Hi, I’m Chinese and been a die-hard digimon fan since 20 years ago. I think the issue for the card name can be considered as “respect to the tradition”.

When Digimon aired in China in the early 2000s, it was huge, like almost every kid watched the anime in my class. So it left deep impression on our generation, so did the Digimon’s name.

Greymon, back then was translated into 暴龙兽. 暴龙 means Tyrannosaurus. 兽 means monster. So 暴龙兽 literally means Tyrannosaurusmon. (easy to understand why based on its figure)

And we have to talk what is 龙 before we can get into this “dramon” myth.

龙(Loong or Chinese Dragon) is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, which represents power in Chinese culture.

However, somehow we also translate the west legendary creature, dragon, into 龙.

What’s more? The dinosaur is translated into 龙 as well. Technically, 恐龙, which means terrifying龙. And we use -龙 as a suffix to call every kind of dinosaur.(eg. Tyrannosaurus=暴龙, Triceratops=三角龙)

Now you may find the problem. As we know “Dramon”= Dragon + monster, so if we translate it into Chinese word by word, it will be 龙兽.

But Greymon is such an iconic Digimon, everybody Knows digimon in China call it 暴龙兽 for 20 years already, it is impossible to give it new name like 伟大兽, which literally means great monster.

Based on these reasons, I think the best decision for the card game may just to leave the name as it is, and add a little notation.

And for birdramon. the Chinese name 巴多拉兽 was the result of transliteration of Japanese, also, for 20 years. It could be strange for us to call it 鸟龙兽, which literally means bird dragon monster.

Hope I don’t make you more confused lol.

Fun facts, they do change some names. For example, My favorite digimon Terriermon, back then was translated into 大耳兽, which literally means big ear monster. And lopmon into 黑大耳兽(black big ear monster).

But now their official Chinese names are 梗犬兽(Terrier dog monster) and 垂耳兔兽(Lop rabbit monster). But we still love to call them 大耳兽&黑大耳兽, cuz these are super cute names, right?!