^This. Not to mention the copious real life examples of emperor/rulers that had their regional name for "king" or some other minor extra note as a moniker that otherwise would have left them with one ordinary name. Shao may or may not be his real name anyway. Genghis Khan's birth name was "Temujin" but he changed it when he founded the Mongolian EMPIRE and became the GREAT KHAN (aka Emperor). His successors also took Khan as their name until the fall of the empire. Look it up on Wikipedia or something. Kotal Kahn taking the title as his name but still being referred to by OUTSIDERS like Earthrealm as the "Emperor" of Outtworld isn't idiotic its simply redundant on our part, lol. Like when someone refers to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. Caesar means Emperor. It isn't necessary to call him Emperor Julius Caesar any more than it is now revealed to us to be redundant to say Emperor Shao Kahn. I always kinda figured it was either a title or just a nod to Genghis to express Shao Kahn's brutal iron fist style of tyrannic rule (just made multiple redundancies there too, lol). Turns out it is most likely both and I'm cool with that and excited to see if Kotal Kahn can live up to his predecessor. He's got one big cow skull to fill. Mwa ha ha.