Charmander was designed as a fire Pokémon for the first generation of "Pocket Monsters" games "Red" and "Green" (which were localized outside Japan as "Pokémon Red" and "Blue") by Atsuko Nishida, who based its design on Charizard in such a way that it was difficult to tell it would have evolved into the latter Pokémon. Originally called "Hitokage" in Japanese, Nintendo decided to give the various Pokémon species "clever and descriptive names" related to their appearance or features when translating the game for western audiences as a means to make the characters more relatable to American children. As a result, the species was renamed "Charmander", a portmanteau of "char", meaning burnt, and "salamander".