Bardock - Goku's dad

Bardock's name, like all other Saiyan characters, is a pun on edible plant material, in this case the burdock herb (this pun is more apparent in the Dragon Ball manga, where the character's name is literally spelled Burdock). Bardock's family are all named after root vegetables (burdock, radish, and carrot).

Bardock is one of three members of the team whose name was not completely changed from Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru's design. The other being Panbukin (Shugesh in the American dub) and Toma (Tora in American dub).

The word "burdock" transliterated into katakana is badokku (バードック, bādokku), but the character's name is written as Badakku (バーダック, Bādakku), changing the 'do' character to 'da'. This character change actually makes the kana sound more like "Bardock" to English speakers, making it difficult to accurately romanize the word to convey the pun. The word could be romanized as "Burdock", "Barduck", "Badack" or any combination of these syllables. WhileViz's English publications of the manga use the spelling "Burdock", the FUNimation Dub of Bardock - The Father of Goku and the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock both spell his name "Bardock". "Bardock" is also how Frieza pronounces his name while speaking aloud during the Frieza Sagaof FUNimation Entertainment's Dragon Ball Z English dub.