The Official Name Explanations Thread

[ScottyFamalam]

Katakana: ウーブ
Hepburn: Ūbu
Shuiesha: Oob
Toei: Oob
BandaI: Oob
Funimation: Uub
Viz: Oob

Katakana is ウーブ (Ūbu). Officially romanized all over Japan as "Oob". Funimation went with "Uub". Viz kept it as "Oob".

It's just supposed to be "Boo" backwards.

Oo = ウー = Ū.
B = ブ = bu.

He's Oob.

tl;dr He's Oob.

 

[ScottyFamalam]

Oh, it seems that starting in 2019, pretty much all official Japanese products use the same spellings and romanizations as Funimation. "Krillin" is now used instead of "Klilyn", "Frieza" instead of "Freeza", "Buu" instead of "Boo", "Gokou" instead of "Goku", "Vegito" instead of "Vegetto" (ironically, Funimation now uses "Vegetto"), etc . This seems to be part of "brand unification" on Shuiesha, Toei, Bandai, etc's end.

They even changed "Gokou" to "Goku" on rereleases of old Carddass sets.

Original 1996 release:

2023 rerelease:

Of course, the nerds at Kanzenshuu were livid.

 

[ScottyFamalam]

Katakana: プンター
Hepburn: Puntā
Bandai: Punta
Funimation: Pintar
Viz: Punta

As I explained here, his name is most likely a pun on タプン (tapun), which is onomatopoeia for fat jiggling or swaying. プンター (Puntā) would best be translated as "Puntaa" or "Puntah" to preserve the pun.

tl;dr His name is Puntaa or Puntah.

 

[ScottyFamalam]

Katakana: ザーボン
Hepburn: Zābon
Bandai: Zarbon
Funimation: Zarbon
Viz: Zarbon

His name is universally romanized as "Zarbon" everywhere. It's a pun on "zamboa", which is what the fruit pomelo is called in Portuguese; Japan approximated it as ザボン (zabon). Elongate the ザ (za) and you get ザーボン (Zābon), the character's name. "Zarbon" is fine, but I'd prefer to call him "Zahbon".

tl;dr You may as well just call him Zarbon, but Zahbon is fine, too.