Mr. Mime was created before the concept of gender was applied to the Pokémon universe, which is why it's the only Pokémon with a male honorific.
Mr. Mime was the quickest Pokémon to become dated, as its name is a relic of a time before the concept of gender was applied to the Pokémon video games. One of the new mechanics introduced in Gold and Silver was Pokémon breeding, which required male and female versions of most Pokémon and would go on to become an important part of the competitive scene.
The idea of Pokémon having genders never existed in Red and Blue, outside of Nidoran and its evolutions, which were split by gender. The player was also restricted to playing as a boy, even though a female protagonist appears in concept art for the game. Pokémon Red and Blue were limited by the aging hardware of the Game Boy, which meant developers couldn't include all of their ideas in the game. As such, a lot of concepts were left on the cutting room floor or saved for future generations of games.
Mr. Mime was meant to receive a baby variant in Pokémon Gold and Silver, according to the leaked Gold and Silver demo, but it was scrapped, and the idea was reused for Mime Jr. in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The English version of Pokémon Red and Blue (and the foreign versions that based their localization on the English version) ran into an issue with Pokémon Gold and Silver, due to Mr. Mime's name.
Mr. Mime's Name Is A Relic Of Pre-Gender Pokémon Gen 1
In Japan, Mr. Mime is called Barrierd, which refers to the fact that it conjures psychic barriers with its mimicry. It's clear the Pokémon was inspired by real-life mimes, but that wasn't reflected in its original, Japanese name. Its localized English name went with a gendered title, and this soon became redundant in Pokémon Gold and Silver, when Mr. Mime had a 50% chance of being female. Game Freak never changed the international versions to include encounters with Mrs. Mime or Ms. Mime in the wild. There's nothing stopping the player from changing a Mr. Mime's name when it's caught, of course, if they really want to own a Ms. Mime or Mrs. Mime.
It seems Pokémon's localizers still aren't interested in changing things, as Mr. Mime's Galarian evolution in Sword and Shield is Mr. Rime, continuing the naming scheme. The Mr. Mime name is a relic of the early days of the Pokémon franchise, when the universe was still being fleshed out and its concepts outlined. The mistake was caused by a localization choice that was undermined a game later, with the Pokémon series expanding in scope within the space of a single generation.
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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz. A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.
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