Thought his name was "Rock".

[Justiciar-]

Why do they keep calling him "Mega"?

[Miri Ryllis ミリス]

Rock is his original Japanese name. ロックマン. It was changed to Mega for English , probably cuz it sounds cooler.

[Justiciar-]

It was also his name in the English version of MM7 as well. Rock was his real name, and MegaMan was like his superhero name.

"Mega" just sounds dumb.

[TuxedoCruise]

He's been named Mega Man in North America and Europe before MM7, starting with Mega Man 1 on the NES. They keep calling him "Mega" because that's what Capcom changed his name into outside of Japan.

If you think Mega Man is his superhero name, then I don't see the issue of people calling him Mega Man. It's like getting hung up about people calling Clark Kent "Superman" when both names are appropriate.

[RiO]

Originally posted by TuxedoCruise:

He's been named Mega Man in North America and Europe before MM7, starting with Mega Man 1 on the NES. They keep calling him "Mega" because that's what Capcom changed his name into outside of Japan.

Not quite. The original Mega Man series on NES also explicitly refers to the character as Rock.
E.g. the intro sequence to Mega Man 4 explicitly mentions Rock's name, multiple times over as it explains how he was turned into "Mega Man" the fighting robot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSnrXmvu82w

So yes; in that sense Mega Man is his 'superhero' name, while Rock remains his actual name.

Originally posted by TuxedoCruise:

If you think Mega Man is his superhero name, then I don't see the issue of people calling him Mega Man. It's like getting hung up about people calling Clark Kent "Superman" when both names are appropriate.

The issue is likely with friends and 'relatives' also referring to him as Mega, rather than Rock.
Especially if they did refer to him by his appropriate given name in earlier titles like Mega Man 7.

It's a continuity screw-up.

[Justiciar-]

I don't remember which game explained it, but as I understood it, Dr. Light created 3 robots initially: The first was Protoman, and I think he built him when he was still friends with Dr. Wily. The second was Rock and Roll (not sure which order) and Rock eventually gets refitted and becomes MegaMan to fight Dr. Wily's master robots.

[Agarillobob]

they call him rock, do you not play in japanese language? WTF OP

[Karl Perkins]

wait rock and mega man is the same??? my whole childhood is ruined

[Megapal]

rockman just sounds dumb in english, it makes you think you're gonna have rock powers or something, it just doesn't make sense when the other robots are named like "flameman" has flame powers "snakeman" has snake powers, etc. In english to make this all sound good and make sense together they say Rock is megaman's original human name before he turned into a robot.

[X]

Rockman can't be used in the US as there are several people there who uses the name, like Rockman Rock and Alexis Rockman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockman

[Justiciar-]

Originally posted by boys are lovely:

Rock is megaman's original human name before he turned into a robot.

He was never human. He was Dr. Light's creation. Built as a robot from the start. You might be thinking of that dumb ben-10 inspired TV show that has practically nothing to do with MegaMan.

And you can't copyright/trademark "Rock". The character is distinct enough that the game would not create confusion with competing products.

[Megapal]

Originally posted by Ĵ∪s†iℭaℜ:

Originally posted by boys are lovely:

Rock is megaman's original human name before he turned into a robot.

He was never human. He was Dr. Light's creation. Built as a robot from the start. You might be thinking of that dumb ben-10 inspired TV show that has practically nothing to do with MegaMan.

And you can't copyright/trademark "Rock". The character is distinct enough that the game would not create confusion with competing products.

in one of the original megamans, I forget exactly which one, it states that Rock was human but then volunteered to be turned into a robot because of his heroic attidtude or something like that

[RiO]

Originally posted by boys are lovely:

Originally posted by Ĵ∪s†iℭaℜ:

He was never human. He was Dr. Light's creation. Built as a robot from the start. You might be thinking of that dumb ben-10 inspired TV show that has practically nothing to do with MegaMan.

And you can't copyright/trademark "Rock". The character is distinct enough that the game would not create confusion with competing products.

in one of the original megamans, I forget exactly which one, it states that Rock was human but then volunteered to be turned into a robot because of his heroic attidtude or something like that

It was Megaman 4 which explained Rock's backstory of being retro-fitted into Mega Man.

It was also Megaman 4 which opens stating that "household robots Rock and Roll were built by master robot designer, Dr Light."

It was again Megaman 4 of which the intro sequence which tells this story, is shown in the Youtube embed I added to my previous post here. It's 10 or so posts up from this one as well. Do have a look, please.

Originally posted by boys are lovely:

rockman just sounds dumb in english, it makes you think you're gonna have rock powers or something, it just doesn't make sense when the other robots are named like "flameman" has flame powers "snakeman" has snake powers, etc.

Would you believe the original plan was to call him Rainbowman in English?
After his ability to absorb and shift between the weapons of the other robot masters, being accompanied with a hue shift.

(Yup. Really...)

[mdesaleah]

Originally posted by boys are lovely:

Originally posted by Ĵ∪s†iℭaℜ:

He was never human. He was Dr. Light's creation. Built as a robot from the start. You might be thinking of that dumb ben-10 inspired TV show that has practically nothing to do with MegaMan.

And you can't copyright/trademark "Rock". The character is distinct enough that the game would not create confusion with competing products.

in one of the original megamans, I forget exactly which one, it states that Rock was human but then volunteered to be turned into a robot because of his heroic attidtude or something like that

The only Megamen that were human are Vent, Aille, and Ash. All of the others are robots.

[Justiciar-]

Originally posted by RiO:

Would you believe the original plan was to call him Rainbowman in English?

This isn't intended to be homophobic, but that sounds like it would've been really gay.

[PhilyFooFighter]

As mentioned in the comments, countless MegaMan games call MegaMan, 'Rock'. With 'MegaMan' Powered Up' being an outlier (and not in continuity), all past 'MegaMan' games in the classic series have adhered to the convention of calling him both 'Rock' and 'MegaMan' or just 'MegaMan', with 'MegaMan' being the equivalent of 'Rockman' in Japan and 'Rock' being his civilian identity both in and out of Japan (just like Roll's name is the same both in and out of Japan).

I agree with the original poster the omission of MegaMan's civilian name of 'Rock' is extremely jarring. (Plus the 'Rock and Roll' pun doesn't make any sense unless his civilian name is 'Rock'; even in English, the musical references are everywhere in MegaMan: case in point, Bass and Treble and their "Treble Boost".) Only calling the character 'Mega' instead of 'Rock' is extremely silly on Capcom's part, especially since we're 11 games (really more) into the series at this point.