Goku

A Buddhist name, not a warrior's name

Our own listing gives the meaning of Goku as "the person that overcomes adversity", which is a description of a character rather than a translation of anything. The background note on the same page gets much closer: it says the name is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese name Wukong, meaning "awakened to emptiness". That is the right answer, and it is worth unpacking.

The name is 悟空. The first character, 悟, means to realise, to become aware, to awaken, and in Japanese it is the kanji for enlightenment. The second, 空, means empty, hollow or void, and in Buddhist usage it is sunyata, the doctrine of emptiness. So the name is a religious term before it is anybody's name: a statement about awakening to the nature of emptiness, which is not what a warrior's name usually says.

The Monkey King

The name belongs to Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, one of the main characters of Journey to the West, the sixteenth-century Chinese novel. In the story he is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practice and by eating heavenly food, rebels against heaven, and is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha for five hundred years. He is released to accompany the monk Tang Sanzang west to fetch Buddhist scriptures.

That is the character Dragon Ball borrowed. Akira Toriyama's Son Goku is named directly after the Monkey King, and the series is loosely built on the same journey, which is why the character has a tail in the early chapters and carries a staff. If you name a dog Goku, you are naming it after a sixteenth-century Chinese literary figure by way of a twentieth-century Japanese comic.

Goku as a dog name

GOH-koo. Two syllables, stress on the first, opening on a hard g and ending on a long -oo. Both halves are strong: the g gives the ear an edge to catch and the final vowel is one you can hold, which means the name carries further than its two syllables suggest.

It is short, easy to call, and it does not collide with the standard pet names. The one thing to expect is recognition. Goku is among the most widely known fictional names of the last forty years, and a dog called Goku will be greeted by name by strangers. For some people that is the appeal; for others it is the objection, and it is worth deciding which before you commit.

See also: Miroku · Hoshi · Kichi · Sakura · Kenji

Common questions