Musical Names

Anyone with even a casual exposure to the Mega Man series has probably noticed the rampant use of musical names. Below is a list of the names which have musical origins (I list only musical names; some of the other names do also have double meanings (such as “Dr. Wily”) but they are not musical in nature).

The first column is the standard English name. Some characters however have multiple names, for example their names are often different in the Japanese games. All names which have some musical meaning are listed on the right.

Mega Man -	Rock: Rock & Roll (get it?)
Roll -	Roll: Rock & Roll (get it?)
Proto Man -	Blues: A genre of music more commonly known as “Rhythm and Blues.” Break Man: Proto Man uses this name as an alias for a short time in Mega Man 3. It’s not known why Capcom chose it. It could be a reference to break dancing but most likely it has no musical connotations.
Bass -	Bass: The lowest tones in the register in music. Forte: A musical denotation meaning “loud” (it’s Italian for “strong”). The opposite is “piano” meaning soft.
Treble -	Treble: The high tones in the register; the opposite of bass. Gospel: A type of Christian music.
Rush -	Rush: There’s actually a band named this, although I don’t know if this is what Capcom meant.
Beat -	Beat: A measure of rhythm in music.
Tango -	Tango: A kind of dance.
Enker -	Enker: Probably a misspelling of “enka” which is a modern Japanese ballad (see definition of ballad below).
Quint -	Quint: Probably a misspelling of “quintet,” a musical group with five members.
Punk -	Punk: A genre of music (“punk rockers”).
Ballade -	Ballade: Probably a misspelling of “ballad” which is a poem in the form of a song that tells a story.
Reggae -	Reggae: A genre of music.
Middy -	Middy: Probably a misspelling of “MIDI” which is an acronym for a type of file format used to store musical scores electronically.
Techno -	Techno: A type of dance music.
Tron Bonne -	Tron Bonne: This could be a reference to a trombone, the musical instrument.

NAMES

MUSICAL NAMES