I didn’t say “the fans spell Tirek any of four different ways”. All four are printed in official material. “Tearak”, for instance, is printed on the Firefly’s Adventure special release of Rescue at Midnight Castle. If “Tirac” is oh-so-official, why would the re-release alter it, when “Tirac” was already present? It’s almost like they never made up their minds or something.

It’s cute you think canon works on a seniority system, but if anything, canon is latest-first; that’s why it’s called retroactive canon (retcon.) Therefore, “Tirek” is the correct spelling because that is the official interpretation of G1 which founded the G4 character and current trademark.

If you honestly think “G1 wasn’t inconsistent”, right after I pointed out three different spellings of (K)night( )shade’s name across the same product, you have a serious issue. I don’t think there is a single non-human character whose name was printed consistently. Characters with two-word names - like Knightshade! - were prone to sometimes having spaces and sometimes not, even “Apple Jack”. There is also a UK music disc (fan-dubbed “Seven Songs and a Story”) that spells a song’s name the one way, but then spells it slightly differently in the title of its reprise, on the same packaging.

That is because Hasbro did not give a damn. Hasbro was very slow to codify any of the TV content or expanded merchandise as they did not expect it to take off or stick around. Tirac / Tearak / Tirek / Tirrek is merely one of the most visible casualties of this negligence.