If words based off other languages are allowed, then I'd like to propose 'Valean' for albino. It would be derived from the Finnish word 'vaalea', which just means 'light-colored'. Perhaps the shorthand could be 'vale'? For melanistic, I'd propose 'Tamaric'. It's a bit farfetched but it's derived from the Finnish word 'tumma' and that means 'dark-colored'. Maybe 'Tam' or 'Tama' for the nickname? "Want a tam Growlithe", "Buying shiny and valean Eevees", "Looking for a vale Wurmple"?

As a longtime player, I love that the names are possibly being changed. Albino and melanistic never really made sense to me alongside the canonical shiny pokemon. I would avoid pastel/obsidian. Even though people seem to like them they're going to cause the same sort of problems that our current names do because a lot of the albinos don't qualify as pastel, and although obsidian may come in different colors the average person is going to think 'pure black' when hearing it. Also personally obsidian just sounds really clunky and awkward to me. I love radiant/opal for the 'binos and stygian for melans, though! :>

I agree with this, though I don't have as much an issue with it, I see where they are coming from.

Another note on the "blessed" being used as a name, if we don't want to imply the Melans are evil, why are we wanting to imply the albinos are good? I like Pastel, but the troubles I have with it come from wanting an opposite name for melans -- Since the opposite of something Pastel is Bold, Vivid, or Deep -- One of those is a nature (Bold) and Deep doesn't really roll off the tongue, while I don't think all melans can be described as "vivid" I support the name change though.

if the expectation is "dark" pigmentation then i believe there was no point having ever used "melanistic", when melanism is a condition explicitly referring to an excess of black pigmentation. if you do not want black pigmentation then, certainly, do away with melanism as a term. i don't have too much of a problem with albino pigmentation on the sprites even if it can feel like a very derivative interpretation of the term, i think replacing it with leucistic would be of no benefit. although "pastel" would be a better fit, i think it takes away from the value of the pokemon itself as an albino. despite my gripes with the terminology i do believe it would be better to keep them as is (albino and melanistic, respectively) because i feel it is much easier to grasp the rarity and value of an albino when it is termed as such, people know albinism is very unusual. "pastel" feels cheap, and the only mirrored term i can see it having is "grunge" which makes me wince a little. a lot of the proposed terms feel obtuse, if that at all makes sense, how do you explain Stygian or Empyrean in a drop-down without essentially describing melanism? anyone can google a melanistic animal and see how the creative work on here is derivative of it and understand this. i truly do not think the more fantastical terms would be widely appreciated, nor would the change catch on—i would still refer to them as they once were and i think many others would do the same whether out of familiarity or defiance. besides, what becomes of the abbreviations for the site's code? writing (A) and (M) to denote their characteristics is standard. that is a very minor gripe, please do not think too strongly on it but i find the concept of hundreds of pages suddenly collapsing from incompatible bbcode both funny and grimace-inducing, it's not so much fixing a Wishing Stone item bracket as it is having to sit down and vet miles of shiny hunt stats just to return a page to a readable state. in the end i think it is a non-issue, and unless the two chosen terms can be considered "mirrors" of each other like albinism and melanism AND successfully carry with them the understanding that they are an incredible rarity just like their real-world counterparts, i would strongly advise against the renaming of albino and melanistics. i apologise if my wording feels antagonistic, that is never my intent, i am just a little tired.

I really like the suggestion of Pearlescent and maybe "Pearly" as a shortened version? I also love Chroma, but wanted to add that as a possible shortened version of Chromatic. I think Ultraviolet shortened UV to avoid ultra beast mixups, might work as a Melan replacement. Because of UV rays that contribute to sun tans and the production of melanin in skin. But I also like Albino and Melanistic as they are. It doesn't matter if they're not realistic in terms of color. Especially when applied to things like 4'11" dragons with perpetual flames on their tails. =P

Oooh, that's actually a really good shout!

I was thinking maybe something along the lines of 'Opalescent' or 'Pearlescent' as said before for Albinos. Maybe for Melans it could be Etherial or just transcendent? Just a thought.

I just wanted to go in to a fun mythology lesson to talk about why Stygian was proposed and not shot down for associations with evil. I've historically had a lot of time to research and read various stories as a hobby because I find Greek, Norse, and Egyptian myths to be kind of interesting... among others. So, it does relate to the River Styx from Greek mythology. However, it is a very common western idea where this correlates to the idea of "evil," where this is not the case in the myths themselves. The River Styx is not evil; it is simply a place of "crossing," be that in a spiritual sense or a more literal by boat sense. A coin is paid to Charon if you wish to be ferried across the River Styx to the underworld. Charon was placed here simply with a job to do... bring people across. Many gods also swore their most binding oaths to this river, because Zeus proclaimed that this was to be done as thanks to the Goddess Styx for siding with him previously against the Titans. The River Styx itself was also said to grant invulnerability, a very desirable trait in a culture of warriors who craved glory. When Achilles was dunked in the river by his mother, she held him by his heel. This is why his heel is his only weakness -- it is the only part of him that did not touch the waters. In modern use, the word stygian indicates that something is very dark or gloomy, which can be a nod to the reduction in saturation that Melanistic Pokemon receive. The underworld, Hades, is made up of several divisions. Tartarus is where the souls of the wicked are imprisoned and given divine punishment. The King Sisyphus was imprisoned in Tartarus and left to roll a boulder up a mountain slope for all time, with it rolling back to the bottom each time he reached anywhere near the top. It is Tartarus specifically that carries the connotations of evil that should be avoided for Melanistic Pokemon. People who were not wicked but also accomplished nothing of note drank from the River Lethe, losing their identity, and then proceeded to the Asphodel Meadows. These meadows are described as being a place of either untouched natural beauty or utter neutrality depending on which stories you're looking at. At times, there were negative connotations associated with the Asphodel Meadows because there was no glory in spending your afterlife here, but this can largely be attributed to the fact that Greek society was quite militaristic and would discourage people from being nonparticipatory. In the Aeneid, there was also a place in the afterlife for people who wasted their lives on unrequited love -- that was the Mourning Fields. I don't know much about this one, admittedly. My reading on this particular topic is limited to the multiple takes on what happened with Queen Dido, though now I know what I might choose to read about later. Then, finally, there was Elysium. This was a place of glory for gods, demigods, and heroes for the most part, though the philosopher Socrates gained entry on his merits as a scholar. The only issue I have on a personal level with naming Albinos after Elysium would be that Elysium implies a status of grandioseness that is equal or greater than that of Melanistic Pokemon, especially if the name for melans becomes Stygians. There would need to be a tier below that for Albino Pokemon, so naming them thematically is a nice idea but does not fit all of the criteria. If anything, Lethian / Lemosyne does a fantastic job, in my opinion, of creating that thematicism and maintaining the idea of tiered rarity. Sorry for the long post. This is a topic of personal interest so I wanted to share a little bit of my insight on the whole thing. ^^

I second this viewpoint. I'll still end up calling them Melanistics/Melans/Mlems and Albinos/Albies because it's what I'm used to. I can only await the inevitable confusion of new players as the older players call them 'melans' and the newer players go 'whats that?'. Plus, changing the official name doesn't mean people won't stop using the old names. Incidentally, as I stated in the sprite re-vamp thread itself - Pokemon is rarely realistic. Shiny Pokemon don't reflect light, Mega Pokemon aren't always larger, etc. Also, I agree that Stygian has too many negative corrolations to be a good term - even if it IS a good word. Since it originates from the river styx, it's often accossiated with death and/or the realms of death. Now if they were all ghost types, Stygian would be great - but for Melans? That seems a little inaccurate. It'd be like calling all albinos 'Angellic' - it would imply things that simply aren't true.

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EDIT, since Cele posted while I was typing! Wow that's really interesting! ;o; I had no idea that the 'evil' association was a Westernization. Still, I feel that it'd just end up with a lot of 'ooo look at the death themed pokemon'. That's just my 10 cents though - and I have been playing too much Warcraft:Shadowlands so the Stygian = Death theme is very much on my mind atm since it's used there xD;;; End of Edit

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An idea, perhaps, would be that instead of renaming the colours - perhaps take the text at the top of the albino page where it explains what they are - and make it a big page on it's own of what they (and melans) are on PFQ/New. Then if anyone complains, people can just link them to that page.