Portmanteau Series Nickname

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Many Anime series have fairly lengthy titles. Frequently, they wind up picking up a Portmanteau Series Nickname, with a syllable or two of each word in the series name. Sometimes, the producers explicitly encourage this, and refer to the series using the nickname in the Post Episode Trailer.

Portmanteau words are the Japanese equivalent of acronyms. The Japanese language is syllabic—instead of single letters, Japanese is built from entire syllables; consonants (except "n") don't occur by themselves. So where a Western term would produce an acronym, the Japanese equivalent produces a pronounceable word. The Japanese use portmanteau terms in much the same way that English speakers use acronyms. Which is to say, frequently. More so recently thanks to the need to create short hashtags on Twitter, some of which have been officially endorsed by the author or publisher.

Probably the most famous is Pocket Monsters becoming Pokémon. The longer name is official for both the games and the show in Japan, but couldn't be used in America because an early-90s toyline/comic/cartoon had secured the trademark on the name "Monster In My Pocket". This is actually slightly common; some of these are so ubiquitous that they get used as the official English titles.

See also Officially Shortened Title

Alphabetical order by official Japanese title, please.

Examples of Portmanteau Series Nickname include:


Anime and Manga

Card Games

  • Pokémon Card Ni Natta Wake -> Pokewake.

Literature

Professional Wrestling

Theatre

Video Games

Other

  • Drinks chain Beverages & More! now calls themselves BevMo! (Yes, with the exclamation point in both versions.)
  • Despite its common use, "Famicom" is technically a nickname for the Family Computer (the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System). Nintendo made the abbreviation official for the Super Famicom, which didn't stop Bandai from abbreviating that name further with their SuFami Turbo accessory.
  • American shipping company Federal Express rebranded to FedEx, a popular nickname, and used both till 2000. [1]
  • National Biscuit Company -> Nabisco, they changed their name so long ago, most people don't even know of the full name.
  • The British bank National Westminster Bank rebranded to NatWest in the mid 90s.
    • As did now-defunct American bank Washington Mutual ("WaMu").
  • Service Games was originally founded as an American company, but after it opened its Japanese offices in the early 1950's, they would eventually be referred to as Sega.
  • Japan Capsule Computer Co. was only in the business of making video game arcade cabinets, which they thoughtfully named "Capsule Computers." Now that they're in the business of making games themselves, we have since known them as Capcom.
  • Jagex's name originally stood for "Java Gaming Experts", though they have redefined it as "Just About the Game Experience".
  • Bluesman Keb' Mo', originally Kevin Moore (not that one).
  • JLo.