Names of the ghosts or monsters in Pac-Man

Question

Not sure if they're ghosts or monsters, but what are the names of those chasing our beloved and fearless hero, Pac-Man, around the maze?

Do they even have names? Do they also have distinct personalities?

Answer 1

The Character (Personality), nicknames and behavior for the enemies are:

• Red: Shadow "Blinky" (Chases Pac-Man all the time, Also speeds up after you've eaten a certain amount of dots, which gets less for each level.)

• Pink: Speedy "Pinky" (Fast but random movement.)

• Cyan: Bashful "Inky" (Shy and tries to stay away from pac-man, unless approached too much, after which it will chase Pac-Man too.)

• Orange: Pokey "Clyde" (Slow and Random Movement)

Now, on the ghost vs. monster topic, The arcade cabinet refered to the enemies as "monsters", but the when the Atari 2600 home version was released with pale, flickering enemies, the manual dubbed them "ghosts", to add to the confusion, the TV series refers to them as "ghost monsters" (I personally prefer ghosts.)

Source for the behaviours:
Mateas, Michael (2003). "Expressive AI: Games and Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). Proceedings of Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Answer 2

The original game called the creatures monsters when they are chasing you (red, pink, blue, orange) and called them ghosts when they are running from you (purple/peach) after you eat an energizer.

The Japanese names for the monsters are:

• Red: Oikake a.k.a. "Akabei" (the chaser)
• Pink: Kimagure a.k.a. "Pinky" (fickle/whimsy)
• Cyan: Machibuse a.k.a. "Aosuke" (the ambusher)
• Orange: Otoboke a.k.a. "Guzuta" (plays dumb)

(The pink monster had the nickname "Pinky" in both the U.S. and Japan.)

Answer 3

The ghosts have both names and distinct personalities. Here is a detailed description (and another one). The summary is:

• Blinky (red): Speeds up after you've eaten a certain amount of dots. Tends to chase more closely than any other ghost.

• Pinky (pink): Tends to move anti-clockwise. Is usually the first ghost to scatter to the corners of the maze.

• Inky (blue): Takes seemingly random decisions at junction points, so is harder to predict than the other ghosts.

• Clyde (orange): Often gives up the chase, so is the easiest of the ghosts to avoid.