When the film was released, the title proved quite controversial in the United Kingdom, where the word shag is used to refer to sexual intercourse.
In the UK, two sets of TV adverts for the film existed, pre- and post-watershed. The former was designed to air during daytime hours and only gave part of the title, (Austin Powers: The Spy Who—), before cutting off with one of a range of slightly suggestive scenes from the film, such as Austin squeezing out the contents of a massage oil bottle. The post watershed adverts, aired later in the evening, gave the full title. There were also two variations of the movie posters; one of them asterisked out the middle of the offending word or had named the film as Austin Powers 2.
Singapore briefly forced a title change to The Spy Who Shioked Me (shioked means “treated nicely”). In Finland the film was called Agentti joka tuuppasi minua (The spy who bumped me), in China The Spy Who Liked Me a Lot. The Italian version was titled La spia che ci provava, which can be roughly translated as The spy who tried to seduce, but in a slightly ruder way.
Not all countries translated the title into something less raunchy. The Norwegian title of the movie is Spionen som spermet meg, which is a slightly dirtier way of saying “The Spy Who Ejaculated on Me”.