Gohan's name comes from the Japanese word "gohan" (ご飯, lit. "cooked rice" or "meal of any sort"), a continuation of the naming scheme of foods by Toriyama.
Like in the previous series, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z has many naming conventions/jokes. Saiyans are all named after vegetables. Vegeta, both the prince, his father and the Saiyan home planet (originally named Planet Plant) is the first half of "vegetable". Raditz is 'radish', and his brother, Kakarot, is 'carrot'.
Why do many of the DBZ characters have names related to vegetables and food? The real answer, as has been answered probably over 9,000 times since the Saiya-jins were first introduced, is that they are name puns created by Toriyama. Yasai is the Japanese word for "vegetable," and Toriyama rearranged it to be Saiya.
Trivia. His name is a pun on the word "tomato". In the Episode of Bardock, Tora is wearing armor in the same style that Bardock wears, without the shoulder plating.
"Goku" also refers to the amount of rice needed to feed a person for a year, tying in with his grandfather's name "Gohan" meaning "awakening to rice" as a pun.
Following the Saiyan race's usual naming trend, which is based on vegetables, Broly's name is a pun on broccoli, while his father Paragus is a pun on asparagus.
Creation and design. Gohan's name comes from the Japanese word "gohan" (ご飯, lit. "cooked rice" or "meal of any sort"), a continuation of the naming scheme of foods by Toriyama. Rice, being a grain, is not normally considered to be a vegetable, even though it is a common food.
The word "napa" in the name napa cabbage comes from colloquial and regional Japanese, where nappa (菜っ葉) refers to the leaves of any vegetable, especially when used as food.
Turles (Tāresu) - In Japanese, formed by rearranging the syllables in "lettuce".
The name "Beerus" was taken from the word "virus", though Toriyama mistakingly believed the word meant "beer", which began the naming pun used for Whis during production of Battle of Gods, and later future Gods of Destruction and attendants after alcoholic beverages.
Changelings are a species of reptilianoid sapient aliens. The Changelings are a mysterious race, and not much is known of their origins, although they may originate from a homeworld known as Winter.
While not an explicit food pun, Toriyama gave Frieza (Freeza) his name on the basis that you put vegetables (Saiyans), fruit (his henchmen) and dairy products (the Ginyu Force) in the freezer (though he later admitted naming him after a refrigerator would have made more sense).
Bardock's name is derived from the vegetable burdock!
Goku also has a Saiyan name, Kakarot, which has a simpler meaning, Since all Saiyan names are basically puns for vegetables, Kakarot is nothing more than a pun on the word "carrot".
Story. Goku's eldest son, Gohan, is a polite little boy with dreams of growing up to become a great scholar. His name comes from Goku's late adoptive parent, who we know as Grandpa Gohan.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (/pæn/; Ancient Greek: Πάν, romanized: Pán) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr.
Buu, Bibidi and Babidi take their names from the song "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" in the Walt Disney movie Cinderella.
Like her mother and older brother Trunks, Bulla's name is an allusion to an undergarment, the bra in particular (this pun is more apparent in the Japanese dub, where her name is homophone for the Japanese pronunciation of "bra").
Vegeta (Japanese: ベジータ, Hepburn: Bejīta) (/vəˈdʒiːtə/ və-JEE-tə), also referred to as Prince Vegeta (ベジータ王子, Bejīta-ōji) or more specifically Vegeta IV (ベジータ四世, Bejīta Yon-sei), is a fictional character in the Dragon Ball franchise created by Akira Toriyama.
Paragus's name is a pun on the vegetable, "asparagus."
Nope. The half-breeds who were born on Earth like Gohan and Trunks were not named after vegetables. Gohan was named after Goku's adoptive grandfather, and his name is also a pun on the Japanese word for rice and meal. Goten's name means “understanding/perceiving the heavens” in Japanese.
Akira Toriyama says that Nappa shaved his head “as a test of courage and with a defiant attitude.” So that means Nappa could have kept his hair long, but chose to shave it in order to have a stronger warrior mentality.
Guldo's name is a pun on the word "yogurt." He is called Gurd in the Viz manga to reflect the latter pun.
ご飯 (Gohan)
Cooked rice is referred to as “gohan.” Interestingly, the word gohan is also used to denote “meal” or “food” in a very broad sense. For instance, if you say “I haven't had gohan yet” in Japanese, it simply means you have not had breakfast/lunch/dinner yet.
The character Goku is based on Sun Wukong (Son Goku in Japanese), the central character of the Chinese novel Journey to the West.