DEEP DIVE: So How Did Godzilla Get His Name, Anyway?

Godzilla is just as curious as you are to know how he got his name. Photo by Brett Homenick.

 

Most of us have heard the stories about how Gojira got his name. It's a combination of the Japanese words for "gorilla" and "whale," and may have been the nickname of a rather imposing Toho employee (though there is plenty of reason to doubt that anecdote).

But what about the name Godzilla? Much less has been written about it over the years. The basic rundown we usually get is that it was named by Toho, not the American distributors, and that it was likely chosen because it's an approximation of the Japanese name Gojira, with "God" suggesting the creature's divine-like power, and "zilla" suggesting its reptilian origin. (I specifically remember reading this hypothesis in Jim Harmon's The Godzilla Book back in the mid-1990s.)

But it turns out that there's quite a bit more to the story than what usually gets told. So, without further ado, let's jump right in.

Since Toho wanted to export its ambitious 1954 monster epic overseas, Toho head of production Iwao Mori asked producer Tomoyuki Tanaka to create a name for the overseas title. Tanaka had several meetings with the advertising department and proposed three possible titles to Mori. These titles were GOJIRA, GOZILA, and GODILA. Tanaka's recommendation was the third name, as it combined Gojira with the English word "god."

However, Mori advised adding two "l's" because the English "r" doesn't have the same sound as the Japanese "ra." Mori was quite familiar with foreign countries, considering he had traveled in Europe and the United States from December 1925 through April 1926 to learn about the film industries there, on top of having read a lot of Western books following the end of World War II. (Moreover, according to Mori's Japanese Wikipedia page, he had just returned from another tour of the U.S. prior to becoming Toho's head of production in 1952.)

Mori also suggested replacing the "j" of Japan after "God" with the "z" of the Z flag and asked a foreigner he knew to check the pronunciation of the name he had just concocted. As a result, Godzilla (pronounced and spelled the way we all know it today) was born.

So where did I find this information? Do I have a super-secret contact at Toho? Did I unearth Iwao Mori's personal diary? Was I in the room when it was all decided?

Surprisingly enough, the answer to all the above questions is no. I actually found this information in Osamu Kishikawa's liner notes for Toho's LaserDisc release of Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). I was at a gathering of tokusatsu fans in Tokyo for which the attendees brought rare items to pass around and share with their fellow devotees.

While checking out the LaserDiscs that one of the attendees brought, I was stunned to find the explanation of how Godzilla got his name staring right back at me. It was an amazing find, and one I discovered quite by accident. 

Still, I have to agree with William Shakespeare, who once famously wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a gorilla-whale by any other word would swat as many jets.”