by Celedam » Thu May 19, 2016 10:16 pm
That might be overthinking it, because the pun does not translate well. The individual balls have Chinese names, and Dragon Ball itself is not actually called "Dragon Ball" in China. It's called 七龍珠 (Qi Long Zhu).
It could be that the legend of the Monkey King, on which Dragon Ball is based, is the only bit of Chinese mythology or folklore that many Japanese people know. So when it came time to produce goods for those appearances, the designers said, "Hey, Dragon Ball! That's Chinese, right?" That sort of thing happens all the time in other countries and cultures (see the ongoing debate over so-called "cultural appropriation"), and I don't see why it couldn't happen in Japan as well.