>>56369015Pokémon protagonists get names when they appear as NPCs you can't name. When the male protagonist of Ruby and Sapphire appears as an NPC, his name is Brendan (ユウキ; Yuuki), which comes from 勇気 (yuuki; bravery). For the female character, it's May (ハルカ; Haruka) which comes from 遥か (haruka; distant) and maybe 春 (haru; spring).
Red (レッド) didn't have a confirmed name until he appeared as an NPC in Gold and Silver. Until that point, many people including Game Freak staff called him Ash (サトシ; Satoshi) because of the anime, which got its name from the second name listed in Pokémon Red. The rival was therefore Gary (シゲル; Shigeru) since that was the second name listed in Pokémon Green (Blue international). But Gold and Silver gave him the default name of Blue (グリーン; Green).
From this, people assumed that the protagonist and rival of GS would follow suit and logically be named Gold and Silver. Neither character appeared as unnameable NPCs until the male protagonist in HGSS, where his NPC name is Ethan (ヒビキ; Hibiki) from 響く (to reverberate/to be heard from far away). The new female protagonist as an NPC was called Lyra (コトネ; Kotone) from (琴 koto, a Japanese musical instrument, and possibly 音 ne, meaning sound). However, characters like Leaf (リーフ), Kris (クリス), and Silver (シルバー) never appeared as unnamed NPCs until Pokémon Masters, which used the names that fans had grown accustomed to. Leaf was a default name in LeafGreen, though Fire was equally appropriate in FireRed. Kris appeared in official screenshots on the Crystal box, but was also used for the male protagonist. The English games tried to localize that as Chris (male) and Kris (female). For all we know, Game Freak intended it to be Crys.
