When did the word "Famicom" come into use? (also: Pokemon?)

[BocoDragon]

So I'm reading in David Sheff's "Game Over" that on May 1983, Hiroshi Yamauchi announced the name Family Computer... "He dubbed it, for short, the Famicom".

So we can assume internally at Nintendo it was called Famicom, and if we are to take that quote at face value, it was initially announced as the Famicom.

But early packaging didn't say Famicom... it all said "Family Computer", as did the earliest advertisements, etc. So I'm curious... how did this name officially disseminate to the Japanese populace? Was the word in public use before Nintendo themselves started using it in official materials? (ie "Famicom Family", "AV Famicom", "Super Famicom").

Also... maybe an easier one to figure out: Pokemon. Was "Pokemon" a word that was in use internally by Game Freak/Nintendo... or did the fans make it up? The first release of Pokemon was actually "Pocket Monsters", and because of "Monster in my Pocket" in the west, the global brand name was changed to "Pokemon", the slang term. The question is, was this Game Freak/Nintendo slang or fan slang?

Just curious! Video game linguistics

[MrPopo]

It's actually a very common thing that the Japanese do; when they have a few english loan words together they tend to shorten it by using the first few syllables. There's the aforementioned Famicom and Pokemon. You can see a few examples in anime with band names; Black Stones becomes Blast (pronounced bla-sto) and Girls Dead Monster becomes GalDeMo.

[BocoDragon]

It's actually a very common thing that the Japanese do; when they have a few english loan words together they tend to shorten it by using the first few syllables. There's the aforementioned Famicom and Pokemon. You can see a few examples in anime with band names; Black Stones becomes Blast (pronounced bla-sto) and Girls Dead Monster becomes GalDeMo.

My Korean friend often asks me... where is the remocon? (remote control) Sometimes cultures who only speak English as a second language do more interesting things with slang than native English-speakers do.

[Anayo]

The Japanese like to borrow words from English, then squish them together. Like, "Mai con" means "My computer". Or there's a restaurant called "Choko Kuro", but it really means "Chocolate Croissant."

[Inazuma]

Suma Bura = Smash Brothers
Dora Kue = Dragon Quest

[Breetai]

The Japanese like to borrow words from English, then squish them together. Like, "Mai con" means "My computer".

MUCH, much more common is "pasocon" (personal computer).

When did "SuFami" become common? People say that as often as they say "Famicom".

[ZeroAX]

guess what anarex means

[AmishSamurai]

Yeah, the Japanese are huge portmanteau junkies.

[Erik_Twice]

At first, long before the Game Boy was born the creator wrote a manga called Capsule Monsters that included the basis of what is Pokémon today. Although it was 1975 some pokemon made its first appeareance here like Gengar and Nidorino (That's why they are shown in the RBY intro). Remember that Game Freak was a magazine way before it was a game company.

The concept came from Gachapon, those toys that come in small plastic balls. Tajiri couldn't copyright the name "Capsule Monsters" so he changed it to "CapuMon" and later to "Pocket Monsters". The Pokémon name arose as you say when the games got translated so as to avoid problems with "Monsters in my pocket".

However back when Green was released and in beta the monsters themselves were called "Pockemon" since the GB couldn't have such long names on screen.

Unfortunatedly I have not found any Capsule Monsters manga online, it would be very interesting to check it so if someone has some info, pass me the links!