Gohan is a Japanese word meaning cooked rice or meal, later familiarized internationally through pop culture use as a name.
Gohan carries dual lives in the Japanese language. On its surface, it is an everyday word — gohan (ご飯) means 'cooked rice' and, by extension, 'meal,' a term so woven into daily Japanese life that eating and rice become inseparable. The word derives from the kanji 御飯, a respectful prefix combined with the character for cooked grain, reflecting how deeply rice has shaped Japanese culture, agriculture, and identity for over two millennia.
As a given name, Gohan is rare in Japan precisely because of this quotidian meaning — naming a child 'meal' carries a gentle absurdity in its native context. Outside Japan, however, the name belongs almost entirely to one iconic figure: Son Gohan, the half-Saiyan son of Son Goku in Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise, debuting in 1984. Toriyama named the character after the Japanese word as a playful nod to the Saiyan tradition of naming characters after vegetables — Goku himself is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of Sun Wukong, and Gohan's name continues a tradition of earthy, humble naming.
Son Gohan was also the name of Goku's adoptive grandfather, honoring generational continuity within the story. For the generations who grew up watching Dragon Ball Z in the 1990s and 2000s, Gohan evokes the gentle, bookish prodigy who unleashes extraordinary power in moments of emotional extremity — a character beloved for his humanity as much as his strength. As anime culture has moved from subculture to mainstream globally, parents with deep affection for the franchise have begun choosing Gohan as a genuine given name, particularly in the United States and Brazil, where Dragon Ball fandom runs especially deep. It sits at the intersection of pop culture reverence and cross-cultural curiosity.