Krillin is a chestnut monk iirc. Kuririn クリリン is his actual name.
Like most characters in the series, the name Krillin is a pun. In his case, its Japanese source, Kuririn, is made up of two parts. The first two syllables come from 栗 (kuri), which means “chestnut” in reference to his shaved head (the “chestnut” pun is also carried over to his daughter Marron). The second part of his name comes from 少林 (Shōrin; “Shaolin” in Chinese), as his early character designs were closely modeled on.
Shaolin monks. Other beliefs are that his name comes from kuri-kuri/kurin-kurin (an onomatopoeia for something cute and round), kuri-kuri shita me (meaning “big round eyes”), or the words kurikuri (which can mean “bald”) and rin (a word added to the end of a name to make it sound cute). His English name, meanwhile, seems to be a play on “krill” (both a minuscule species of shrimp-like crustacean and the Swedish term for a small fry of fish) in reference to his diminutive stature.
From: https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Krillin/Misc
Which makes me wonder if that isn’t his real name, and maybe a nickname given to him by other characters in the show, like from before he first meets Goku in Dragonball. Because other characters have the food or underwear themes of names, yet Krillin’s name is fully just making fun of how he looks.
Because then at least the universe still exists in your imagination without being a shitty retcon cop out.
Edit: I also want to clarify, I’m not against change or drugs or bodymods, by any means, and I do think the drug idea is actually really cool. BUT - using it as a means to bs your way AS AN AUTHOR out of having any animal people anymore feels really messed up. And also Lazy. It would be one thing if it were a fan theory, which I still feel like it might be, but that it’s canon is like … It just feels so fricking cheap and like “there never were any animal people because it was all just bodymods” like bro fuck you yeah there were, we all saw the animal people and the world was more colorful and wonderous for it.
If they want to save it, maybe have both: have the majority of people be animal people, they’ve just gone into hiding, but then there is also a technology in the world that’s capable of turning people into animal people and animal people into human people. Like the reason we haven’t been seeing animal people is because they’ve been transformed/hiding/playing as humans.
Don’t take away animal-people authenticity! They exist!