I have an Isshu!

OK, had to get out that lame pun. In case you didn't notice the starters and the region of the 5th generation of Pokémon have been revealed. Instead of Isshu, the region of Generation V will be called Unova in American release. While the starters will be referred to as Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott, instead of Tsutarja, Pokabu, and Mijumaru. Well, I will admit that expecting the Japanese names of the Pokémon to be used in an English product is a very high expectation, since there are only a handful of them that manage to retain their names in every generation, but the fact that the region got a major name change is very jarring if you consider the fact that most regions in the games are retained for the most part. It's just that with Japanese pronunciation and accenting their letters, they're really minor. I mean Johto is known as Joto in Japan, Hoenn is Hoen, and Sinnoh is known as Shin'o.

But how did they get from Isshu to Unova? Well from what I can recall, I know that "Nova" is an adjective of "Novus" which means "New." Which fits with the theme of Pokémon Black and White pretty well, since the game is based on a whole new region that is far away compared to where the likes of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh are located, since the former 4 were based off places in Japan, while Unova is based off of New York City. While I can go into detail on why a whole city, rather than state gets it's own region, I think I'll save that for later. As for U in Unova, it's basically the Un part where it comes from the Latin word unum, meaning one. So I guess the pun is that Isshu is one new place. It's going to take a while to get used to it, since Unova sounds like something from the Ranger games in my book, but I guess by the time the games come out in English, I'll be used to the name of the region.

Now, as for the starters, I'm looking at their puns and seeing how I like their names.

Snivy- I get the joke with this one, considering it was one of many fannames for Tsutarja like Smugleaf. Snivy also manages to keep the same pun that Tsutarja had, since both of their names had a reference to the Ivy plant, and the fact that they're both snakes.

Tepig- from what I understand it's a play on the word Tepid, and Pig. With tepid meaning lukewarm, it does kind of fit with how Pokabu references the heat that travels through the body.

Oshawott- Yeah, I'm still trying to figure this one out. According to Bulbapedia's article about Oshawott, it's name is supposed to be either a pun on "Ocean Water" or George Ohsawa. Even then' that kind of a stretch. Still, I find it funny that part of it's fanname of Wotter managed sneak into his official name.

As for how I rank the names, this is how it goes, Snivy, Oshawott, and Tepig. Why, Snivy is pretty strong name, and thinking about it, it's pretty close compared to Smugleaf. As for Oshawott, I just love how out there the name is. It's radically different than anyone else, so I do give credit for how unique it is. As for Tepig, yeah, I find it to be a weak pun overall.