Ah - well, Dragonball is a bit of an exception - the writer is just a funny guy (who likes puns). Dr. Slump, his previous title, had a lot of funny names, too - like Mr. Scope (who looks exactly like Mr. Spock).
I have seen other stupid mistakes in other manga, though - such as "Chinese names" for characters that are just wrong (the pronunciations given are wrong). If the author had just looked it up...
