Replacing Japanese names in dubs is something that’s done a lot of times when localizing an anime, especially to the west. It can be because of the pronunciation of the name, the way the mouth moves during scenes or just because it’s more marketable. The fact is that it was done a lot in the past and in many cases became better known by those names than the originals. And as you’ll see, it’s not as simple as dismissing it as bad localization since often it’s official.
This is a topic that became an issue to me in recent years, and found that while many are divided about it, many just dismiss it as “The original name should be used”. I saw this with the Sailor Moon English speaking community, where they refuse to acknowledge the name Serena for Usagi, saying that it was only used for a failed dub that didn’t have an impact. Wouldn’t that be incorrect, as we saw with Americanizing Sailor Moon, the dub for the US was used for uncensored dubs in many countries where they are better known as Serena and Sailor Scouts.
If we go by the logic of only using Japanese names then we should be consistent, why don’t we have Satoshi and his Lizardon be the correct names going forward? We can’t be hip-hopcritical about it. Fact is they’ve made an effort for some of the bigger Pokemon not to have localized names such as legendaries and regions mostly sticking to the original names. We also saw how Pocket Monsters became Pokemon in Japan as well. While that name was always used, it was not the actual name of the franchise but was used globally for branding.
Now in a way some companies and creators have tried to regain consistency. We have fore example here the Dragon Quest spin-off The Adventure of Dai first being able to be released with the Adventures of Fly international name, for later releases Dragon Quest had to appear front and center, and in the most recent release you had it taken out completely, removing any of the previous dubbed names the franchise was known for. Dragon Quest in the games have also flip flopped, going from the dubbed Erdrick Saga to the Loto saga which was closer to the real translation only for them to revert back to Erdrick once again.
Captain Tsubasa had a similar change with Super Campeones and Oliver & Benji being replaced in the latest remake of the manga with the original names, despite those characters being known by entirely different names in those regions. Sailor Moon did the same with Crystal and the new dub, but you can’t exactly do that with the other iconic Sailor Moon classic dubs in other countries. It’s not always like that Magic Knight Rayearth has continued to allow the dub names of their original dubs to be used in certain legacy releases. Sometimes it’s just messy,
it’s also a thing in video games where it’s not always consistent. Princess Toadstool got changed to Peach, and though officially I guess Toadstool is still correct, it’s never been used besides the Nintendo DS remake of Mario 64 that had both names. Bowser ramained King Koopa however and never got a name change. Sega had a similar problem with Dr. Robotnik changing to Dr. Eggman, in fact in Sonic Adventure 1 when Sonic uses Eggman, it’s like mocking his name which Robotnik clearly corrects him that he’s not Eggman. Funnily enough the westernized names both became canon eventually and have been re-used in the movies of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros.
As mentioned sometimes a name becomes so popular that it makes its way back to Japan. Tetsuwa Atom known internationally as Astro Boy, became a household name, hence why the 2000’s remake had Astro Boy in the title. When something becomes big worldwide, Japan will just embrace it. Heck the Gridman sequel made a clear reference to Super Human Samurai Syber-Squad and that was not really a success either. The Blaster Master became part of the canon of Metafight. The line is blurrier when it comes to dubbing japanese media than what you might think. I mean I could go on forever with examples.
It’s impossible to localize things completely, you had Mr. Satan become Hercule in Dragon Ball Z, because of sensitive issues in the American market, but in the LATAM dub Chi-Chi was changed to Milk since the original meant breasts (That actually makes the change funnier in retrospect). But as we’ve seen sometimes those changes can become culturally significant and even go back to the source and influence the real creations. There is no consistency either with some properties deciding to abandon the names, others to embrace them, while others just keep both intact for fans to use whichever. The real answer is that there is no correct way.