What did you name your rivals?

In some of the older games, you were able to name your rivals. I know this is true for Generation I and II. I am honestly not too sure about Generation III because it's been so long since I played it, and I believe you could do the same thing in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum for Barry. I believe they completely stopped this around Generation V. Do you remember the names you gave your rivals?

Since I started with the anime I used to name my rival in Blue just "Gary". When I moved on to gen 2 I felt particularly clever naming them "???".

I might have changed that later on by just referring to them with their "official" name.

I would name my rivals after my friends and they would name their rivals after me or other friends in our group. Sucks trying to go back to those old games now with the save files still present as all those memories come flashing back.

I've named them after friends and cousins, whoever I'd been gaming with most recently probably. Named my original rival from Silver "???" though, and my rival from Red "Gary."

I don't remember what I named Oak's grandson in Yellow when I found a copy of the game in my house when I was about 11. (I think the copy of Yellow originally belonged to my sister or something, but she stopped playing video games at some point.)

At one point in Blue, I named the player character Eddy and the rival Kevin because of Ed, Edd n Eddy. This was after the show ended, but it was the first time I had a naming scheme for all the Pokémon, even though I didn't complete that save. It's a long story that I don't feel like telling.

I'm shocked no one has brought up people on the internet naming the rival a naughty word.

Reginald Cosmic said:

I'm shocked no one has brought up people on the internet naming the rival a naughty word.

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I suppose now is the time for me to post in the thread lol

Stuff like that was often what I'd name the rival when I was a kid. Dumbass and Shithead were the more common ones iirc. Eventually stopped around Gen 4 I think, these days I usually just use one of the defaults or their canon name.

"Champion F***wad (from Shrek) would like to battle!" (I censored it just in case the admins think the F word is too much for a Pokémon forum.)

Wait, how could you pick S***head if the character limit is seven in Gens I through III? Hacks?

I usually call them "Pesado" which is a Spanish way of calling someone annoying.

Reginald Cosmic said:

I'm shocked no one has brought up people on the internet naming the rival a naughty word.

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I was originally going to name the rival in HG/SS A$$Wipe but I was afraid my mom might see that as I played the game. It is the only reason why I have never given the rivals bad words or slurs for names. Also I thought it was unoriginal by the time I was in high school and Gen 6 dropped.

Depends on what my own name was. Since I used a Japanese nickname for the Sinnoh games, I gave another one to Barry. I think I also named Silver "Tsubaki," in HG/SS, which was the name of his counterpart in a very obscure HG/SS-based manga, and "Fern" in Crystal after the Reborn rival. From there, not sure what I named either Blue or Hugh (yes, you could name rivals as late as Gen V!), but it surely wasn't a bad word or anything like that.

Although...

Usually words along the line of 'jerk' =P

Reginald Cosmic said:

"Champion F***wad (from Shrek) would like to battle!" (I censored it just in case the admins think the F word is too much for a Pokémon forum.)

Wait, how could you pick S***head if the character limit is seven in Gens I through III? Hacks?

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Maybe it was something a bit different, I honestly can't remember perfectly anymore and those save files have long since existed. Definitely was something with the word shit in it though

The forum also has a censor by default (which people can also turn off), so there's little need to self-censor. I don't have a very clean mouth myself and have committed censor bypass many times and they haven't gotten rid of me yet so....

I usually name the rival Kir. But, honestly, I now prefer the can't name the rival era because it means they have a canon name I don't have to fill in.

Won't say the name for privacy reasons, but the first time I played Diamond, I gave him the name of my childhood best friend. The character fit his personality quite well. In general, I often ended up becoming friends with hyperactive people, so that fit quite well with Barry and it's probably one of the reasons he's my fav rival.
After that, I kinda stuck with either random names "Stirio" in HGSS, because I liked how it sounded and then mostly canon names. I like using the canon names.

Ever since my first Nuzlocke of Fire Red, I've named my Gen 1/3 rival Dirk.
I have no memory of whatever I named my rival in C/HG/SS, but it was never what he was called canonically as I have no idea what his canon name even is lol.
I've never played R/S/E, so I don't even know if you can name a rival for that game.
For Platinum, I went with one of the default given names. I chose 'Roy' as I both liked the name, and thought it fit his look.
I'm not sure you can name a rival in B/W, I've played both and just do not remember sadly.
I named my B2/W2 rival Rage, as I thought it fit his look quite well.

You can only name the rival in the Kanto games (RBY and FRLG and LGPE), the Johto games (GSC and HGSS), and the Sinnoh games (DPP and BDSP). I don't know the exact reasoning as to why you can't name the rival in Sinnoh. Maybe by that point, they'd caught onto kids naming the rival a swear word and didn't want May to be named something naughty, or maybe it was cuz your rival is the gender you didn't pick.

I was actually rather surprised when I found out about Barry from a YouTube video back when the 3DS games were current. I'd never played Sinnoh, so I'd just assumed Lucas/Dawn were (was?) the main rival. I don't know why, but it blindsided me. (Also, there's a chance I only found out about Rival Hugh this year.)

I remember I named my rival after my brother when I played Diamond, and then me and my sister (who shared White 2) named the rival after an annoying kid in her class. I also feel like in Leaf Green (I think?), she named the rival Sexy because we thought it would be funny. A few years back I did a food-themed run of White 2 and named the rival Halibut since it starts with H like Hugh.

Oh, shoot, was I wrong? Can you name the rival in B2W2? I know you can't name Bianca, Cheren, or N, so I'd assumed Hugh was off-limits in the sequel.

In any case you should've said you named the rival that, "just for the halibut!" Wocka Wocka! [/Fozzie Bear Reference]

Explanation for this obscure reference in case anyone cares:

"Players are able to choose a different name for Blue (RBY/FRLG), Silver (GSC/HGSS), Barry (DPPt), Hugh (B2W2), and Trace (LGPE). In the Hoenn- and Kalos-based games, the player character not chosen will serve as a rival."

Anyway, I can't really remember my rival names back in the original two generations. I'd either pick the default Gary or whatever provided for the rival. I also likely defaulted to Barry in generation IV because Barry looked like a Barry to me.

For more recent playthroughs, when my trainer name was a reference to a video game, I would typically use an antagonistic name for my rival. Some examples included:
White 2: My trainer name was Lilith and my rival's name was Jack (Borderlands series)
Black 2: My trainer name was Aloy and my rival's name was Sylens (Horizon Zero Dawn series)
Let's Go Eevee: My trainer name was Aurelia and my rival's name was Alistar (Borderlands series, though I was technically playing as the antagonist).

When I played Silver version for the first time, I named the Rival Gino because I thought it was a cool name (and one of my classmates at the time was named Gino. Total coincidence!). It would be many years later that I found out the Rival's official name is Silver, which in Japanese is 銀 Gin :)