Well first of all Goku�s name comes from the monkey king (as I said on my What is DBZ page). While Gohan means rice or food, since rice is a main staple of Japanese life. Chi-chi supposedly means mother�s milk or a kids word for chest ^.^; now Bulma I think is pretty obvious it stands for bloomers, hence her son Trunks, daughter Bra and her father Professor Briefs.
O.k. now the saiyans are generally named after vegetables, hence Vegeta means Vegetable which makes him the prince of the vegetables from planet Vegetable. Goku�s saiyan brother is Raditz which is Radish. Ummm�. Kakarotto (Goku�s saiyan name) I think means carrot (it�s sometimes hard to figure some of the puns out, thanks to the language barrier and Mr. Toriyama�s penchant for changing words around a little. Like Mr. Satan�s daughter Videl, a transposition of Devil).
Freezer, Cooler and King Cold are very obvious. Freezer�s goons are all named after dairy products, like Butter and Ginyu (probably from the Japanese word for milk). There�s one Dragonball Z film, Galaxy Flex!, where the villains are named after liqueurs, hence Bo Jack and Sangria.
The Namek�s seem to be named after pickles, hence Piccolo (Pickle-O : King Pickle) and Dende and they do look a little ummm� pickled ^.^;
Tea connoisseurs out there may not bat an eyelid at Oolong, that shape-shifting pig. Yes, there is an Oolong tea � don�t ask me to spell it out for you�
Nikki, one of garlic Jnr�s goons, is another Japanese name for garlic. Android number 8�s creator was Dr. Frappe, a French pastry.
Some of the name games have been pure speculation � so please take them with a pinch of salt.
The only one who knows what�s what is Dragonball�s creator, Akira Toriyama, whose own name Tori (Bird) and Yama (Mountain) gives real meaning to his working company, Bird Studio.