While Goku is an overall good person, Akira Toriyama designed him as one who fights mostly for personal joy of challenging strong opponents. Goku's family, like most Saiyans, are all named after root vegetables (burdock, leek, radish, and carrot) or even the word 'vegetable' itself. Goku's Saiyan birth name, Kakarot, is a pun on 'carrot'. Slump manga, advertising Dragon Balls upcoming debut. Goku's first appearance was on the last page of 'Grand Finale', the last chapter of the Dr. Goku was revealed a month before the Dragon Ball manga started, in postcards sent to members of the Akira Toriyama Preservation Society. Reading 'Sun Wukong' via the first and final characters only through the Japanese kun'yomi rendering system makes it read out as 'Mago Gosora', used at some point as a gag in the original manga's run by the World Tournament Announcer. 'Sun/Son' is a common Chinese surname that normally means 'grandchild', while 'Wukong/Goku' is a common Buddhist name that means 'perceiving air/awakened to emptiness'. The name 'Son Goku' is simply the Japanese on'yomi rendering of Sun Wukong, as Chinese and Japanese share the same characters but with different pronunciations.

Goku's full name is also based on Sun Wukong. Toriyama's third draft became the final design. During Toriyama's second draft, Goku was instead a full human dressed in sailor clothes that rode a flight mecha instead of the Flying Nimbus.

When Toriyama started his first draft of Dragon Ball, he originally planned on making Goku full monkey to make the series more faithful to Journey to the West. Similarities between the two include their mischievous nature and possession of the Power Pole and Flying Nimbus (which, in Japanese, have the same name as the source material). The Dragon Ball universe began as a loose adaptation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, with Goku himself as an alternate take on Sun Wukong. The original inspirations for that story were Hong Kong martial arts films, including Bruce Lee films such as Enter the Dragon (1973) and Jackie Chan films such as Drunken Master (1978) Toriyama later said he had a young Jackie Chan in mind for a live-action Goku, stating that 'nobody could play Goku but him.' The original incarnation of Goku in the Dragon Ball prototype Dragon Boy was Tangtong.

6.5 The Return of Son Goku and Friends!.

5.13 Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan.

5.3 Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle.

Goku dragon ball