Puck Man was the original Japanese title of Namco’s 1980 arcade game later released internationally as Pac-Man.
Namco designer Toru Iwatani created the game around a yellow, maze-clearing character who eats pellets, avoids ghosts, and can temporarily turn the tables by eating Power Pellets. The Japanese cabinet and promotional materials used the name Puck Man.
For international distribution, Namco and its partners changed the title to Pac-Man. The alteration helped prevent vandals from changing the letter “P” on an arcade cabinet into an offensive word, a commonly repeated reason for the renaming.
Pac-Man became one of the most recognizable video-game characters ever created. Its four ghosts—Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde—have distinct movement behaviors, making the game more strategic than a simple maze chase.