This actually does make sense with the traditional difficulty of the L sounds for Japanese speakers due to the way L and R are kind of merged into one sound in

This actually does make sense with the traditional difficulty of the L sounds for Japanese speakers due to the way L and R are kind of merged into one sound in Japanese. My father went to Japan a lot in the 80s and always remarked at how the L in our last name got pronounced as an R in Japan making the name sound totally different. Exciting Bowling would easily get pronounced as Exciting Boring and then someone could have had a laugh and come up with the name.