Some Pokémon look good enough to eat. This page picks 26 that are based on food, from a Pokémon that looks like soft-serve ice cream to a ghost that haunts a cup of tea. Click Hear it to listen to each name.
A quick note on how to read the tables. The designers rarely explain their ideas, so many of these are careful guesses. A plain verb like "is" or "looks" means the idea is well backed up, or that a designer has said it. Words like "may", "seems" and "appears" mean it is a fan reading, which is a fan's guess.
Ice cream, sweets and cream
| Pokémon | The food idea... | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| Vanillite | is based on soft-serve ice cream in a small cup or a child-sized cone, and it also somewhat resembles a snowball. | Hear it |
| Vanilluxe | has two scoops. Its designer, James Turner, has said it also borrows from US food mascots. | Hear it |
| Swirlix | seems to be modelled on cotton candy, which is called fairy floss in some countries. | Hear it |
| Slurpuff | may be based on meringue, with the red ball on its head like the cherry on top, and perhaps on cupcakes. | Hear it |
| Milcery | may be modelled on a splash of milk or a dollop of cream. | Hear it |
| Alcremie | may be modelled on whipped cream, or on Eton mess, a British dessert of fruit, meringue and whipped cream. | Hear it |
Alcremie goes further than its looks. Serebii lists nine Alcremie flavours, among them Vanilla Cream, Matcha Cream, Mint Cream, Lemon Cream, Salted Cream and Rainbow Swirl.
Fruit, vegetables and spice
| Pokémon | The food idea... | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| Cherubi | looks like a cherry. Cherries grow with several fruits on one stalk, which may be why it has a second, fruit-like head. | Hear it |
| Applin | appears to draw on the picture of a worm tunnelling into an apple. Its Dragon type may be a pun on "wyrm", an old word for a dragon. | Hear it |
| Appletun | has a pie-crust back and a tortoise-like build that point to desserts such as apple pie or apple turnover. | Hear it |
| Dipplin | shares the worm-in-an-apple idea and also looks like a candy apple. | Hear it |
| Bounsweet | may take after the purple mangosteen, a tropical fruit. | Hear it |
| Tsareena | looks modelled on a mangosteen and on a queen. The fruit's nickname, the Queen of Fruit, may be a deliberate nod. | Hear it |
| Capsakid | appears to be an unripe chilli pepper such as a habanero. | Hear it |
| Scovillain | seems to have a ripe red chilli for one head and an unripe, milder green one for the other. Its name may come from the Scoville scale, which measures how hot a chilli is. | Hear it |
| Oddish | appears to be based on a mandrake plant, and its round body also resembles an onion, a radish or a turnip. | Hear it |
Bread, pudding and rice cake
| Pokémon | The food idea... | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| Fidough | looks like a puppy, probably a dachshund, made of pastry dough. The idea may also pun on "purebred" and "pure bread". | Hear it |
| Dachsbun | seems to be based on a dachshund and on baked goods such as loaves, rolls, brioche and pretzels. Its darker colour appears to reference the browning of cooked food. | Hear it |
| Pikachu | was first drawn by Atsuko Nishida as a daifuku, a round rice-cake sweet, with ears. | Hear it |
| Jigglypuff | has the Japanese name Purin, which may refer to pudding because of its soft body. | Hear it |
| Pecharunt | appears to retell the folktale of Momotarō, a boy born from a peach who feeds his friends kibi dango, a kind of mochi. Pecharunt feeds its followers mochi, and its name may blend "peach". | Hear it |
Pokémon Database lists the names that go with these. Fidough is "Fido" plus "dough", and Pecharunt joins "peach" and "runt".
Sushi, tea and a duck with an onion
| Pokémon | The food idea... | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| Tatsugiri | appears to be based on nigirizushi: Curly looks like shrimp, Droopy like tuna, and Stretchy like egg or fish roe. | Hear it |
| Dondozo | seems to play on a sushi chef, with a headband-like frill and a tongue like a sushi tray. Its name may include dōzo, Japanese for "please, help yourself". | Hear it |
| Sinistea | is built around the idea of a ghost haunting a cup of tea. | Hear it |
| Polteageist | is essentially a ghost haunting a teapot of tea. | Hear it |
| Sinistcha | may take its name from matcha, and its bowl and whisk come from the Japanese tea ceremony. | Hear it |
| Farfetch'd | is a duck, and its Japanese name, Kamonegi, joins kamo (duck) and negi (spring onion). It may nod to a Japanese saying, "a duck comes bearing spring onions". | Hear it |
A pattern in the list
In this list, 19 of the 26 first appeared in Generations 6 to 9, and the Galar region alone gave us tea ghosts, apples and cream. The Fairy type shows up in 7 of them. A few old ones are here too. Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Oddish and Farfetch'd are from Generation 1.
Try it yourself
Next time you meet a new Pokémon, ask yourself what it looks like. Is it a sweet, a drink, or a meal? Then check the guess in the Pokédex. For more name puzzles, read Pokémon name meanings, or see which animals Pokémon are based on in Pokémon based on real animals. To practise the names out loud, play Say the Name.