Ash Ketchum of Pokemon at the Phoenix Comicon in Phoenix, Arizona. (CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

"Pokemon X and Y" sounds like a very intriguing name for a game about pocket monsters called Pokemon. Surely, people are wondering why it was named that way and what the heck does the X and Y stand for. Well, wonder no more because it will all be explained here. So read on.

What's in a name?

Names are very important because it serves as one's identification, and in the video game world, it's such a huge deal. In fact, it takes a lot of time, planning, brainstorming and decision making just to come up with names for the games, characters and places.

For Pokemon, which has a series of video games published by Nintendo and developed by Game Freak and Creatures Inc., it's so much harder because before "Pokemon X and Y," there have been 11 other Pokemon games that were already made. So, they had to come up with a unique and catchy name that will get the attention of people.

For a quick recap of the old names of Pokemon video games, here's a list from of them from 1996 up to 2012:

  1. Red and Green, Blue - 1996
  2. Yellow - 1998
  3. Gold and Silver - 1999
  4. Crystal - 2000
  5. Ruby and Sapphire - 2002
  6. FireRed and LeafGreen Emerald - 2004
  7. Diamond and Pearl - 2006
  8. Platinum - 2008
  9. HeartGold and SoulSilver - 2009
  10. Black and White - 2010
  11. Black 2 and White 2 - 2012

(Credit: Wikipedia)

When Pokemon fans found out that a new Pokemon game will be released in 2013, a lot of people were excited and couldn't wait to hear more news about it. Of course, the first thing they wondered about was the name of the new game. What will it be called?

There were a lot of rumours and speculations on what its name will ultimately be. Because the previous games were named after different colours, some people even thought that the new game will be named "Pokemon Rainbow."

But according to Game Freak director Junichi Masuda, they decided to name the 2013 Pokemon game as "Pokemon X and Y," to represent the x and y axis. X is the horizontal axis and Y is the vertical, like the ones used in graphs.

"The world holds people with all sorts of ways of thinking, and you can get a sense that they exist in different dimensions. But if you think of them as people who think on the x axis and people who think on the y axis-horizontal and vertical axes-then they intersect somewhere." Masuda said.

So, basically, they chose a name which conveys what the new Pokemon game is all about. It's about convergence. This is perfect because it's in line with the game's goals, including merging old Pokemon characters with the new game (backwards compatibility), introducing new characters and concepts and making sure that it caters to the old fans of Pokemon as well as the new ones all over the world.

After all, this is the 1st time a Pokemon game will be released worldwide simultaneously as well as being the first game available for the new Nintendo 3DS.

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