these are the same root? Pika pika is used to mean clean but it's onomatopoeia for sparkling. That double word onomatopoeia construction in japanese doesn't really have a direct analogue in English I don't think.