I'm of the opinion that enemies that are clearly the same as their Mushroom Kingdom counterparts should simply be overwritten, so...
Chibibo would become
GoombaGira would become
Bullet BillFly would become
Fighter FlyPakkun Flower is obviously
Piranha PlantThe only problem one is
Honen. The
Fishbone enemy that appears in SMW is
Honebone in Japan, and would be the best candidate... however, the two enemies act very differently.
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Honen leaps vertically out of the water, and can be jumped on.
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Honebone/Fishbone travels in a slight zigzag pattern underwater (SMW/SML2), jumps out of lava (YI) or same as SMW, but attacks when it sees Mario (NSMBWii)
Perhaps I'm overanalyzing. Who knows.
Fishbone would certainly make the most sense and tie it to the rest of the series.
I also think
Nokobon should become
Bomb Troopa rather than
Kamikaze Koopa, for two reasons: It's not kamikaze (it doesn't blow itself up to kill Mario, it blows up when Mario jumps on it), and I'm preeeetty sure the Japanese aren't proud of that particular part of their history...
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With established enemies out of the way, then there's the rest of the enemies. I'm not a big fan of straying too far from the intentions of the developers or the Japanese name meanings (which certainly sets me apart from the localization teams).
Bunbun becomes
BuzzbuzzBunbun acts differently to other Mario bees, and looks different too, so I'd be happier keeping him as a separate enemy.
Gao becomes
GrrinxKing Totomesu becomes
King TutangrrinxMekabon is actually my favourite name of the enemies, and I'd keep it just as it is
The
Yurarin family is kinda tricky. The name means something like "swaying", but only the basic Yurarin moves that way... and you encounter Yurarin Boo first.
Seahorses in Japanese culture are interesting, as their name
タツノオトシゴ (Tatsuno Otoshigo) means "Child of the Dragon". They are often tied to dragons in Japanese culture (think Pokemon), and are also used to represent dragons.
And so...
I think
Yurarin and
Yurarin Boo should simply become the same enemy, like how Cheep Cheeps act differently in and out of the water, and be renamed
Tidra... which is both a combination of Tide and Dragon, but also Tiger, thanks to their yellow and black stripe colouring.
Dragonzamasu becomes
King TidragonTorion is a blue fish that travels in threes, so
Trion is fine.
Gunion has an unusual name. When shot, it's actually supposed to be splitting into two smaller versions of itself. So I would call it
Cracken.
Tamao simply means
Ball-o which is lame. I'd suggest
Spheye.
Now we're onto the Moai heads, which Man-Frog has simply called
Moai. I think this is a little too generic and "real worldy" for a Mario game.
Like many of the enemies, they are all named after the sounds they would make, much like Whomp and Thwomp. But because they are Moai, I like the idea of keeping their names slightly islander-like.
Tokotoko becomes
TokoBatadon becomes
ParatokoHiyoihoi becomes
King TokotokoGanchan the name means
Mr. Thud or something along those lines, but I don't like that. I simply propose
Thuddy, as he's also a helpful character.
Suu is a striped spider that drops down from above on a thread of web. The Japanese name is a corrupted word for "web" or "nest". I like Man-Frog's suggestion of
Webb for this one.
Kumo / Black Pyon is a brown, hairy jumping tarantula. His names translate as "Spider" and "Black Pouncer" respectively, both of which are rather dull. However, I quite like
Kumo as a name, and as the only one who was actually localized, I'm tempted to keep it.
Pionpi is based on
Jiang Shi, an undead Chinese vampire or zombie... although they are called
Kyonshi in Japan (much closer to the pronunciation of Pyonpi, which integrates "Pyon" meaning "hopping"). The western name is simply "Chinese vampire" which doesn't open itself to as many puns. My name will be
Vampounce.
Pompon Flower is basically already in English, so I shall keep it the same. Although it is basically the same enemy as
Panser from SMB2, and I've thought that since I was a kid.
Nyololin is a fire-spitting snake. It's Japanese name means "slither", but this is misleading as the snake doesn't actually move, and "slytherin" has been taken by Harry Potter
So I shall call this one
Fiper.
Chicken this is fine just the way it is. It's funny, because chickens can't actually fly
Chikako is a floating metal block with eyes and sparks coming from it... a role held by many other Mario enemies. I'd name it
Krackle.
Next we have the cloud boss, Biokinton. However, as the manual states, he's not actually a cloud... He's a shy character who hides inside the cloud. Presumably, as the second-to-last boss, he's the King of Chai, but unlike the other bosses he's not based on another enemy, and simply shoots chickens.
Biokinton becomes
King ClouwardTatanga would obviously stay the same. I may have found a name origin for him though. While looking at the Easter Island mythology and language, I noticed that "man" in the Rapa Nui language is "Tangata". It could be a coincidence, but I quite like it.