Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are the upcoming 9th generation of the “Pokémon” series, and there are already over 900 Pokémon even without them. But a little piggy is currently winning the hearts of fans at lightning speed. This is not least due to the English version of its name: Lechonk. What’s behind it is explained by MeinMMO.
What kind of Pokémon is this? Lechonk, or Ferkuli in German, was introduced in the latest trailer for the new editions Scarlet and Violet. It is a small, black, and chubby piglet with yellow eye rings.
It is a Normal type and resembles a small version of a truffle pig. Ferkuli even has a special sense for rich berries and fragrant grasses. The official Pokémon website states that it may look fat, but its body is mostly made of muscle.
Here you can watch the latest trailer for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet featuring Ferkuli:
Fans celebrate Lechonk and turn it into a meme
Twitter and Reddit go wild: The term Lechonk was trending on Twitter for several hours with over 20,000 tweets.
Nearly 13,000 retweets and more than 160,000 likes were garnered by Twitter user and YouTuber Patterrz by posting a picture of Lechonk and saying: ‘Lechonk is the only Pokémon that you cannot give a nickname legally (via Twitter).’
Out of Context Pokémon could hardly believe it either, earning about 25,000 retweets and almost 200,000 likes with their tweet, in which they wrote ‘They called him Lechonk, LMFAO’.
In the subreddit ‘pokemonmemes’, many fans created the wildest images (memes) about the new piglet. Reddit user Axirev even put a beret on Ferkuli and gave it a baguette:
Another Reddit user summarized with a meme what many thought first before reading the name Lechonk:
Chubby Piglet Has a Name that Describes Fat Cats
But why is the name Lechonk such a hit? The community breaks down the name into two parts: ‘Le’ and ‘chonk’. Chonk/chonky is humorously derived from the English word ‘chunk’ or ‘chunky’, which means fat, bulky, or clump.
Chonky or chonk is lovingly used in meme culture to describe fat animals, especially chubby cats. The subreddit Chonkers is the perfect example of this. There, images of fat cats are constantly posted.
The word ‘Le’ is simply the French word for ‘The’.
What are memes? Memes are usually images, GIFs, or short videos that predominantly contain humorous content. Sometimes they are also satirical, which is why they are occasionally seen as socially critical.
Where does the name Lechonk actually come from? Lechonk actually comes from the Spanish term “Lechón”, which simply means a suckling pig.
If you want to learn more about the upcoming Pokémon games Scarlet and Violet, you can do so in our article: Generation 9 of Pokémon announced – Starters and everything we know
