Not sure what they meant when giving it the name but "chu" literally means "kiss" or the sound of a kiss.

The cuteness can be in the eyes of on-looker too. 83

shiny sneezes? XD
I have succeeded in one of my life goals; saying "pika" before sneezing so it comes out "pika...CHUU!"

Shiny kisses as in his zapping Ash? XD

Raichu would mean "Thunder kiss", literally. xD

Well, are they really named that in Japanese or it just English-ed versions of names?

They change the name of some monsters or actually most of them in the English translation but Pikachu was one of those they didn't change.

Hmmm, I see. Interesting.

I wonder if Japanese kids felt weird saying "Pikachu" or they never really thought of what the word is made of, like we often don't in our own languages.

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net has a page on every pokemon, and their english names and Japanese names. it gives name orgins, too.
"Pikachu is a combination of ピカピカ pikapika which is Japanese onomatopoeia for sparkle and チューチュー chūchū which is the sound of squeaking. It may be named after the pika, a lagomorph, but this is less likely. "Pika" also means "quick" in Finnish."

It's just a name. xD I don't think they think it's that weird. Pokémon names are written with katakana which is their alphabet for writing foreign names and borrowed words like ice cream and curry.

Well basically what Lucid said but it's still just a name. Human Japanese names can mean a lot of stuff too so it's normal for them...

*rolls through the thread as she gets ready for work*

I see. I have just always been curious how many of us thinks about of what some words are made of. Many are, and we just don't realize it before it just hits us or someone points it out. x3

For my name I use the kanji 川 and 夜. You can say it literally means river night. x_X lol

That's beautiful. o: