No.1 Bulbasaur = Akasi (akesi + kasi) (plant-reptile)
No.2 Ivysaur = Akasitu (Akasi + tu) (blooming plant-reptile)
No.3 Venusaur = Akasinasa (Akasi + nasa) (strange plant-reptile)
Bulbasaur was the first Pokémon I tried translating and it was so simple to do that it immediately set false expectations for how difficult the rest of this project would be.
akesi + kasi, the words just line up perfectly!
Ivysaur's name was similarly easy. Simply adding "tu" to the end of it not only implies it is the second form of Akasi, but also that the bulb on its back is beginning to split open into two sections, ready to bloom.
Venusaur was a little bit harder but still not too hard; in most languages Venusaur's name refers to it being mysterious and strange, hence "nasa".
"Wow! Translating Pokémon into Toki Pona is so easy", I foolishly said to myself, "I'm sure this project will be finished in no time!"
No.4 Charmander = Linseli (linja + seli) (fire tail)
No.5 Charmeleon = Seliwa (seli + wawa) (stronger/powerful fire)
No.6 Charizard = Monseli (monsuta + seli) (monsterous fire)
This is where things started to get tricky. The problem with Gen 1 starters is that they're all reptiles and amphibians and I didn't want them to all be named akesi, so I had to get a bit more creative.
With Charmander I decided to focus on its defining feature: a tail (linja) with a bright burning flame at its tip. Charmeleon isn't super distinct from Charmander, mainly appearing bigger and having a stronger flame on its tail so its Toki Pona name is literally "stronger fire".
And for Charizard I continued this theme of its fire powers getting stronger and stronger to a dangerous and frightening scale! I really like the image of Charizard's flames being monstrous in both power and size, and of course dragons are a kind of monster so Monseli could be read as "fire monster" as well.
No.7 Squirtle = Seluwi (selo + suwi) (cute shell)
No.8 Wartortle = Selotala (selo + utala) (fighting turtle)
No.9 Blastoise = Telotala (telo + utala) (water fighter)
For Squirtle and its evolutions I focused on using selo to convey them being a turtle and because Squirtle is a cute baby turtle we have Seluwi, literally "cute shelled creature".
Wartortle's name is of course a combination of "war" and "turtle", so I named it Selotala, the fighting turtle!
And finally, with Telotala I specifically wanted to tie the water cannons on Blastoise's shell to the hoses and water cannons firefighters use to douse flames. If Selotala is the fighting turtle, Telotala is the firefighting turtle.
No.10 Caterpie = Pipaso (pipi + laso) (green caterpillar)
No.11 Metapod = Pipupa (pipi + pupa)
No.12 Butterfree = Pipona (pipi + pona) (happy bug)
Caterpie is a simple green caterpillar, so I gave it the simple and direct translation of pipi and laso. Literally, green caterpillar. pona a!
It's worth noting at this point that I'm not strictly using only Toki Pona words. Sometimes it's worth using loan words, partially because it makes translation a little bit easier but also because the official Pokémon translations often use loan words too. As we'll be seeing later with Magnemite, they even use words from conlangs!
In the case of Metapod's name I've borrowed "pupa" because it's a good description of the Pokémon and I just like how Pipupa sounds. I'm pretty happy with this one!
As for Butterfree, I have in my notes that "the 'free' part of its name may come from its newfound ability to fly". I wrote that note years ago and didn't leave a source so I have no idea where this information came from. My first thought was I got this from Bulbapedia but I can't find any record of that on the site, so maybe I came up with this observation myself??? I'm not sure, either way the idea that this bug is now free to fly where it pleases made me happy, and that's pona! Pipona!
No.13 Weedle = Lawisa (lawa + palisa) (head needle)
No.14 Kakuna = Kokuna (same as German name)
No.15 Beedrill= Apisina (from Apoidea and kipisi. also Apis)
Weedle's name references the sharp pointed needle on its head, in this case Lawisa literally means "head needle". palisa admittedly may not be the best way to describe a spike but Toki Pona doesn't have an easy way to convey sharpness in 10 characters. Hopefully Lawisa works in context.
For Kakuna, I've used its German name which is basically the same as its English name, which in turn is also basically the same as its name in most other languages. Plus I used a loan word for Kakuna's counterpart Metapod so I thought it'd make sense to use one here too.
Finally, Beedrill's name took me a long time to work out but it all came together in the end and I'm pretty happy with it! Apisina comes from the Hymenoptera superfamily Apoidea and kipisi which I'm using here to mean puncture. It also contains "Apis" which is the genus honey bees belong to.
No.16 Pidgey = Wasoli (waso + lili) (little bird)
No.17 Pidgeoto = Wasoko (waso + oko) (keen-eyed bird)
No.18 Pidgeot = Wasokuli (Wasoko + suli) (big Wasoko)
The Pidgey line was difficult because they're just birds. Really plain birds. Pidgeoto's Pokédex in Gold version reads, "It has outstanding vision. However high it flies, it is able to distinguish the movements of its prey", which lead me to using "oko" in its name.
A tip for anyone else trying to translate Pokémon names: in a 3-stage evolution it might be worth starting with the middle stage. It allows you to fall back on lili and suli for the other two if they're as boring as the Pidgey line here (sorry Pidgey fans!!)
No.19 Ratata = Latata (transliteration of European name)
No.20 Raticate = Latatala (Latata + utala) (war rat)
Ratata's name is the same across most European languages so I simply transliterated it here. For Raticate's name I took inspiration from the French localisation which calls it "Rattatac". The most important thing for me was retaining the "rat-ta-tat-tat" sound in their names.
No.21 Spearow = Lupali (lupa + pali) (hole maker)
No.22 Fearow = Lupalike (Lupali + ike) (evil maker of holes)
I originally had Spearow and Fearow translated as Kiwaso and Kiwasuli, a combination of kiwen and waso intending to reflect their hard and very sharp beaks, but then I realised how aggressive and cool their names are in other languages.
For example, in German Spearow is called Habitak, a combination of the words for hawk and attack. This is pretty tame compared to their Korean names which reference mythological goblins, whereas the Japanese name goes all in with Onidrill. Onidrill! These birds are nasty aggressive demon creatures, they deserve better than my rubbish translation of "hard bird".
The new names I settled on are meant to reflect Fearow's signature move, drill peck, and basically means, "creature that puts holes in things". The "ike" part of Lupalike is of course meant to represent the demonic aspects of its personality.
No.23 Ekans = Ekanasa ("a! sanake!" but it's backwards. Sanake = Transliteration of snake)
No.24 Arbok = Ajanila ("a! linja!" but it's spelt backwards.)
These two were harder than you'd think. Ekans and Arbok's names are famously backwards for snake and kobra, but writing a toki pona word backwards shifts the syllables all over the place which was very confusing to work with. Nonetheless I knew I had the right one when Ekanasa read backwards is "a! sanake!!"
Getting Arbok's name was even harder. In pretty much every localisation it's name is Arbok which I wanted to retain, but the best I could come up with was Apoka which didn't really resemble cobra backwards and it didn't have much in common with its pre-evolution, Ekanasa.
I eventually settled on using linja to represent it being a snake and using "a!" at the end to tie it back to Ekanasa, which I think worked out pretty well. Coincidentally, "a!" is the excited sound I make every time I see Ekans and Arbok who are easily some of the best Gen 1 Pokémon.
No.172 Pichu = Pisu (transliteration of Japanese name)
No.25 Pikachu = Pikasu (transliteration of Japanese name)
No.26 Raichu = Pikasuli (Pikasu + suli) (big Pikachu)
It's the famous one! The one from Super Smash Bros: Pichu!
That's right, I'm translating Pokémon introduced after Generation One as well, provided they are related to Kanto Pokémon. It adds extra work but it makes sense to do it this way as their names are often related to each other.
Pikachu and Pichu were pretty easy to translate as they have the same name in every language, so it was just a case of transliterating the sounds into Toki Pona's smaller phonetic inventory.
Raichu on the other hand was difficult...
Toki Pona lacks the "ai" diphthong in Raichu's name which made transliterating it basically impossible. The closest I got was Lalisu (La-li-su) which isn't great, so I decided to fall back on adding "suli" to the end of Pikasu's name. I think Pikasuli works much better.