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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44670
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Puns, by there nature, have a weird translation issue. Sometimes they just don't work because, they are play on words, but the pun doesn't work in the new language because those words don't sound close. Other times, they work way more universally than anticipated because the format doesn't rely on similar sounding words to be in play.

For example, take the following joke:

> A wife asks her husband, "Does this dress make me look pretty or ugly?"
> 
> The husband looks up and responds, "I'd say pretty ugly."

This joke is occasionally refered to as the universal pun because it translates into just about every language there is. Most languages use pretty as an adjective (as per the wife's line) and an adverb (as per the husband's line) in a similar fashion... Similarly, any English Joke that relies on a pun on the word "Dream" translates well into Japanese and vice-versa because the Japanese word for "Dreams" (Yuma) has the same exact meaning in all possible uses.

Other times, Jokes do not translate well, but can be understood if you know the language. Japanese, for example, has several different sounds for numbers, so it's not uncommon for people to use a numerical value to represent themselves or another concept, because the pronunciation of the number sounds makes a pun on the thing's name. An example of this comes from an entry of the Japanese Television Show Super Sentai (Power Rangers in the U.S.). The 1999-2000 series was themed after Rescue Services and was given an increadibly fun pun to explore in "Kyukyu Sentai GoGoV" which translates to "Rescue Task Force Go Go Five" (V being the Roman Numeral for Five, not the letter). This has several number puns going, on... the first is that the sound "Kyu" in "Kyukyu sounds like one of the sounds for 9, so Kyukyu sounds like 9-9 which is the year the show first aired... In the phrase GoGoV, the title uses a well known pun on their word for the number 5 sounding like the English word "Go". The V is used to show they want to use the English word for 5, not another go. Being one of the few teams following the Green Ranger to lack a sixth ranger, the first pun is telling the team of rescue workers to move to the scene with haste ("Go! Go, Five!" and probably the reason why it's US counterpart was called "Lightspeed Rescue" as they both imply rapid deployment to emergencies) but additionally, it's also making a number pun off of 555... the 911 equivalent emergency call line in Japan. It helps to know that post WWII Japanese is loaded with English Loan Words.

If this is a naming pun thing, I would advise not to explain the joke and let your readers figure it out. They can be quite clever.

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